Status on Power Shield

Hardware
1

I noticed the new Power Shield listed on the Spark store (with no picture yet) has updated to say “Ships in May”.

  1. Can anyone confirm May is correct?
  2. Size and shape?
  3. Will the included battery mount to the shield?
  4. It mentions solar compatibility but I’d like to know a lot more details on what this means in practice such as does this remove the need for a solar charge controller, what size/wattage panels are compatible, etc.
  5. Any other details?

Eagerly awaiting this new shield!

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@ssstraub,

1.) I’m not sure about this

2.) It should be something like 1.5 times the length of a core/photon and same width

3.) I don’t think the battery will be mounted (probably don’t ship with batteries as well) as the package is really nice and compact!

4.) @mohit should have more to share :smile:

5.) It’s in progress! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks @kennethlimcp for chipin in.

@ssstraub I’m cleaning up the repo to be able to publish the design files soon. There is a JST connector for connecting the battery in addition to a 0.1" 2-pin generic header. I’m testing the design out with a few solar panels. The PMC in use is the BQ24030 which natively does not support solar trickle charging but has a very wide input voltage range allowing to charge from a number of different sources.

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Thanks for this update.

JST sounds good.

I’m hoping there will be a good example walkthrough on this shield combined with a solar panel. :smile:

From what I understand from the docs on the PWC it seems like low voltage cutoff of that chip is 2.8V. Is that correct? Not user adjustable? (Not that it needs to be if that’s safe voltage, just curious)

While I’m waiting… If I connect a single cell LiPo directly to a Core as-is, will the battery discharge below a safe level? I don’t want to stress any LiPos outside of their working voltage range both for damage to the battery and safety issues. [nevermind, I asked this question in a new post here: http://community.spark.io/t/connecting-a-core-directly-to-a-lipo/10008]