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sqfmi / badgy

Home of Badgy - IoT Badge
http://badgy.sqfmi.com
MIT License
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Is the Badgy supposed to charge the battery? #14

Closed vidax closed 5 years ago

vidax commented 6 years ago

I have the LIR2450 loaded in the badgy, and when I plug the USB, I see a red light in the back. I am wondering if the badgy is able to charge the battery because when I remove the USB after a few hours, the badgy does not seem to work on battery.

sqfmi commented 6 years ago

Hi @vidax,

The USB should recharge the LIR2450 battery. Please ensure you have the battery inserted in the correct polarity, and the battery has been sufficiently charged (3.7V - 4.2V).

chunkysteveo commented 6 years ago

I would also like to know how the board charges the battery? I have been able to get a Badgy to test with from another member here, but charging it via USB with a 2450 in it does not appear to do anything? I.E. LED next to charge controller does not light up, or flash, or anything. Board powers up fine with the battery, and on a multimeter it is showing 4V remaining. But plugging in USB, switch on or off, no LED light status. (Board also powers fine over USB).

chunkysteveo commented 6 years ago

Ahh crap....! ...and with that I released some magic smoke from the MCP73831 charge IC! 👎 Was probing around from the USB V+ and touched the VDD of the chip and it went "pooof" (was plugged in to USB at the time). I have some spare MCP73831 circuits, I may try to de-solder and re-apply one.

While poking about looking at the schematic and the PCB layout - I did notice that the LED D4 which is the charge state LED has a current limiting resistor of 2K Ohm. Should this not be more in line with common LED resistors, and the spec sheet, around 200-470Ohm? Or is this high to work with the High-Impedance state of the STAT line as well as Hi and Low?

sqfmi commented 6 years ago

Sorry to hear that @chunkysteveo :( Yes you can replace it with an off the shelf MCP73831; we chose 2K Ohm simply because we found the LED to be too bright!

chunkysteveo commented 6 years ago

Ahh OK, makes sense for the LED. I will try a new MCP73831 to fix this one, and test with a number of LIR2450's I have. Hopefully was just the IC that was dead (well it is now!!! :) )