User Manual

The above shows the Micro USB jack (left), Lipoly JST jack (top left), as well as the 3.3V regulator and changeover

diode (just to the right of the JST jack) and the Lipoly charging circuitry (to the right of the Reset button). There's also a

CHG LED, which will light up while the battery is charging. This LED might also flicker if the battery is not connected.

Power supplies

You have a lot of power supply options here! We bring out the BAT pin, which is tied to the lipoly JST connector, as

well as USB which is the +5V from USB if connected. We also have the 3V pin which has the output from the 3.3V

regulator. We use a 600mA peak AP2112K-33. While you can get 600mA from it, you can't do it continuously from 5V

as it will overheat the regulator. It's fine for, say, powering the attached WiFi chip or XBee radio though, since the

current draw is 'spiky' & sporadic.

Measuring Battery

If you're running off of a battery, chances are you wanna know what the voltage is at! That way you can tell when the

battery needs recharging. Lipoly batteries are 'maxed out' at 4.2V and stick around 3.7V for much of the battery life,

then slowly sink down to 3.2V or so before the protection circuitry cuts it off. By measuring the voltage you can quickly

tell when you're heading below 3.7V

To make this easy we stuck a double-100K resistor divider on the BAT pin, and connected it to D9 (a.k.a analog #7 A7).

The charge LED is automatically driven by the Lipoly charger circuit. It will try to detect a battery and is

expecting one to be attached. If there isn't one it may flicker once in a while when you use power because it's

trying to charge a (non-existant) battery. It's not harmful, and its totally normal!

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