Powering the Badge - nolamakerfaire/2016-VIP-Badge GitHub Wiki

To power the 2016 VIP badge, you have 3 basic options:

  • Use the included battery pack
  • Bring your own battery
  • Power through USB

Use the included battery pack

To use the included battery pack, insert the two battery pack leads into the "+" and "-" holes and solder in place. The battery pack should be located on the back side of the badge (the side without any words printed on it). This will provide ~4.5v to the Raw power pins, which will be regulated to 3.3v for the VCC pins. It is not recommended to connect USB while the battery is installed.

Bring your own battery

You can solder any battery, battery header, or battery pack to the "+" and "-" pins from 3.3v - 12v. This voltage will be provided to the Raw power pins, and will be regulated to 3.3v for the VCC pins. Note: There is an undocumented surface mount location on the back side of the badge which can be used to attach this battery connector for use with LiPo batteries: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8612. If you want to use this, it's up to you to know how to surface solder; voltage is provided to the Raw power bus. It is not recommended to connect USB while the battery is installed.

Power through USB

The FTDI programmer appears to only provide about 50mA when using 3.3v. It is possible to use the USB port to power the badge, but some modification is needed if you want more than 3.3v ~50mA or if you want 5v available for components.

To modify, you must follow these steps:

  • Cut the trace that ties the FTDI VCC pin to the Arduino VCC pin

  • Change the USB FTDI Programmer to select 5V. First, cut the trace between the right and middle pads.

Second, use solder to bridge the left and center pads.

  • Connect FTDI VCC to the Raw power bus (this can be done by soldering a wire between the USB FTDI Programmer's VCC pin to the badge's "+" or "raw")

Once modified, the 3.3v pin and the vcc pins (except for on the USB FTDI programmer) will supply 3.3v up to 150mA. The Raw power bus will supply 5v (I'm unsure how much current it will provide, 200mA to be safe. Whatever the USB bus maximum is, really). You can bypass these current limitations by just putting whatever battery or power supply you want directly on the Raw power bus "+" and "-" pins.