PGCPSU DUO Kit

What can I do with the PGCPSU Kit?

The PGCPSU is perfect for all projects you plan to run off of a single rechargeable lithium battery. The KIT comes with our great 2600mAh 18650 battery so you’re ready to go. Just plug the battery into the PGCPSU and attach all your circuits!

With the PGCPSU we focused primarily on small size and good quiescent current figures, which in turn means it’s not really adequate for high power applications. You won’t – for example – be able to power a full-size Raspberry PI with the PGCPSU as it cannot supply enough current. A Raspberry PI Zero works on the other hand (we managed to run one for 17h on this very same battery!).

All lower-power applications like Arduinos, BBC Micro:Bits (and many many other) will run just fine. You can actually manage to get really long run-times with such systems provided you take appropriate measures to reduce current draw (things like using sleep modes, bypassing cheap linear regulators, disabling useless power-on LEDs just to name a few)

About the included battery

It’s a carefully selected 18650 battery with true 2600mAh made by a reputable Chinese cell manufacturer and we’re using it in another product of ours. It can safely handle the nearly 2A charge current of the PGCPSU!

The cell has its own protection circuit, so even if you end up using it without our tiny PGCPSU, it has your back covered 😉

Here’s whats in the package:

• 1x PGCPSU DUO
• 1x protected 2600mAh cell with a JST2.0 PH connector

Features

• no surprise: PGCPSU is fully specified
• 5V output rail providing at least (*) 350mA
• 3.3V rail providing at least (*) 400mA
• low quiescent current (35 – 90uA for the 5V rail + 40 – 75uA for the 3.3V rail)
• enable/disable pin for the 3.3V rail with selectable default state solder jumper
• micro USB input or pin header for charging (4.7V to 6V max.)
• high efficiency even at low load (important for great battery life!)
• small / tiny with only 25x20mm
• good line and load regulation
• JST PH 2 pin connector or solder terminals for the battery
• User adjustable charging rate (by cutting traces, see the datasheet below)
  • quick charging at ~1866mA (fully charges our 2600mAh cell in just over 2h!)
  • ~1400mA
  • ~466mA
• integrated battery protection (including reverse polarity protection)
• good fault tolerance and recovery behavior (over-discharge, short circuit/over-current etc…)

(*) you can draw the indicated current over the full range of the battery charge while still getting a clean output voltage, so we’re not talking about the usual best case “up to” rating (which would be up to 650mA on 5V and up to 800mA on 3.3V for our board). Due to the way the PGCPSU is built (have a look at the block diagram right below) you can’t draw the maximum current on both rails simultaneously however.

Note on charging current

Should you plan to use the PGCPSU with other lithium batteries, make sure the cell can take the selected charge current!

As a rule of thumb, most cylindrical lithium cells can be charged at 1C (with C being the nominal capacity of the cell) safely. RC pouch cell often can take higher currents, but YMMV.