Just wanted some feedback on a device we’ve been working on.
The device connects via XT60 to your board’s battery and allows you to charge any device in the 6–100W range (it automatically detects the power the device draws).
It accepts an input of 6–55V (up to 15S) and outputs 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V, or 20V at a maximum of 5A (100W). You can charge a MacBook/laptop via PD or super-fast charge your phone.
It has a display that can be configured to your battery’s type and S count, showing the actual voltage in your battery (as % or V). However, it will not prevent your battery from dropping below the minimum cutoff voltage if you don’t have a BMS.
Another limitation is the charging ports of commercial boards are not “live“, so for this to work with a commercial board, modifications need to be made.
Features:
anti-cable pull system which can also be used to extend the cable length if needed (there’s about extra 10cm of cable inside the device)
pasive cooling tested for up to 100W (components are actually capable of higher output power but are intentionally understressed)
For context, the idea came to me last year during the Spain power outages. It hit me that most of us are sitting on massive battery packs in our eskates, escooters, ebikes, etc., but when the grid goes down, there’s no easy way to tap into that energy to charge a phone, laptop, or anything else useful.
i am building such a device based on TPS25751 and bq25756, i receive pcbs next week but need to assemble and test myself.
it will be a 3-13s bidirectional powerbank with 100w / 20v. i can keep you updated and upload designs after initial test. Unfortunately, bom cost with jlc assembly is at least 30 dollars each for 5.
With the current config, nope, unfortunately. That premise of charging all the boards via Type-C is cool and makes a lot of sense but it’s not the idea behind this device.
oh and i also added an ESP so via wifi you can configure it to be an adjustable power supply, currently specced 3.3-24v, for more we would need the bigger 50v tps chip (pd3.2) - with that, you could theoretically directly charge other batteries or just it as a random power supply.
