18650 (4.2V) Battery Shield (Version 3)

18560 Battery Shield giving USB Power 3 and 5 Volts Pins

This shiled is a verson 3

A battery holder for a 18650 battery that gives you:-

1. 5V USB outlet Type A
2. 1 switch to control the USB output
3. 5 to 8 volts input voltage via micro USB (i used a standard phone charger)
4. 3No 5v and ground pins 2A
5. 3No. 3v and ground pins 1A
6. 1No mini USB power input
7. Charge LED Red
8. Charge complete Red LED goes out (specification said it should go green)
9. Battery protection (over charge and over discharge) 
10. size of the board 9.8 x 2.9cm or 3.86 x 1.14 inch
11. The battery holder is clearly marked with + and –
12. NOT sure about polarity protection as the website tells you.  Be careful of “+” and “-“, You should follow the direction of “+” / “-” on the PCB.

A nice battery shield for a small project that i am working on.

Giving you an easy way to get USB power on the move if required and both 3 and 5V from pins along the side of the board.

The only thing i did not like was that the components on the rear of the shield are subject to damage.

My New Base Plate

I could have 3D printed something but felt a stiff Fr4 board would be better.

I only had 10mm nylon stand offs, so they will have to do for now, 5mm would have been plenty.  I did include some cut outs the allow for finger space when using the USB switch and plugging in the Micro Power in plug

While not really necessary I took the opportunity to add some branding on the rear of the new plate, just engraved some text using the same 1.5mm burr bit that i justed to cut out the Fr4 shape.

Quality of the shield

I am not expert but the soldering like nice and all components are well secured.  I have yet to solder on some pind headers to allow the s and 5 volts to be connected to, as i did not want to solder directly.

Even though the USB output female socket sticks out from the board it is very well secured.

Charging

I inserted a new 18650 battery and connected a standard 1 Amp mini USB charger.  A red LED came illuminated on the bottom of the board.  I left it to charge. Once charge the Red LED when out.  The techenical Spec said a green LED should illuminate.

Once the battery was fully charge via the onboard charging circuit, the voltage measured 

Output Voltages

Once the battery was fully charged the output pins gave 3.22 and 5.04 volt respectively.

The switched USB out worked and gave a steady 5.04 volts.

CAD Files

You can download the files here

DXF

STL