I was wondering if there are any suitabled sized lfp batteries? the price of lithium has dropped so why hasn’t out batteries reduced as well.
Interesting thought. I don’t have the expertise to definitively say no, but I suspect you’d end up with some severe limitations. LFP batteries have completely different charging needs and voltage ranges. The operating voltage might mean your proffie always thinks you have a low battery without heavy OS changes. My understanding is that they also wouldn’t have a high enough current to handle your typical proffie setup. The 18650 LiFePO4 options I found have a max discharge of 1.6A which is well under spec for our needs.
I’d also be concerned about potential of the Proffie V3.9 onboard charger attempting to charge it if you had a battery in while flashing your board.
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But apparently a lot of chargers support both LiFePO4 and Li-Ion, regardless.
This is probably the bigger issue. Not for the board, but for the LEDs.
“Heavy” is probably too strong. For the most part the board doesn’t care, and where it does seems to mostly live here. Modifying ProffieOS for its monitoring would likely be relatively trivial.
Right. Even when they’re fully charged (high enough voltage) and could power LEDs. Keep power has one that’s advertised 6A continuous. Still lower capacity than Li-Ion, and not enough.
Flashing the board has nothing to do with the charger and battery. Despite the mass confusion, there’s no potential for harm…
Unless you just mean when the board is plugged into USB, and are referring to:
This would be the real problem, since it’s only a Li-Ion charger.
Ultimately the real issue is the chemistry voltage range would make things more complicated, and the batteries available don’t seem to have the high discharge required.
It sounds like @ryryog25 and I landed in the same place: the voltage range, the discharge current, and the Li-Ion-only onboard charger all stack against it. It’s doable in theory but comes with a new set of challenges.
My concern with flashing over USB is that you can’t disable the charger (on v3.9), and an LFP doesn’t play nice with anything over its 3.65V max. If anyone felt more comfortable than I do trying it anyway, a V2.2 would be the board for it, since it doesn’t charge over USB when you plug it in to flash.
those are fair considerations, and 18650 has the right voltage, amperage and ohms to power the electronics, I would love to see whether sodium batteries could ever do it but that is to be waited for, and semi-solid state batteries and ss batteries seem to be developed, can’t wait to see what else happens in the battery industry.
I’m hoping that lithium-ion capactors will increase in energy storage enough to out-compete lithium-ion batteries. The technology is similar, but there is no liquid electrolyte, making the capacitors much safer than the batteries.
Plus, the capacitors have much longer life span, they don’t wear out after a few years like the batteries do.
Yes, that is something to look forward to!
and charging them are super quick with the capacitors that would be amazing and saves space with the battery compartment as well. or would it be the same size?
Currently Li-ion capacitors are about twice as big as a li-ion batteries, for the same charge. That is exactly the thing that I hope will change.
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The are high current LFP cells:
But you need to be careful, none of these cells are protected. If you charge them wrong, they may catch on fire or vent toxic gas.
Designing a circuit to protect the cell would not be hard to do, but the lower voltage makes it harder to drive blue and green LEDs!
whats the battery density on those and are they in 18650 cell format?