Portable power solution
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Hello there Retropie Community!
I'm in a project of building myself a portable retropie with screen and all...
I'm still wandering around about powering the thing... I want it to be fully portable and would like to avoid alkaline replaceable batteries.
I know supplying a stable amp to the pi is the key to success... so I don't want to take this matter lightly.
I have a raspberry pi 3, with a custom joystick (Teensy-LC). display is a 5" adafruit hdmi display. Most of the rom for RetroPi are on the SDCard but ISOs and video for Kodi are on a Sandisk 32Gb USB Dongle The display is powered by USB port of the raspberry PI.
I'm also working on a small audio board to get the sound out to two 0.1 watt speaker but I still don't know how I will power it...So I want to be able to play on the go so obviously, there must be some batteries... I also need to recharge the batteries at some point so
The PowerBoost 1000 would be perfect but it unfortunately output only 1Amp... and I need a solid 2.5 Amp@5V
There is also PiJuice outthere but I can't seem to find how much current it can output. (and it's out of stock :p)
Lastly there is MoPi but again, I can't seem to find oh much current it can output... and it lacks the UPS or I need to find another way to charge the battery....If anyone has already done some research, especially with the high power demand of the new raspberry 3, I'm more than interested... I've only began my research a few month ago and trying to learn electronics at the same time :) In last resort I will build my own battery with charge circuit and all, but I'm still far from being there with my current skill :D
thanks guys!
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For information, I currently use Mi 16000mAh power bank but the problem being it only output 2,1Amp max and when the raspberry pi is highly sollicited, I get the flashing PI icon in the top right corner indicating the Pi is not supplied with enough power...
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@Tomazed I am also looking for this very same thing. Have you come up with a battery pack that can put out 2.5a for the Pi? Also, how are you powering your screen and Pi with the same battery pack?
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I think the PowerBoost1000 is 1000mAh charge rate only. The current draw while is use from the battery can be 2A+ (assuming your battery can handle it) with a 2.5A peak draw limit.
One thing about the powerBoost is that it talks about 1000C, the C rating of a battery or charger is normally a multiplier of the battery capacity in amps i.e. for a 1000mAh battery (1Ah) a 1C rating would be 1amp. Talking about 1000C implies you can somehow get 1000 times the batter capacity in amps, which you can't. To avoid confusion I think this should be removed from the description and just say 1A charge, 2A cont discharge.
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