DIY- Battery Backup Hubitat- under TEN bucks-NO soldering

Who did you get this from? It's always a lottery to find suppliers of genuine batteries.

From here:

They are white box units but Im fairly certain they are legit (the text on the box isnt Chinglish for starters).

Thanks - it's unprotected though, I'd prefer a bit more peace of mind with protected cells.

True, that's what decent charging / mgmt circuits are there for.

Agreed, I'd just like to be that bit more conservative. That said , I've been using unprotected 2000mAh batteries ripped out of an Aldi power tool battery (when on sale) for torches.

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I probably couldn't justify the shipping cost even if they did! :laughing:

Protected cells might not fit, and if they did you'd need a vise-grips to remove the battery

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Ah ok thanks for the info. I'll use what I have on hand then.

My 18650 shields turned up and just finished building up the first of a few battery backed ikea repeaters with improved range using an external antenna. So far it's been up for over 3 hours on battery power (2000mah cell).

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Nice. I'd be very curious if the antenna helps with RSSI and even LQI. Would you mind comparing supercharged vs. regular?

Mine arrived today too! I haven't done anything with it yet tho.

I also got my Yum-Cha USB UPS too - I immediately applied classic Dave Jones "dont turn it on, tear it apart!" to it.

I was hoping it used a pair of 18650's that I could easily swap, but it's using a blasted pouch cell! And in no surprise to anyone, the 6500mAh spec is BS, it's a 2900mAh pack! The chip is unmarked too so I have no idea if it could support charging a pair of 18650's in parralel (I might try this anyway).

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I did the tests on another repeater a while ago. It's not a huge improvement IRC, LQI went up by about 10-15 but still a worthwhile gain. I can reach the end of my driveway reliably now whereas previously it was a bit iffy.

The on/off switch doesn't seem to turn off the 5v output terminals so not sure exactly what it does though.

Using 18650's directly in parallel is not a good idea, if one fails it will start sucking power from the other one.

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Good point, I might put just 1 in. I need to look at the board in more detail as my cells don’t have built in protection.

I don’t think the pouch cell does either so I’m hoping the circuitry has some on it.

Unlikely, but it's easy to tell if there's a small circuit board where the terminal cables are. Dual parallel packs will have them.

Hard to tell:

The board doesnt really inspire confidence, I might drop the 18650 board into the case instead. :smiley:

Looks like a direct connection to the pack, does the UPS actually charge and supply current at the same time?

If you get a fresh genuine panasonic 18650, they often test over 3400mAh for 1 cell.
and they are very safe, even without protection. I tried and bought a dual cell version of the wemos battery holder, figuring I would double my capacity, but when the input current is cut off, like in a power outage, the board's output blips off for a split second, and I'm worried that would trash the hub, and with all the trouble I've had lately, I can't deal with much more

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Yes it does. Just looking at the layout and probing it with my DMM, it it supplies + direct to the chip on pin1, it then passes the + out via pin8 and - in/out by pin7. The battery powers pin5 by a via in the pad.

So yes it does charge and output power at the same time.

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I just did some quick and dirty power stability testing and yeah this thing drops power for long enough to cause an LED to blink. So definitely not recommended for HE's.

The single 18650 board appears to maintain power even in the fraction of a second after source power is removed.

I might hook them up to the Scope and and see if I can measure it.

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If you are talking about the photo with the 18650 showing the On/Off only controls the USB output not the side wire holes. At least mine does.