Question battery questions

Joined
Aug 10, 2019
Messages
2
Likes
1
I'm making a portable emulation machine with the pi 4, and im confused about power solutions.
im using this screen with this controller board.

I'm new to this, if you couldnt tell. I realize that it would be difficult to power both with one battery, so i dont mind using more than one. I was going to use a lipo and the adafruit powerboost 1000 to power the pi, but am rethinking this due to lipo safety concerns. it is also worth noting that i intend to use a shim safe shutdown switch to power the pi through gpio. It seems like li ion might be the best option to power the screen, and if that seems to be cost effective enough, i see no reason not to also use this for the pi. I dont really know how i would go about setting up li lion batteries, or where to get them for the best price, or even everything i would need really, so advice is appreciated. space is not really a concern, as while i do intend my build to be portable, the case i have is very large.

if any additional details are needed, i have basically every other detail ready, so this can be planned precisely.

i considered posting this in the raspberry pi topic, but the actual area of question has more to do with batteries and power than the pi itself, i think.

thanks
 
Joined
May 4, 2019
Messages
32
Likes
32
Location
Rocket City, Alabama
Portables
1
Take a look at this resource on the forum:
Portables and Batteries: A Guide and Explanation

I have previously built a RasPi portable and there is quite a bit to consider when planning layout and component placement, but you are on the right track with working out the power source first. That was the biggest PITA of the entire device because of the myriad ways to provide power and the numerous size/form factors of the various batteries. The link above will give you more info than I can provide, but my analysis of the info you provided is below. Feel free to ignore everything I said in favor of what is in the battery guide above if anything contradicts.

TL;DR: You're gonna need a bigger battery

That is a massive screen/driver setup with matching massive power requirements. The adafruit powerboost you mentioned will barely manage to provide enough current to power screen by itself (powerboost 1000 will only provide 1A). The screen is using the older fluorescent backlight technology rather than the newer LED backlight tech. (Datasheet for screen) The screen says it will only use 878 mA under normal conditions, but has an inrush current of 3A (this does not necessarily factor into power calculations because the driver board is providing this power).

The input power requirement for the control board is 12V at 4A according to the Ebay listing. If you plan to use a Lipo battery meant for a drone or RC car then you would be ok (still need to donvert voltage for the Pi), but your battery life will be relatively short for a portable.

The Pi 4 uses even more power than the earlier Pi boards coming in at 3A or as low as 2.5A if no USB peripherals are used (Source). Since you are building a portable, it is safe to assume you will be using at least one of the USB ports on the Pi so 3A.

The driver board and Pi together will draw approx. 7A of power. Using this figure with a 6000mAh battery you are looking at about a 36-45 minute runtime depending on how you convert the 12V for the screen down to the 5V for the Pi.

Edit:
This site seems to have the best prices I have found for cylindrical lithium cells if you are located in the US. They say the verify the cells they sell, and I can confirm that the ones I have purchased from them have accurate information on the site.
https://liionwholesale.com/
 

Stitches

2 and a Half Dollarydoos
Staff member
.
.
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Messages
3,776
Likes
2,982
Location
Banana Bender Land, Australia
Portables
6
Take a look at this resource on the forum:
Portables and Batteries: A Guide and Explanation

I have previously built a RasPi portable and there is quite a bit to consider when planning layout and component placement, but you are on the right track with working out the power source first. That was the biggest PITA of the entire device because of the myriad ways to provide power and the numerous size/form factors of the various batteries. The link above will give you more info than I can provide, but my analysis of the info you provided is below. Feel free to ignore everything I said in favor of what is in the battery guide above if anything contradicts.

TL;DR: You're gonna need a bigger battery

That is a massive screen/driver setup with matching massive power requirements. The adafruit powerboost you mentioned will barely manage to provide enough current to power screen by itself (powerboost 1000 will only provide 1A). The screen is using the older fluorescent backlight technology rather than the newer LED backlight tech. (Datasheet for screen) The screen says it will only use 878 mA under normal conditions, but has an inrush current of 3A (this does not necessarily factor into power calculations because the driver board is providing this power).

The input power requirement for the control board is 12V at 4A according to the Ebay listing. If you plan to use a Lipo battery meant for a drone or RC car then you would be ok (still need to donvert voltage for the Pi), but your battery life will be relatively short for a portable.

The Pi 4 uses even more power than the earlier Pi boards coming in at 3A or as low as 2.5A if no USB peripherals are used (Source). Since you are building a portable, it is safe to assume you will be using at least one of the USB ports on the Pi so 3A.

The driver board and Pi together will draw approx. 7A of power. Using this figure with a 6000mAh battery you are looking at about a 36-45 minute runtime depending on how you convert the 12V for the screen down to the 5V for the Pi.

Edit:
This site seems to have the best prices I have found for cylindrical lithium cells if you are located in the US. They say the verify the cells they sell, and I can confirm that the ones I have purchased from them have accurate information on the site.
https://liionwholesale.com/
You're mostly correct, but the screen won't use 4A. That number is an ass covering strategy to stop people using just any 12v power source and complaining that the 500mAh supply for their baby monitor doesn't run the screen properly. He will definitely need a more powerful setup for those parts than a Powerboost, but 7A is a bit much.
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2019
Messages
22
Likes
4
17" is big boy screens, at that point why not just recycle an old laptop as an emulation station??

a Pi4 isnt going to emulate any console capable of 1080p output, so a screen with higher then 800x480 might be excessive for you.

Either way the control board you linked is 12v 4A draw, meaning you'd be consuming 48Watts-per-hr on the screen alone. Doable but not nice, The Pi4B uses between 2.85 and 3.5W consumption (idle vs recording 1080p video) so we can say you'd need to fuel around
52W for the video and pi

*I've never worked with screens >7" so I cannot confirm/Deny they can run on a dropped 5v supply

using THESE batteries you could produce a power bank of 4 in series to provide 14.4 Volts at 3500mAh, so this would power the screen, but for how long? well the draw is 52W, and a 14.4v3.5Ah pack would drive, for one hour, aprox 40Watts, 0.76hr or around 45min. not great..

upping it to a 4S4P of said battery will help, there you're at 14.4v 10.5Ah so around 2hr 10min charge. The negative is that if you are trying to keep the size down you've got to have 16 cells in your unit and a 4S connection usually is needing a 4S compatible PMC, which are pricey, or you could do 3S4P with boost converter and sacrifice a lil battery time, but still around $70-100 just on batteries either way.

you may be best off using a smaller (5" are cheap) screen and having an output to allow plugging into tvs, sort of a "nintendo switch" style so you dont have to deal with the overhead of screen power consumption
 
Last edited:

Stitches

2 and a Half Dollarydoos
Staff member
.
.
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Messages
3,776
Likes
2,982
Location
Banana Bender Land, Australia
Portables
6
17" is big boy screens, at that point why not just recycle an old laptop as an emulation station??

a Pi4 isnt going to emulate any console capable of 1080p output, so a screen with higher then 800x480 might be excessive for you.

Either way the control board you linked is 12v 4A draw, meaning you'd be consuming 48Watts-per-hr on the screen alone. Doable but not nice, The Pi4B uses between 2.85 and 3.5W consumption (idle vs recording 1080p video) so we can say you'd need to fuel around
52W for the video and pi

*I've never worked with screens >7" so I cannot confirm/Deny they can run on a dropped 5v supply

using THESE batteries you could produce a power bank of 4 in series to provide 14.4 Volts at 3500mAh, so this would power the screen, but for how long? well the draw is 52W, and a 14.4v3.5Ah pack would drive, for one hour, aprox 40Watts, 0.76hr or around 45min. not great..

upping it to a 4S4P of said battery will help, there you're at 14.4v 10.5Ah so around 2hr 10min charge. The negative is that if you are trying to keep the size down you've got to have 16 cells in your unit and a 4S connection usually is needing a 4S compatible PMC, which are pricey, or you could do 3S4P with boost converter and sacrifice a lil battery time, but still around $70-100 just on batteries either way.

you may be best off using a smaller (5" are cheap) screen and having an output to allow plugging into tvs, sort of a "nintendo switch" style so you dont have to deal with the overhead of screen power consumption
u no bump months old threads pls or get the smack

thank
 
Top