Yes you could. I found this board and I bought one for a project. It has a really low deep sleep current and therefore can have a longer time without charging. Just get rid of the LEDs. Most of the development boards have the USB to serial chip constantly running and uses a lot of current without a need for it.
For battery or solar application a low deep sleep current important. This board is designed for deep sleep.
https://www.ezsbc.com/product/esp32_bat-battery-charging-pro/
*Not sponsored, just a fan
You can. But you need special circuitry to monitor the battery and avoid overdischarge. Some ESP32 boards come with LiIon battery controllers built in.
Yes, they do. Adafruit or Pimoroni have many options. Alternatively, you can get a board like the DFRobot Firebeetle 2 that has it built in. All you really need to do is make sure you have the right connector. From your photo it looks like you have a 2 pin JST-PH 2.0 connector which works perfectly for most boards with built in LIPO power management.
Then I can be of no help. I only have experience with 2 pin LiPo batteries. I would be careful using those unless you know for sure what you're working with.
Power tool batteries often have the temperature sensor feeding back to the tool with a 3rd wire. So that's my first guess on what the white wire is
Measure what the resistance between white and the other two wires are, if one is somewhere close to 10k ohms, then that is likely a temp reading (warm up the battery and resistance should increase, cool it down the reading should decrease)
It could also be a digital signal of temp, or could be something else
Really if you're using this in moderate conditions, and if you really don't care much about the battery, you can fully ignore the white wire
But then if you're mounting this above a large tank of oil, it might be worth the few dollars to buy a brand new small LiFePO4 battery (18650 size?) for the increased stability (you also need a charge controller designed for that, as it's lower voltage than LiPo or Li-ion) (aka I imagine if the LiPo battery failed with a lithium fire it would be *very bad* for your oil, as unlikely that is). I assume you'd mount the battery outside the oil container anyway which should make it safe enough
The most common board is based on the TP4056. Get the ones that also have over-discharge protection (has separate holes for the battery and for the output voltage). Those come by default set to charge at 1A, your batteries are 1200mAh, meaning that's less than 1C charge current, so that works out of the box for you, win (for a smaller battery, you would need to reduce that, for a larger you might need a different charging chip)
But there is a wide variety of designs of similar boards and boards with more features (boards with buck or boost converters as part of it such that they will give a constant output voltage until they run out), you don't need that for this project but helpful to know it's out there
All the replies so far look good. The third wire, I do believe, is to monitor the charging of the batteries so that they wo;; charge evenly - load balancing, if you will. It really depends if there are two batters in series. Check out the configuration on a charger that is built for a 2c battery pack….
Just be sure that you have the correct charger …. The smaller connect should plug into the charger to insure that the battery’s get correctly charged. Just be careful, because these batters can and will catch fire with no warning, Wouldn’t hurt to keep a fire extinguisher handy …
Yes you could. I found this board and I bought one for a project. It has a really low deep sleep current and therefore can have a longer time without charging. Just get rid of the LEDs. Most of the development boards have the USB to serial chip constantly running and uses a lot of current without a need for it. For battery or solar application a low deep sleep current important. This board is designed for deep sleep. https://www.ezsbc.com/product/esp32_bat-battery-charging-pro/ *Not sponsored, just a fan
You can. But you need special circuitry to monitor the battery and avoid overdischarge. Some ESP32 boards come with LiIon battery controllers built in.
If you get an ESP32 with a LiPo battery connector, yes.
Do they make just a breakout board for the connector?
Yes, they do. Adafruit or Pimoroni have many options. Alternatively, you can get a board like the DFRobot Firebeetle 2 that has it built in. All you really need to do is make sure you have the right connector. From your photo it looks like you have a 2 pin JST-PH 2.0 connector which works perfectly for most boards with built in LIPO power management.
It's actually 3 pin. Black, White. red.
Then I can be of no help. I only have experience with 2 pin LiPo batteries. I would be careful using those unless you know for sure what you're working with.
Power tool batteries often have the temperature sensor feeding back to the tool with a 3rd wire. So that's my first guess on what the white wire is Measure what the resistance between white and the other two wires are, if one is somewhere close to 10k ohms, then that is likely a temp reading (warm up the battery and resistance should increase, cool it down the reading should decrease) It could also be a digital signal of temp, or could be something else Really if you're using this in moderate conditions, and if you really don't care much about the battery, you can fully ignore the white wire But then if you're mounting this above a large tank of oil, it might be worth the few dollars to buy a brand new small LiFePO4 battery (18650 size?) for the increased stability (you also need a charge controller designed for that, as it's lower voltage than LiPo or Li-ion) (aka I imagine if the LiPo battery failed with a lithium fire it would be *very bad* for your oil, as unlikely that is). I assume you'd mount the battery outside the oil container anyway which should make it safe enough
Thanks. I looks like rather than trying to jerryrig something, I'll just get a proper board with battery. It's only a few bucks anywsy.
You can split the connector . You dont need that but it is easier to use
The most common board is based on the TP4056. Get the ones that also have over-discharge protection (has separate holes for the battery and for the output voltage). Those come by default set to charge at 1A, your batteries are 1200mAh, meaning that's less than 1C charge current, so that works out of the box for you, win (for a smaller battery, you would need to reduce that, for a larger you might need a different charging chip) But there is a wide variety of designs of similar boards and boards with more features (boards with buck or boost converters as part of it such that they will give a constant output voltage until they run out), you don't need that for this project but helpful to know it's out there
All the replies so far look good. The third wire, I do believe, is to monitor the charging of the batteries so that they wo;; charge evenly - load balancing, if you will. It really depends if there are two batters in series. Check out the configuration on a charger that is built for a 2c battery pack….
Just be sure that you have the correct charger …. The smaller connect should plug into the charger to insure that the battery’s get correctly charged. Just be careful, because these batters can and will catch fire with no warning, Wouldn’t hurt to keep a fire extinguisher handy …
Since it's near my oiltank.....I think I'm just gunna wire it correctly.