Adjustable LiPo Charger Hookup Guide

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Contributors: Alex the Giant
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Introduction

The SparkFun Adjustable LiPo Charger is a single-cell lithium polymer (LiPo) and lithium ion battery charger. Because it's adjustable, this charger will be able to safely charge all of our single-cell batteries.

SparkFun Adjustable LiPo Charger

SparkFun Adjustable LiPo Charger

PRT-14380
$13.50
4

Required Materials

The Adjustable LiPo Charger parts required depends on your input power supply for charging and the size of the LiPo battery used. At the bare minimum, all that's needed to charge a LiPo battery sufficiently is a micro-B USB cable to connect to either a computer USB port or a wall adapter. We also have 5V wall adapters with a USB cable attached.

USB Micro-B Cable - 6 Foot

USB Micro-B Cable - 6 Foot

CAB-10215
$5.50
15
Wall Adapter Power Supply - 5.1V DC 2.5A (USB Micro-B)

Wall Adapter Power Supply - 5.1V DC 2.5A (USB Micro-B)

TOL-13831
$8.95
23
USB Wall Charger - 5V, 1A (Black)

USB Wall Charger - 5V, 1A (Black)

TOL-11456
$4.50
2

Wall Adapter Power Supply - 5V DC 2A (USB Micro-B)

TOL-12890
16 Retired

And one of the LiPo batteries with nominal 3.7V from our catalog:

Lithium Ion Battery - 400mAh

Lithium Ion Battery - 400mAh

PRT-13851
$5.50
11
Lithium Ion Battery - 850mAh

Lithium Ion Battery - 850mAh

PRT-13854
$10.95
2
Lithium Ion Battery - 110mAh

Lithium Ion Battery - 110mAh

PRT-13853
$5.50
4

Coin Cell Battery - 24.5mm (Rechargeable CR2450)

PRT-10319
Retired

Lithium Ion Battery - 1Ah

PRT-13813
8 Retired

For batteries smaller than 100mAh (i.e. 40mAh LiPo), you may also need to solder an assortment of resistors to set a custom charge rate.

Resistor Kit - 1/4W (500 total)

Resistor Kit - 1/4W (500 total)

COM-10969
$8.95
188
Polymer Lithium Ion Battery - 40mAh (JST-PH)

Polymer Lithium Ion Battery - 40mAh (JST-PH)

PRT-13852
$4.95
1

Suggested Reading

If you aren't familiar with the following concepts, we recommend checking out these tutorials before continuing.

Battery Technologies

The basics behind the batteries used in portable electronic devices: LiPo, NiMH, coin cells, and alkaline.

Electric Power

An overview of electric power, the rate of energy transfer. We'll talk definition of power, watts, equations, and power ratings. 1.21 gigawatts of tutorial fun!

What is a Battery?

An overview of the inner workings of a battery and how it was invented.