Photon Battery Shield Hookup Guide

Contributors:

jimblom

Battery Shield Overview

Let's do a quick rundown of the Photon Battery Shield's hardware features. Here are some highlights of the board's main components:

LiPo Connector (PH-Series JST) -- The battery goes here. This connector is polarized, so it'll only plug in the right way.
Photon Socket -- Each Photon comes pre-soldered with male headers, so all of our shields come pre-populated with female connectors on their top-side.
Photon Pin Breakouts -- Need more access to the Photon's I/O? These pin break-outs have that covered. These break outs are in the same place on each of our Photon Shields -- should you need to interface them together that way.
Photon Polarity Indicator -- Nothing's going to work if your Photon isn't plugged in correctly. These angled edges should match up to those on the Photon's PCB.
Charge LED Indicator -- This red LED will light up whenever the LiPo battery is being charged.

Flipping the Shield over reveals a few, less commonly-used features of the board:

"Stackable" Male Pins -- Whether you want to plug the battery shield into more Photon shields, or use it in a breadboard, these male pins should do the job. If you don't need this feature, the pins can all be quickly beheaded by some flush cutters.
SMD Barrel Jack footprint -- This footprint allows you to add an SMD Barrel Jack to the Battery Shield's underside. This'll allow you to charge the battery with a 5V Wall Adapter, or even a Small Solar Panel. Just make sure your power source isn't higher than 5.5V.
I²C Pull-up Resistor Enable/Disable -- The Photon Battery Shield includes a pair of 10kΩ pull-up resistors on the SDA and SCL lines (D0 and D1). If you've got more I²C devices to connect, you may need to disable those. These jumpers are closed by default, but can be opened with a couple slices of a hobby knife.
Alert Interrupt Jumper -- The MAX17043 features a programmable interrupt output, which can fire whenever your battery gets below a set percentage of charge. This pin can be connected to the Photon's D6 pin by adding a blob of solder between these two pads. Note that this jumper is open by default, as other shields make use of D6.