Single Cell LiPo Battery Care

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How Much Power is Left?

You might be asking yourself, how much power is left in my LiPo battery? This is useful to ensure that you have enough charge to power your project or storing the LiPo battery.

Multimeter

One way to check the voltage of a LiPo battery is using a multimeter. You can set a multimeter to measure the voltage and connect to the terminals of the JST connector. Of course, you can also connect to the +VBATT and GND pins on a PCB if the battery is connected to a board as well. Just be careful not to accidentally create a short between the two terminals when measuring with the probes.

Using a Multimeter to test the voltage on a LiPo Battery.

LiPo Fuel Gauge

Another method is using a dedicated LiPo Fuel Gauge to output the voltage and charge remaining on a display. You are less likely to short the battery terminal pins using a LiPo Fuel Gauge (assuming that you are connecting a LiPo battery to the LiPo Fuel Gauge's JST connector or have it soldered to the PTH) compared to using a multimeter. Below are a few LiPo Fuel Gauges that you could use.

LiPo Fuel Gauge (MAX1704X) Hookup Guide

February 23, 2023

Monitor your LiPo battery with the LiPo fuel gauge! In this tutorial, we will be using the MAX17043 and MAX17048 to monitor a single cell, LiPo battery over the Arduino Serial Monitor. We will also connect a display to view the output without the need to connect the microcontroller to a computer.

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