Hi Forum!
I’m working on a small electronics project that I’d like to be able to run from either a LiPo battery or off a wall wart. I’d like to connect all in parallel such that when the wall wart is not plugged in the project will run off the battery and when it is plugged in the project will run off the wall wart (when turned on) AND the LiPo will charge in parallel. My question is if this is a safe configuration. I think it should be OK, but I’m new to LiPos and don’t want to blow anything up!

Some additional details: The project draws about 1.5A max and uses two buck converters - one outputs at 5v and the other at 5.8. The battery is a 7.4v 5000mAh LiPo that can safely be charged up to .5c. The wall wart puts out 8.4v at 2A, which is what is recommended by the battery manufacturer.

I’ve got it hooked up the way I describe and everything seems to work fine. The battery only is drawing about .5A while charging, but I just got it new so don’t know it’s current level of charge - perhaps it draws more when more discharged.

Thanks for any help!

 

Does the LiPo have an internal charge controller/balancer module? If so, and I suspect it has, then this is safe. Do you have a link to the LiPo?

 

Hi Irving! Yes, it is supposed to have internal protections per the Amazon listing:

kelingdun Lithium Polymer Batteries https://a.co/d/8CNJNyI

 

Yes, this appears to have the right setup, should be OK, though batteries will be very slow to recharge after power is restored, far longer than the 4h quoted if your project is taking the bulk of the 2A output from the charger.

 

Thank you!!! Yes, the max amperage is a rarity and the project is actually totally off much more than on. I generally won’t have it plugged into and just run off batteries and it’s OK if it takes overnight to recharge. So I generally won’t be running the project when it’s plugged into the wall, but I wanted to be sure that it *could* be safely. Thanks again!