2x18650 v8 battery shield

[pjay00]

Hello,

I bought 2x18650 v8 battery shield and I have a problem.

How to turn off the red lights during "HOLD" mode. I care about the lowest possible power consumption. The lights do not turn off, they stay on all the time.

[gilshultz]

You can solve the problem by removing the LEDs, but realize that will void any warranty.

[TomGeorge]

Hi, @pjay00
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Can you please post a link to specs/data of the shield?

Thanks.. Tom..

[ShermanP]

The main chip is the TP5602. It drives all four LED directly, and the limiting resistors are inside the chip. So your choices are either remove the LEDs or figure out the traces to cut.

By the way, if you intend to use this shield as a UPS, you should check to see if the power drops out (your Arduino resets) when you switch from USB power to battery backup. It shouldn't, but the copy I have does that.

[pjay00]

@TomGeorge https://aliexpress.com/item/1005005986332436.html

@ShermanP
It's not working as it should. When it turns on "hold" mode it drains the batteries (I have not connected anything to the station). In 10 hours one 3000mah battery has only 50%. The "hold" mode makes no sense with the leds on.

[ShermanP]

I think the version you have is actually a power bank circuit. If that's right, then if you switch to Normal mode, the module will shut down when output current drops below a certain level for something like 30 seconds.

Then Hold mode simply switches in a resistor across the output so the output current never drops below the threshold.

If that's the case you would find a relatively large surface-mount resistor on the other side of the board opposite the switch.

If my description is correct, this is a terrible design, and wastes battery power like crazy.

Edit: My board does not have a Hold/Normal switch. But where that switch would be, there's a 62-ohm resistor (marked 620) and a jumper that is soldered closed. So the resistor is across the 5V output, and draws 80mA all the time. That sure does wonders for battery life. What a turd.