Lipo Rider Pro Charge/Discharge battery simultaneously

I just purchased a Lipo Rider Pro from seeed technologies. I am hoping that it will perform the function that I need it to. Please tell me if I am dumb for even thinking that this is possible...

I have a camera system that has an accompanying piece of electronics that runs off of 5vdc. That component needs to run even if the system doesn't have power running to it. I was hoping to achieve this by using the Lipo Rider to provide 5 volts from a battery while also allowing the battery to be charged when power is given to the camera system. I would need the Lipo rider to provide power constantly while at times allowing for the battery to be charged while still running the 5vdc device.

I hope I have explained this in a way that is understandable and answerable. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to respond to this regardless of being able to offer a definitive answer...

Kind regards,

Fear not, you are not forgotten! It just took me a bit to digest the info for the Lipo Rider.

I've looked into this, and noticed a few things.

First, the Lipo rider does not have protection circuitry on it for the battery. Make sure the battery you buy has this circuit built into it.

Second, there is no way to switch between the battery and supply voltage on the board. The power flow goes from USB -> battery charger -> battery -> boost converter -> output. If your application (camera system) requires less than 500 mA from the battery, you can just run this as is. The only sacrifice will be that the current from the application is taken from the battery charging current (since the charger limits current), so the battery will take longer to charge. If the application requires more than 500 mA, the battery will be net discharged even when external power is plugged in.

If you can supply enough power to run both the application and the charging circuitry, you can install an external circuit that can switch between powering the application with either the Lipo Rider or the power supply. This is as simple as a logic level P-channel MOSFET (example: NDP6020P) and a pull down resistor on the gate. A rough block diagram is attached.

Basically, the input power is split 3 ways. It goes to the output, to the Lipo Rider to charge the battery, and to the gate of the MOSFET. The output of the Lipo Rider is also applied to the output, but through the MOSFET.

When the external supply is plugged in, the Lipo Rider is powered to charge the battery, the application is powered, and the gate of the MOSFET is driven high to stop the supply from backfeeding the Lipo Rider's boost converter. When the external supply is disconnected, the pulldown resistor grounds the gate to turn on the FET, allowing the Lipo Rider to provide power to the output.