Quick hack to add a Li-ion battery to a Raspberry Pi Zero

Video describes how to add a 3.7V Li-ion battery to a Raspberry Pi Zero by mounting a small £1.70 power board (link below) from eBay.

[anant]

I was looking for such setup for a very long time. Thanks for sharing 👍

[shashidharybhat]

Great content mate. You will get far in youtube. Take my word and continue.

[Kst_]

Good tutorial brother, but one should also notice the max current(A) consumption of the raspberry pi under full load, so looking for max current output on the board(charging board) is also a good idea!

[gd.ritter]

Is there a diode on the Pi Zero between power input and the 5V headers? Possibly if you connected the boost to the 5V pin directly you could use the existing charge port to also recharge the battery.

[tmmy]

Legend. Time to stop mucking about with 18650 batteries this is so much better!

[jena_thornwyrd]

Yeah, it's not a "crazy" hack, but definitively nice, fun and useful, thanks for this highlight !

[HijabiVFXGirl]

Hi I’m looking to make my own version of a ring doorbell. I’ve got the coding, which I’ll need to put on a micro sd card. Could I use this zero with battery and camera to make it?

[randomrant]

This is exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you!

[TheDradge]

It's a decent idea but you're relying on the green solder mask as insulation between the other pads on the battery board and the tracks on the Pi. Really should use some insulated washer between the boards for security.

[rag.animations]

Is the extra micro usb port necessairy? Does it work if I just leave those pins untouched?

[dealshare]

Doesn’t the battery keeps charging and discharging? Does this work as ups ? The reason I am asking this is, I used a normal power bank and kept power bank always connected to power which caused the power bank to bloat in less than a month

[biswajeetsingh]

Thank you for the nice info. But can the PI Zero be powered by 3.7 volts lithium ion battery. As far I know the PI needs 5 volts. Anyway, thanks again.

[indrajithlal]

awesome but can i make it like using the pi normally would also charge the battery

[horstao]

Been searching for this for some time, thank you very much for the tip !!!

[Spawn-wtul]

Wonder if your setup will still allow this to fit in a Retroflag Gameboy Pi Zero case, hmmmm I shall try.

[TobiKellner]

Does it have low-voltage cutoff (undervoltage protection)? One problem with combining LiPo and boost-converters is that you can drain the battery to a level where it suffers irreversible damage.
Might not be a problem for applications where you can monitor battery levels on a regular basis...

[Skazhiphop]

Does everything I need come in the eBay link? I mean other than a soldering equipment I already have that. But like the wires and the USB port and all of it comes in the link? Everything except the battery right?

[Gowan]

Question to the creator: when you added this card and battery, it automatically charges the battery? Have you been able to power the device and battery off a pc/laptop usb device on the data port?

[batner]

Is it possible to make charging work from the rpi's usb ?

[RaspberryPiGirls]

I only tried 18650 batteries, will try Li-Ion battery someday.