PowerBoost 1000C is the perfect power supply for your portable project! With a built-in load-sharing battery charger circuit, you'll be able to keep your power-hungry project running even while recharging the battery! This little DC/DC boost converter module can be powered by any 3.7V LiIon/LiPoly battery, and convert the battery output to 5.2V DC for running your 5V projects.

We tweaked the output to be 5.2V instead of a straight-up 5.0V so that there's a little bit of 'headroom' for long cables, high draw, the addition of a diode on the output if you wish, etc. The 5.2V is safe for all 5V-powered electronics like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or Beagle Bone while preventing icky brown-outs during high current draw because of USB cable resistance.

The PowerBoost 1000C has at the heart a TPS61090 boost converter from TI. This boost converter chip has some really nice extras such as low battery detection, 2A internal switch, synchronous conversion, excellent efficiency, and 700KHz high-frequency operation. Check out these specs!

To make this even more useful, we stuck a smart load-sharing Lipoly charger on the other side. The charger circuitry is powered from a microUSB jack, and will recharge any 3.7V/4.2V LiIon or LiPoly battery at 1000mA max rate. There's two LEDs for monitoring the charge rate, a yellow one tells you its working, a green one lights up when its done.

Since the built-in battery charger has load-sharing, it will automatically switch over to the USB power when available, instead of continuously charging/draining the battery. This is more efficient, and lets you charge-and-boost at the same time without any interruption on the output so its fine for use as a "UPS" (un-interruptable power supply).

Just be aware that the charge rate is 1000mA max, and there's some inefficiency during the boosting stage, so make super sure that the USB adapter you're using to charge with is high quality, can supply 2A and has thick power wires. This one from Adafruit is ideal and has been tested, lower quality ones will not act well due to the voltage drop on the wires or droop on the power supply. This is especially true if you're actually drawing 1000mA out of the PowerBoost 1000C, the MCP73871 maxes out at 1.8A.You do have to always have a LiPo plugged into manage the load spikes, it's not optional!

This charger-booster is great for powering your robot, Arduino project, single-board-computer such as Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone! Each order comes with one fully assembled and tested PCB and a loose USB A jack. If you are powering your project from USB, solder the USB A jack in (a 3-minute soldering task).

If you're trying to figure out how much current your project is using, check out the CHARGER DOCTOR!

You may get an off-white or black JST connector.

Technical Details