Hi,
Is there a recommended battery to use with Wisblocks (for production rather than prototyping)?
Thanks
Richard.
Hello Richard, welcome to the forum.
Basically any LiPo battery that matches the specification given here can be used.
Mechanical size and capacity of the battery depends on your application, space restrictions and requirements of life-time of your application before a re-charge is required.
Thanks Bernd,
If you could point me to any specific batteries from RS or Element13 to save me chasing them to ensure the spec is correct, I’d appreciate it. If not I understand.
In terms of size, it would need to fit in to the RAKBox B3:
￡7.44 | RAKBox B3 | RAKwireless Indoor Enclosure for WisBlock products
Also, do you know of any distributors etc selling Wisblock consumer products commercially anywhere right now?
Kind regards
Richard.
The tech sales people will be able to help but as chemistry is a world wide ‘thing’, a Lithium Polymer battery is a LiPo is a LiPo. So it’s down to your deciding what the run time of the device should be aka the capacity and how much space in the box you want it to take up, aka the dimensions.
By purchasing from RS, Farnell, Rapid, Mouser, DigiKey etc you can show due diligence. Doesn’t stop them catching fire if misused thou.
Nick already said it, LiPo is LiPo. Now for the RAKBox B3, there is a space to hold a battery. But it is not for an 18650 cell. You will need to search for a shorter alternative.
For a local reseller, please check out our Value Added Resellers list
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According to the documentation, the battery charger TP4054 is used, the datasheet specifies that it is for li-on batteries. I’m having strange behaviors with LiPo batteries.
Welcome to RAK forum @gascadev 
Can you please give more information about the issue so we can support you better.
I tried to use the samsung 35E battery on the wisblock, the voltmeter shows 4V, the polarity is correct, all should be fine. but when I plug it to the wisblock, the board heats up massively! and there was some smoke coming out. The Solar panel seems to be working fine (LED is on). Is this some hardware problem? I dont want to “try” with another wisblock
Hi Baxter,
Can you check which part of the board is burnt (if any)?
Also, do you have a power supply where you can limit the current? You can try to power it again using that instead of a battery that is not current limited.
Are there other modules connected to WisBlock when you connected the battery?
Assuming the polarity is correct, that shouldn’t happen.
Hi Carl, thx for getting back.
please check the photos, the one on the right is on battery, the one on the left is in usb (both made a smell and some fume when i put them on battery the first time) 
Its a very expensive experiment.
both have the bme680 on the other side and now none of them is connecting to TTN
both are running the BME680 code with TTN from here
none of the boards is working anymore… not even on USB, the PC doesnt recognize any board
Hi @Baxter ,
That part is the voltage regulator. it will only become like that if the polarity is reversed or if it is damaged.
Can you confirm if this is the battery polarity you follow?
there is something fishy about this https://docs.rakwireless.com/assets/images/wisblock/quickstart/battery-connection.gif it shows the + to be on the inner side of the board whereas this one shows it to be on the outside https://docs.rakwireless.com/assets/images/wisblock/rak4631/quickstart/battery-connect.png
when i plug it in (and this is a standard market cable with plug, the + is on the outerside
this is the connector with cable OEM Verbindungskabel JST PH 2Pin Female - digitec is the cable/connector of RAK different?
The battery connector you used is reversed in polarity.
Sadly, there is no standard JST connector polarity globally. It can be anything. This is the pain in these connectors that I personally experience as well so before connecting any battery, I ensure that I have the right ground and positive connection by checking the docs and the board itself via multimeter. I check if the assumed ground is really the ground by checking the continuity to known ground like ground plane (if visible) or the USB connector itself (it is usually connected to ground). Further safety procedure I do during prototyping is to use a current limited power supply and not battery to ensure that if anything mess up, no smoke will happen to my board.
My battery holders on my bench have a low dropout / Schottky diode inline - means I have to keep topping them up to accommodate the drop but less expensive in the long term as I too have learnt the hard way.
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this is really ARGH would it be enough to buy new base boards or do i need the 4630?
I’m having similar issues here.
I appear to only be able to power the board via USB.
I’m using a Rockseed RS305P power supply unit. Voltage is limited to 4.2 and current is limited to 0.5 A
when I turn on the power, the board draws 0 current whatsoever
There is a chance that RAK4630 is still ok and all the damage is absorbed by the regulator. But there is no guarantee of course unless we check the RAK4630 module itself.
Welcome to RAK forum @billr
That is strange that no current is drawn. Are you sure the the voltage go in to the connector? Can you measure it with voltmeter?
If you can power it via USB, then the regulator is still functional.
Further … it’s not just one board, we have four in total and none of them can be powered via battery or DC power supply… is there some configuration which we need to make to enable power from the battery connection rather than via USB?