Does what it says. Just as it says.
For LiPo battery charger add-on for Teensy 3.1
First off, praise: It's great. This little circuit is pretty legit. Good job. I'm all about the Teensy right now and your little lipo pack is what teensy projects need. Rock on.
So here's my 2 cents for improvements there's really only 2 things and they seem simple but notable. I was really close to giving you 4 stars but aw hell 5 the good here is too good.
But the 4 stars was going to be because the lipo pins were too big to fit in the plug holes. I jimmy rigged something smaller and sloppily soldered it to the pins and things are looking pretty good. But next time it would be nice if I didn't have to do that.
Also, I really agree with your observations on the switch, but I don't think it's necessary to bother improving the switch itself. I think the average guy who buys this and solders it on will be careful when he uses the switch, and for the space requirements and such a itty bitty switch I'm impressed the switch is as good as it is tbh. But if your trying to make something that has any kind of on/off switch, for use by the average joe it's a bit limiting and tough to use the small switch for that person, and looking at it it looks pretty risky to try to break into to solder a switch externally.
So here's a simple solution: run a lead from each pole of the switch to 2 tiny pads someone can solder wires to, to run to whatever switch, wherever. Looking at the lipo charger I feel the "Pesky Prods v01" area would allow this.
Take it or leave it. But thank you for making this. I'm thankful for your headaches in making this because they save my headaches. Thanks again!
Response from Pesky Products | Dec. 27, 2014
Thanks for the kind words Kabe!
I'm hostage to the fab (OSH Park mostly) and the natural variation that comes from an economical production; I did notice that sometimes the JST holes are rather small. In those cases, I just used some fine point tweezers to slightly enlarge the holes and that works well. I guess I should check them all before I send them out to save people the trouble...
The switch is a tough one. I like the ultra thin form factor of the current version and I pay extra attention to making sure there is plenty of solder holding the switch to the five solder pads. I think the trouble I had early on with the switch coming off with rough (or careless) handling was due to not having enough solder on these points. Still, I recognize it is not the most convenient on/off device. I will consider your suggestion for the next version. I have already started adding solder jumpers on almost all of my designs to allow more functionality where appropriate. I don't see why the same can't be done here.
Thanks again for the detailed review!
