Electronic – Draw power from a portable mobile charger to power circuits

chargerdcportablepower supply

I usually power my beginner prototype circuits using mb102 power supply board, but it needs an external elimeter to draw power and then regulate it.

I was looking for a portable solution for my 5 volt and 3.3 volt circuit needs and came up with using a portable battery charger for mobile phones.

I tried powering up a simple transistor and LED circuit with it but it wouldn't power-up.

I feel that there is some load sensing circuit in the portable charger which doesn't detect these low power circuits.

I also tried connecting different resistors to the charger, the charger outputs 5 Volts for a few seconds and then again shuts down and doesn't stay ON continuously.

It would be really comfortable to use a portable charger since it could be charged using a phone charger and would be very handy.

What can I do to make the charger output power on low loads?

Best Answer

What can I do to make the charger output power on low loads?

You probably can't do anything reasonable. Charging power banks are designed to cut off power when they think the charge is done, when load drops below certain cut-off level. This condition will happen every time you connect-disconnect your project while debugging it.

  1. you can load it with proper resistor, but it will drain the bank battery quickly.

  2. you can reverse engineer your powerbank, determine what kind of PMIC (power management IC) is used, and disable this cut-off function if possible, but it is very doubtful.

  3. You need to design your own PMIC on the top of existing circuit, replace it with power management you need. This new design must have all features to charge and protect the powerbank battery, but will have no cut-off function.

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