What happened?

[Brennan Price]

OK, so last night I accidentally charged my rechargeable battery pack for more than 4 hours. I used it on my audio amplifier board this morning and the board grew very hot and didn't output any sound to the speakers anymore. I now have to buy a 12v board instead of using my last 5w board.

Basically, I am now asking...

Why did my board fry? And...

Will the new 12v board be underpowered as it is only 7.2v? I take it it will be but I'm just wanting to be sure as I don't want to fry my brand new board that will take half a month to get to me from Hong Kong lol.

Thanks, Brennan price

[W-L]

6 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

OK, so last night I accidentally charged my rechargeable battery pack for more than 4 hours. I used it on my audio amplifier board this morning and the board grew very hot and didn't output any sound to the speakers anymore. I now have to buy a 12v board instead of using my last 5w board. 
Basically, I am now asking...
Why did my board fry? And...
Will the new 12v board be underpowered as it is only 7.2v? I take it it will be but I'm just wanting to be sure as I don't want to fry my brand new board that will take half a month to get to me from Hong Kong lol.
Thanks, Brennan price

What are the specific parts and battery pack your using it sounds like the board was not designed for the voltage you had applied or was in reverse polarity.

[Brennan Price]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

What are the specific parts and battery pack your using it sounds like the board was not designed for the voltage you had applied or was in reverse polarity.

Ok so agreeably, I was using a battery pack for a USB powered board but the night before I charged it, everything was working fine and nothing bad happened. That is why I find it so strange tbh. It may have been on very very very low charge. However I hadn't really used it since its last charge.

Also, the parts I am using are all from second hand electronics I have owned previously. The battery pack is from an RC car and the speakers are 30 years old 30w bookshelf speakers x2.

[W-L]

8 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Ok so agreeably, I was using a battery pack for a USB powered board but the night before I charged it, everything was working fine and nothing bad happened. That is why I find it so strange tbh. It may have been on very very very low charge. However I hadn't really used it since its last charge.

Also, the parts I am using are all from second hand electronics I have owned previously. The battery pack is from an RC car and the speakers are 30 years old 30w bookshelf speakers x2.

If your using a USB battery pack it would only output a max of 5V since that's the standard for USB, potentially you could have gotten a bad board initially if it was rated for 5V and didn't work. For charging your USB battery pack it shouldn't be a problem as long as it's a decent unit since most have built in charge and discharge controllers to not overcharge or undercharge them potentially damaging the batteries.  

[Brennan Price]

8 minutes ago, W-L said:

If your using a USB battery pack it would only output a max of 5V since that's the standard for USB, potentially you could have gotten a bad board initially if it was rated for 5V and didn't work. For charging your USB battery pack it shouldn't be a problem as long as it's a decent unit since most have built in charge and discharge controllers to not overcharge or undercharge them potentially damaging the batteries.  

Whoops, sorry I must have got across the wrong idea. Basically, the board was USB powered not the battery pack. Sorry if I made you write a lot.

I guess I did overpower the board but I'm still confused as to why it only decides to play up now...

[W-L]

2 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Whoops, sorry I must have got across the wrong idea. Basically, the board was USB powered not the battery pack. Sorry if I made you write a lot.
I guess I did overpower the board but I'm still confused as to why it only decides to play up now...

So just to clarify the board was powered via USB and didn't work earlier but now it came back to life and work without issue? 

Did you change anything around or modify it, sounds like a reliability issue with the board if that's the case.

[Brennan Price]

5 minutes ago, W-L said:

So just to clarify the board was powered via USB and didn't work earlier but now it came back to life and work without issue? 

Did you change anything around or modify it, sounds like a reliability issue with the board if that's the case.

OK, so the battery pack is at 7.2v. The board is at 5v. Last night I was using my battery pack with the board perfectly fine with sound coming from my speakers and was able to produce very load sound at that. I use it with the same setup the next day and the board grew very hot and no sound was heard on the speakers used. So I guess, like you said it was a prob with the board itself.

[W-L]

15 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Whoops, sorry I must have got across the wrong idea. Basically, the board was USB powered not the battery pack. Sorry if I made you write a lot.
I guess I did overpower the board but I'm still confused as to why it only decides to play up now...

Oh are you using a Li-po battery with that voltage directly to powering this board?

That may explain the issues your having because most electronic boards require a regulated voltage say +/-0.5V from the 5V input. When lipo batteries go from drained to just fully charged the voltage can vary heavily so potentially when charge you could have been pushing around 8V which that unit was probably not happy with. 

To get around this you may want a buck regulator to be capable of a variable input voltage with a regulated 5V output. Including a charge control to ensure the batter doesn't over discharge and damage itself.

[Brennan Price]

8 minutes ago, W-L said:

Oh are you using a Li-po battery with that voltage directly to powering this board?

That may explain the issues your having because most electronic boards require a regulated voltage say +/-0.5V from the 5V input. When lipo batteries go from drained to just fully charged the voltage can vary heavily so potentially when charge you could have been pushing around 8V which that unit was probably not happy with. 

To get around this you may want a buck regulator to be capable of a variable input voltage with a regulated 5V output. Including a charge control to ensure the batter doesn't over discharge and damage itself.

Oh wow, thanks for the help. How much would a regulator be by any chance on eBay or something?  I am using it straight from the battery to the board btw. Also, if I bought a 12v board instead of a 5v board this time, will I really need a regulator since the 7.2v will obviously be below the maximum or will it still be needed?

[W-L]

4 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Oh wow, thanks for the help. How much would a regulator be by any chance on eBay or something?  I am using it straight from the battery to the board btw. Also, if I bought a 12v board instead of a 5v board this time, will I really need a regulator since the 7.2v will obviously be below the maximum or will it still be needed?

You would need the reverse of a buck regulator but a buck boost to bring the voltage up to a constant 12V.

There are board specifically for this but at the lower 3.7V for a single li-po cell but for the 7.2/7.4V it's a bit more difficult since you want to have a way to integrate a something to prevent it from discharging too low. If you got say a large portable battery bank it may be easier to manage since they already have a 5V output that is regulated and would be fairly easy to charge.  

[Brennan Price]

22 minutes ago, W-L said:

You would need the reverse of a buck regulator but a buck boost to bring the voltage up to a constant 12V.

There are board specifically for this but at the lower 3.7V for a single li-po cell but for the 7.2/7.4V it's a bit more difficult since you want to have a way to integrate a something to prevent it from discharging too low. If you got say a large portable battery bank it may be easier to manage since they already have a 5V output that is regulated and would be fairly easy to charge.  

Ok, these are all really good points and I feel slightly obliged to just use a USB connector from my pc now as you said I would get a better output from USB power bank or something. Am I able to get by with just the lipo battery for the moment though without issues? (That is if I bought a 12v board)

 

I think I will be fine tbh as the chip I am going to use can operate from 6-18v apparently.

[W-L]

Just now, Brennan_Price said:

Ok, these are all really good points and I feel slightly obliged to just use a USB connector from my pc now as you said I would get a better output from USB power band or something. Am I able to get by with just the lipo battery for the moment though without issues?

I probably wouldn't use it directly with a regulating circuit since your potentially going to put more voltage into the circuit than it was designed for.

If you still wanted it on a battery setup Anker makes some really nice units:
http://www.amazon.com/Compact-20000mAh-Portable-Anker-PowerCore/dp/B00X5RV14Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1454455391&sr=8-2

[Brennan Price]

2 minutes ago, W-L said:

I probably wouldn't use it directly with a regulating circuit since your potentially going to put more voltage into the circuit than it was designed for.

If you still wanted it on a battery setup Anker makes some really nice units:
http://www.amazon.com/Compact-20000mAh-Portable-Anker-PowerCore/dp/B00X5RV14Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1454455391&sr=8-2

I think I might be alright as the chip I am going to use can operate from 6-18v apparently.

[W-L]

1 minute ago, Brennan_Price said:

I think I might be alright as the chip I am going to use can operate from 6-18v apparently.

It could depend on the other components on the board which need 5V but if the entire board is capable of a variable input then it should work without a problem.  

[Brennan Price]

4 minutes ago, W-L said:

It could depend on the other components on the board which need 5V but if the entire board is capable of a variable input then it should work without a problem.  

Thanks for your help. I shall get right onto buying this new board then