Battery powered Plasma Kit

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1

Hi there!
I’m interested in creating a compact, battery-powered version of the wireless plasma kit, without using a powerbank. Can I just solder headers onto the board and use a LiPo SHIM to power everything? Or am I overlooking something major?

thanks,
Fabian

2

I think you are missing three things:

  • LiPos won’t provide 5V which you need for the LEDs. Now you might get away with less, but the idea of the plasma kit is to provide stable 5V and a level-shifter from 3V3 logic-level of the Pico to 5V for the data-line.
  • soldering headers to the plasma-kit will be a real challenge
  • The LiPo-shim is built for connecting from below, but below the Pico is the plasma-kit PCB

So all in all I would say this will never work. You could solder something directly to VBUS, but I don’t see any benefit compared to feeding power through the usb-plug.