# Battery powered Plasma Kit

**URL:** <https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/battery-powered-plasma-kit/23019>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [September 29, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/battery-powered-plasma-kit/23019 "2023-09-29T18:12:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![falaffel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e8cbc/32.png) [@falaffel](https://forums.pimoroni.com/u/falaffel)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/battery-powered-plasma-kit/23019/1 "2023-09-29T18:12:05Z")

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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

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**Author:** ![bablokb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@bablokb](https://forums.pimoroni.com/u/bablokb)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 7:29pm UTC](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/battery-powered-plasma-kit/23019/2 "2023-09-29T19:29:28Z")

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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.