solo battery as a USB power source

[YannP]

Hi,

Could we use the Solo batteries as a USB power source?

This is a though I had in the long plane to vacation, when the battery of my tablet died, whereas I had all this unusable power in the batteries of my solo drone were fully charged and could have been used?
Could we use a DIY module plugged on the battery to output a 5V 1A USB connector?

This would be a great idea. Anyone would have some points where to start investigating?

Regards,
Yann

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

The battery may not stay on with that small of a load on it and nothing connected to the data port.

 

[YannP]

There might be a protocol to follow to have the battery left on.
But I guess who can do the max can do the min, so it's up to the addon to emulate data as if this was the drone and make sure the battery does not gets to sleep mode.

I might ask the 3DR team in case they see something that holds back from creating this.

 

[PdxSteve]

It will work and you don't need anything connected to the data port. I use them to power different devices like LEDs. This will do what you want: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XI9BJS

You can just connect it to a molex battery connector like one of these and connect directly to the battery: https://www.arrow.com/en/products/46437-1087/molex
Battery will stay on as long as there is something drawing power.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

There must be some minimum amount of current it needs to see in order to stay on without something on the data port. If I just put my meter on it, it will shut off since it isn't enough of a load. I just don't know what that minimum is. A USB charger would use only about 0.75amps from the Solo battery

 

[PdxSteve]

Maybe, but I know this setup works. I use it in place of USB power packs.

 

[twitchyzero]

this is a good idea
sometimes you'll get extra batteries still fully charged after a flight and you won't have time/weather permitting conditions to fly them again down to their 50% level storage level.