Pimoroni's LiPo SHIM for Pico Adds Easy Battery Management to Your Raspberry Pi Pico Projects

Pimoroni has announced the launch of a Raspberry Pi Pico add-on that lets you power your projects from a lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery: the LiPo SHIM for Pico, or PiCoLiPoSHIM.

"Solder this neat little square to the pins on the back of your Pico, plug in a suitable lithium-ion/polymer battery and tada — a LiPo Pico," Pimoroni writes of the new board design. "The inbuilt charging circuit means you can recharge the attached battery by supplying power to the Pico via USB, and it includes protection against over-discharge and over-current."

"There's a power button to stop the SHIM from providing battery power when it's not needed and turn your project on and off, as well as two LED indicators — a white one that shows when the shim is providing power and a red one to tell you when the battery is being charged."

The compact board is built around the Microchip MCP73831 battery management chip, with an XYSemi XB6096I2 battery-protection system added. The battery — not supplied — connects via a two-pole JST PH connector, and the power button can turn the whole device on and off or act as a reset button on a double-tap.

While no software is required to use the board, Pimoroni has published a MicroPython example for reading the voltage using the VSYS input on the Raspberry Pi Pico and estimating the charge left in the battery.

The LiPo SHIM for Pico is now available from Pimoroni at $7.99.