SparkFun Forums

[Ted_H]

I recently bought a 1000 mah battery to power my ESP32 Redboard. When I plug it in, the board does not power up. When I plug the USB in and run the gauge sketch, it shows the voltage and capacity as OK. Is there something else I need to do to use it?

[YellowDog]

If you've applied power, it's powered.

When you say the board "does not power up", what is it doing or not doing that you expect it to do?

[Ted_H]

I checked the voltage with a multimeter and it was 3.9V. That's below the 4.1 that the gauge sketch read so I plugged it in to to 5 v barrel jack for a few hours and it did not change.

Since it is an external battery. I expect the board to power up (LED's light up, run loaded sketch) once battery is plugged into the JST port on the board without power from USB or barrel jack.

[YellowDog]

Did you get the battery from sparkfun? If not, the polarity could be wrong.

[Ted_H]

No, I bought the battery from Amazon. I changed my mind about it. I about broke my fingernails taking the JST plug out of the socket. I'll stick with my 18650 battery holders.
Thanks