Can I use a powerboost 500c instead?

[username 123]

The 1000c seem to be out of stock everywhere and the price is pretty annoying. Can I use the 500c instead? I don't really plan on using my gbz while it's charging.

[Kilren]

The 1000c seem to be out of stock everywhere and the price is pretty annoying. Can I use the 500c instead? I don't really plan on using my gbz while it's charging.

To know for sure, you'd have to wire everything up and then measure to power draw when everything is running full blast. I highly doubt it though.

[Oxodao]

The problem, if i'm not mistaken, is that it also delivers 500mA from the battery so your whole build need to draw less than this amount while emulation.

According to this, the pi draw 140 mA so let's have a margin and take 200 mA while emulating. The screen, if you use a BW one or similar is 100 mA afaik. The teensy is 60 mA max.
Let's pretend that the amp takes half the pi, we would be at 450 mA, out of the 500mA available.. That's do not let you have a huge margin so you'd rather choose something that has 1A capability, even though the price is huge or is hard to find... Just to be safe

[SidSilver]

The powerboost 500C is not strong enough.
It will be quickly at its maximum, will overheat and in the best case will die (the worst case is your gameboy in flames )

=> never play with power supply.

[yankyfan09]

I have everything wired up to the powerboost 500c. I have the 1000c on order. Anyway, I have the micro usb wired and the original power switch wired in the correct places. The power switch works as it should and cuts power when i turn it to the off position. When I plug in the power the blue light and usb light comes on and the output on the usb side is 5.2volts. Then I connect the raspberry pi zero to the power outputs and the output drops from 5.2volts down to 2.4 volts and the blue light dims. I checked for shorts and I can't for the life of me see any so I don't know what's the matter. Since having this problem I've desolderd everything and just connected the raspberry pi to the usb output and the same thing happens. Is it because I'm using the 500c or am I doing something wrong?

[woodat]

I just swapped my 500c for a 1000c but the 500c seemed to run everything for me (pi zero, 3.5" screen, usb sound card) straight from the battery. That said, it didn't seem to charge the battery properly (even when turned off), plus the realisation it was on the very limits of what it could provide is why I moved over to the 1000c.

The 500c should at least turn everything on for you though. If you have a multimeter you may want to check your other solder joints (to the controls, sound, usb) you've put on your pi to ensure there isn't a short between two GPIOs/pads.

[hoodust]

500 worked for me, including usb soundcard and some extra leds. Adafruit states you can pull 1000mAh from it, but with usb devices you could easily reach that. I had usb brownouts with just the hardwired sound card and an external wifi dongle, and it took forever to charge (maybe 6 hours) and some usb devices like a keyboard just wouldn't work at all. Plus you can forget about charging and using it at the same time. Dropped in a 1000 once they got in stock and all these problems went away, plus I could swear the display looked brighter/crisper. Remember the lower voltage than prescribed to drive the display means more current draw. So yes, to get the project up and running (albeit with some problems that could leave you scratching your head and wasting time) the 500 will work but I highly recommend upgrading or waiting for a 1000 for long-term. By the time you get retropie set up and your rom collection sorted out, they should be available.