I built a Cupcade a little over a month ago and have been loving it but I am always tethered to the wall so I decided for my birthday to buy a Powerboost 1000c and see if I could go portable.

Powerboost 1000c

This little gadget from my favourite folks at Adafruit lets you plug a 3.7v battery into the device and power another device with it. It also will allow you to charge the battery and use the device simultaneously. Pretty cool

POC

I assembled the Powerboost as per the guide and plugged the battery in and hooked it to my Cupcade to see if the whole deal would work. I had overclocked my Pi so I was concerned the overvolt may make it not function however it worked without issue. I attached the battery to the back panel of the Cupcade facing inwards. My original plan for the Powerboost was to also have it on the inside with the charging plug facing out but physics and space came into play.

I ended up putting the Powerboost on the outward side of the back panel, It’s currently only temporarily held in place with double sided tape which I will replace with screws once I’m happy with the location. I used the smallest cable I had to go from the Powerboost to the Pi. It sticks out a little bit at the side however it isn’t causing any issues and still beats being tethered!

I recommend the Powerboost to anyone with a mobile project that needs battery power and charging it worked well and was incredibly easy to get running.