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I'm a hobbyist/amateur who has been successfully selling a USB MIDI device for several years, and I'd like to make a new battery-powered version. It would ideally have a small (150 mAH) li-poly or LiFePO4 battery and would sell a few hundred units per year. Would you say that the barriers to designing, certifying, and shipping a product with a lithium battery are surmountable for a hobbyist? Would I need high liability insurance to market such a product? It seems relatively easy to build a working prototype, but the dangers of lithium batteries seem to currently make it difficult for a small-scale manufacturer to build and sell devices in a way that is fully compliant.

Andrew Mowry
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    Batteries with low energy can sometimes get excemptions. Tip: check Fedex and other transporters what they require in form of paperwork. If you by an assembled battery pack you might (should?) be able to get it from the manufacturer directly. Here's an example https://se.rs-online.com/web/p/rechargeable-battery-packs/1449407 See test summary. – Dejvid_no1 Jun 14 '22 at 20:19
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    Dangers of lithium batteries is easy compared to the other hurdles preventing you from getting it to market largely because you can identify it and deal with it objectively. – DKNguyen Jun 14 '22 at 20:39
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    I agree with DKNguyen, the battery part will be easier than the rest. Here's another good read. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/5196/which-products-should-have-fcc-certification-and-about-how-much-does-that-cost – Dejvid_no1 Jun 14 '22 at 20:52
  • _"and would sell a few hundred units per year"_ - why do you want to do this? – Bruce Abbott Jun 14 '22 at 21:29
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    this crowd is bitter and discouraging, too bad. I would consider nimh removable rechargeable batteries with a trickle charger built in. or have it take a common existing battery, like for a camera or phone or something, so that the user provides the battery if desired. that CYA... – dandavis Jun 14 '22 at 21:30
  • @dandavis the question is about a product that includes a battery ... there is nothing bitter or discouraging in stating the facts about the device in question – jsotola Jun 14 '22 at 21:43
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    @jsotola i was refering to stuff like "can't bring to market period", "why do you want this?", "other hurdles" and such that don't clarify or address the question. There are challenges to marketing, but this isn't the stack to address them. – dandavis Jun 14 '22 at 21:45
  • Thanks for these comments and suggestions. My reason for wanting to do this is that I've been able to make a good living selling 500 or so of my original product for the past several years, but it's time to move to a more portable option with Bluetooth. Possibly I shouldn't have called myself a hobbyist, but I wanted to express my inexperience relative to most people here. The comments re: certification are encouraging, as I've dealt with FCC cert before and I'm prepared to do it with this product (also adding a Bluetooth module), so hopefully the battery will end up being more minor. – Andrew Mowry Jun 14 '22 at 22:55

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You don’t need to sell the device with a battery of course. The user can provide their own cell, like it’s done for the vaping devices. But then if something happens it’s a blame game between the manufacturer and the end user. And there’s no money to be made designing battery charging etc. in-house: you can’t compete.

The power supply market is saturated and highly competitive even for battery-based supplies.

Just stick a USB-C port on it and let the user power it from a power bank or a USB charger or a USB port on their laptop or arranger keyboard. Or even better, stick two USB-C ports and a mux for the D+/D- lines. One port can be used for charging the other additionally for data. You can remain backwards-compatible without speaking the CC protocol: once you detect connection on a port, use the power and attempt a connection over D+/D-. If it fails and the other port is connected, try the other port.

You can connect the CC line to the MCU in a way that will enable implementing the CC protocol at a later time. You can use the analog voltage sensing on the CC lines initially, without serial data support. USB-C also supports the headphone alternate mode, so you could have audio output over it without any software complexity.

I’m surprised at the comments of the kind a hobbyist/amateur can't bring a product to market, period. Doesn't matter battery or not. Prototype is not a product. The product is already on the market, and is successful. Whether the vendor considers themselves a hobbyist or not makes no difference. A hobbyist woodcarver selling their carvings or pens or whatever at a weekend fair has products on the market. A MIDI device is no different.

Kuba hasn't forgotten Monica
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  • Thanks! These are all good suggestions. Unfortunately (I should have mentioned) that going wireless (BLE) is my reason for adding a battery, and that my device is also very small. I have considered having the user supply the battery or possibly using NiMH instead, though some form of embedded lithium chemistry would be the most logical option considering the form factor. I just need to weigh how much of a headache it's worth it to me to make this major upgrade :). – Andrew Mowry Jun 14 '22 at 23:00