how-to: ‘usb battery’ v2

usb battery v2

thanks to everyone’s great feedback, i’ve now got a usb battery that’s much more efficient and capable of delivering more current to a portable device. like i promised, i put together a slick little case to finish this hack off right. read on for some tips on building your own.

quick improvement

as mentioned by several readers, you’ll want to use a 5 volt regulator ic instead of the resistor/zener-diode combo i discussed previously. you’ll be able to charge your device faster while it is running and it’s much more efficient, which will give your 9 volt a longer battery life.

the best part is that it’s easier and cheaper to do it this way. just grab an lm7805 from your local hacker store and wire it up. connect the positive battery terminal to the 7805 input pin, the positive usb pin to the 7805 output pin, and connect the negative battery terminal and the usb ground pin to the 7805 ground pin.

which is which? if you hold the 7805 with the text facing you and the pins downward, the pins from left to right are: input, ground, output. it looks like this:

lm7805

for the female usb connector, look down into the end of the connector so that it is oriented like so:

pin 1 is the positive (5v) terminal (which goes to the output of the 7805) and pin 4 is ground (which goes to the 7805 ground pin).

easiest way to test

several people were wondering how to tell if you are going to fry your device. here’s the easiest way to test when you are all done wiring:

cut a standard usb cable in half.
plug the male end into your usb battery.
connect the positive and negative ends of your multimeter to the red and black usb wires respectively.
if it reads something very close to 5v then you are wired correctly.

making a case

usb battery case 1

i chose to make my case out of polystyrene plastic. you can find this stuff in sheet form at most hobby stores. it’s the same kind of plastic used in your standard plastic model kit and the sheet form lends itself nicely to making flat sided objects

Comments [326]

Reader Comments

Paint it black….

Posted at 7:01 am on Jan 28th, 2005 by CDE

looks good to me! I’d still add a zener though, but that’s just me.

Posted at 9:06 am on Jan 28th, 2005 by the steven

This guide really is made for the below average idiot with articles such as ‘how to tell if you’ve done it properly’. If you need help testing it out with a multimeter, you shouldn’t really be doing this.
Anyway… Great article non the less. I think the use of a voltage regulator was well adviced and it would be nice to see everyone elses attempt at this.

Posted at 9:36 am on Jan 28th, 2005 by Ryan

of course, heaven forbid people should actually _learn_ something.

Posted at 10:18 am on Jan 28th, 2005 by p3on

It would be even better if piggy-backing was added, so you can just plug the battery pack into another USB device (like a hub) so you can also manipulate the data on the usb device (ipod, phone, etc)

Posted at 10:21 am on Jan 28th, 2005 by israel torres

Very nice. Mostly impressive was your good attitude for taking the heat on so many “bombs” and comments about the zener issue. I was going to be one who suggests using a low voltage drop regulator, but I thought that you had enough from others. Again: kudos for how you took the feedback and how you built this USB v.2 :)

Posted at 11:49 am on Jan 28th, 2005 by Santiago

if it’s plugged into a powered hub or computer, isn’t that device going to be providing a charge anyway?

nice writeup, very impressed with your top-quality styrene manipulation. all kinds of pro.

Posted at 12:12 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by schuss

Not bad, I would replace the 7805 with a National Semi switching regulator (or similar), though. The 7805 drops the excess voltage as heat. So, you’ve got a 5V USB device running off a 9V battery. The 4V difference is being dissipated as heat. If your device is using only 100ma, then you’ve got: 4V * 100ma = 400mw being wasted.

With a wall-wart supply where power is “endless” this isn’t as important, but with a battery, where your total AH (amp hours) are fixed this is a concern. A switching voltage regulator only needs a couple of extra components, but will probably double your battery life.

Overall, a cool idea, though.

Posted at 1:53 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by brk

Seems to me that this idea and this general line of products are going to be increasingly more important as our portability increases. What do you all think about a device that could charge anything, maybe using a 12V lead-acid battery like used in UPS power supplies. I think they are 7 Amp-hour. This would be enough to charge a laptop, maybe an ipod, cellphone, etc. Actually though I’m looking at moving everything over to a treo handheld and a powerbook for my portability. So maybe I’ll make something like this for the treo, probably use the national switching regulator though. Any one built a battery system for a powerbook?

Posted at 2:57 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by scott

Thanks. This is hot!

Posted at 3:18 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by Jay Z

A few thoughts in no particular order:

I have a Treo 600, as do several people at my company. It can usually go a full workday of HEAVY use before in danger of needing a recharge. Not sure of the ROI on making an external battery for it, unless you plan to do continuous shoutcase streaming or something.

Lead-acid batteries are HEAVY (ref: the “Lead” portion of their name ;) ). Yes, it’s easy enough to take an alarm battery and use it in this manner, but a 6V cell with a similar AH rating would be ~ 1/2 the weight. That coupled with a low-voltage regulator would be a tad more portable.

Even better might be to look into the “Batcap” line of car audio capacitors. These are like hybrid batteries that can charge faster than a normal battery (more like the almost-instant charging of a traditional cap), but they also seem to hold that charge longer. The idea would be to make a power charging “rig” that when you are near power (AC or 12DC) your portable devices and the batcap all charge, then later you can switch to using the batcap, or other battery, to recharge the portable devices.

I have found that it’s usually not too hard to find an outlet, though. I don’t *personally* think it’s neccessary to carry around a bulk supplemental battery, but I am sure everyones needs are different.

Does the powerbook have removable batteries? Unles you ABSOLUTELY need the continues runtime it would be much easier to just carry a spare battery, this has been my solution with Thinkpads for years…

Posted at 3:32 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by brk

if i were to use this with a rechargeable battery ho do i charge the battery ? do i just send current to it or doe’s it need a charing circuit ?

Posted at 3:33 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by sebastien

if i were to use this with a rechargeable battery ho do i charge the battery ? do i just send current to it or doe’s it need a charing circuit ?

Posted at 3:36 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by sebastien

#3: For some reason you think only people who have been doing projects like this for a long time should be able to do them. How did YOU learn?

Posted at 4:08 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by Plato

First, you would need an exteral recharger Sebastien.

Second scott, noone wants to void their warrenty, or if they lack a warrenty, why risk the powerbook?

Wouldn’t there be a way to halve the 9 volts into a 4.5v charge with twice the wattage going thru the system? Then instead of needing a voltage dropper, and wasting the battery, you just get a small dc-dc stepper to up the 4.5v to 5.0. It would take a little bit of soldering, but it would make charge time double (I think) while not wasting battery power. Or you can just use 3 aa batteries with the stepper, or 4 with the 7805, as 50mw loss isnt that bad.

Anyway, israel torres gave me an idea. A portable, cable-less usb hub power supply for when you need that extra boost to power 4~8 usb flash disks….

Posted at 6:16 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by CDE

I assume by ‘#3′ you mean post 3, well that’d be me. Well something as simple as checking the voltage of a circuit I learned in first year in secondary school a long time ago. I’d assume that something similar has been taught throughout most other education systems.

Posted at 7:06 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by Ryan

As a previous poster indicated, the 7805 will dump the excess voltage as heat.

However, a 7805 is damned cheap and readily available. If you are going to use one, go with 4 AA batteries. That will produce 6 volts, waste less energy as heat and likely provide more run time per battery set anyway.

Posted at 8:07 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by bbum

Ryan
You would be wrong. Most US schools (On the east coast) only have vocational classes like electronics in high school, while some might in middle school, but both are electives that the student would need to want to take.

Posted at 9:39 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by CDE

Referring to post #14 (Ryan): They don’t teach that sort of thing in high school right now as far as I know. There may be some of that multimeter stuff in a few of the voc ed classes, but I’ve been too busy with science, math and English classes to take any sadly. Even if they did, it would only be in maybe one class period of construction trades in our tiny school (note that my high school is really small). Still… I guess high school just isn’t what it used to be. Ironically perhaps, everybody blames “no child left behind”. :)

Posted at 11:40 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by Joshua Holbrook

i love the case ! don’t know why i never thought
of it, seems like i learn something from every
post ! soon i will be able to take over the
world !
well after i make boxes for my ir remote blinds,
voice activated toilet flusher and usb thumb print fridge lock :-)

Posted at 11:41 pm on Jan 28th, 2005 by dan

Very cool project!

I don’t know if it’s worth taking the hit as far as increasing the size of the unit, but it strikes me that it would be very cool to have a rechargeable battery that is maintained automatically while the pack is plugged in to a USB outlet.
That way you also have an excuse for a data pass through as well, so you wouldn’t lose a USB outlet and the battery pack is always ready to go.
One could maintain multiple batteries in an inline arrangement that way too.
One could also leave multiple packs connected for increased running time.

Posted at 2:53 am on Jan 29th, 2005 by strider_mt2k

in response to posts #14 and 17

you could employ a simple voltage divider circuit with two resistors of equal value, though they’re going to be a constant drain on the battery when not in use. By splitting the 9v in half this way, you could have 2 USB output terminals, but not one with twice the potential power output. You may want to parallel 2 9v cells in that case though.

Posted at 4:25 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by sauceruney

13#
i agree with that, im a student and Most of the How 2 sites and Hax sites use language that is much too advanced for the avarge reader. this article was writen well and explained ALL THE NECCORY DETAIL. Good article gys i will be bulding my own when i can get stuff

Posted at 5:36 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by PizzaBoy

i’d assume that if you got the pinout one could do the exact same think for firewire charged objects? (i.e. regular ipod)

Posted at 8:09 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by chuck

ah, I’m retarded and didn’t read the comments.

Posted at 8:11 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by chuck

#22
Most how to sites don’t use advance language, just relative to the project. If you cant understand how something is built, go learn about it first.

Also, most of the stuff on here arn’t hacks per-say, they are mods. Hacks require code….

Posted at 8:37 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by CDE

check out this site for some info on the lm-78xx series voltage regulators.
http://www.southwest.com.au/~jfuller/electronics/regulators.htm
one thing i found interesting was the addition of a diode to protect the regulator from reverse polarity.

Posted at 10:36 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by Carl winslow

i always thought of a hack as making something do something that it was not intended to do.
hardware or software. we need a forum to help
each other out because its to hard to check on old posts.

Posted at 10:45 pm on Jan 29th, 2005 by dan

Has anyone tested this with an iPod Shuffle yet? I’d like to hear about charge times and the like if anyone has.

Posted at 12:30 pm on Jan 30th, 2005 by Brock

Someone on the other usb-battery pack has mentioned that the shuffle and the ipods (mini included) might include a dc-dc stepper. Though I rather go with the standards for the connections, this would be useful in creating more simplified circuits.

Also, #29, the charge times at the same volts and amps for the shuffle as the regular computer connection would lead to the same charge time. So 5volts at 1amp usb or battery pack would equal the same charge time.

And Dan, Hack would mean more to completely change something to do what you need. Mod(ification) would be to slightly change something. Most stuff here are mods. Or inventions, as most stuff like this usb-battery would be made from scratch, yet designed to be like something else. Which, if I might add, is the best among the three.

Posted at 12:26 pm on Jan 31st, 2005 by CDE

I performed this hack and it works fine with my dell dj, first gen. Pretty easy, it was my first time using a soldering iron.

Posted at 9:51 pm on Feb 1st, 2005 by Jake Fisher

Awesome Hack, an add-on that I’d like to see would be a recharging circut, so you could use a rechargable battery and recharge the whole unit through usb from your computer.

Posted at 1:10 am on Feb 2nd, 2005 by Richard

A sweet addon would be to add more than one port, take a USB Huib and add it to that..

Posted at 6:05 am on Feb 4th, 2005 by Matt

#22
A resistive divider makes a very poor voltage regulator unless you have a constant and known load. Basically the device being charged has to be considered as a resistor parallel with one of the resistors in the divider. In the case of a charger I would say a constant load is the next best thing to impossible , as the device charges the current draw will decrease and the resistance of the charging device will increase.

A linear regulator as used here is the simplest most bulletproof solution. A switching regulator as several have mentioned adds complexity but should waste less power.

FYI:
V=IR P=IV
V=Voltage(volts), I=Current(amps), R=Resistance(ohms), and P=Power(watts).

Posted at 1:45 pm on Feb 4th, 2005 by david

going to try this, i can pick up the regulator for $1.20 AUD and the other stuff cheaply, now lets hope the shuffle does not come with an added security measure, eg does not charge unless signaled by the pc its connected thing.

Posted at 6:17 am on Feb 6th, 2005 by whatsup_will

I would like to see a pic of the inside im a little confused on where stuff goes. and can you use 2 AA bateries

Posted at 11:06 am on Feb 6th, 2005 by Ammoron

I was wondering something with this project. Apple, as an accessory to the iPod Shuffle sells a 120V – USB adapter to charge the internal battery. What if you used a female-male converter and a rechargable 9V? Could you charge your home-made adapter without ever having to remove the battery?

Posted at 3:35 pm on Feb 6th, 2005 by nathan

Hi,

I built the LM7805 version, which works, but gets red hot when charging my Sonyericsson phone.

I’m thinking of making the switched regulator version so that I don’t need a heatsink.

What regulator could anyone recommend?

Posted at 6:01 pm on Feb 6th, 2005 by Ro

37. Post
if u are going to put the charger into a box, have u tried using a tin box and connecting the regulator to the tin box with a screw and thermal grease? also add a diode that stop current going the wrong way, might help u not fry the regulator if the terminals on the battery touch the wrong way.

Posted at 4:47 am on Feb 7th, 2005 by whatsup_will

btw post 37, u know that this chip, if something bad happens it turns it self off, unless u wire it up in the wrong direction, then it fries itself.

Posted at 5:00 am on Feb 7th, 2005 by whatsup_will

#35, No, it does not require a signal from the computer. No iPod does. No anything that I’ve heard of does.

Posted at 5:03 pm on Feb 7th, 2005 by CDE

has anyone used this with an iPod? if so, what type of results are you seeing concerning the 9V battery life? are you using it to charge the iPod? if so, how much long will the 9V charge the iPod?

Posted at 4:51 pm on Feb 9th, 2005 by chris

#41 its kind of weried the results i am getting with the shuffle. it seems that when i plug it into the 9v charger the green light blinks, saying its has power. the battery status light, lights up but does not blink,

but when i put it in the pc, nothing happens until windows picks up that a device is plugged in,

strange.

Posted at 6:12 am on Feb 10th, 2005 by whatsup_will

When plugged into my Mac, it lights right away. Try plugging the shuffle into a power usb hub, or an unpowered one and see what it does.

Posted at 4:57 pm on Feb 10th, 2005 by CDE

i got a ps2 slim, when pluged into that it instantly goes into do not pull out mode, eg amber flash. i do not have an u powered usb drive or hub, i do have 8usb ports on my motherboard.

Posted at 5:18 pm on Feb 10th, 2005 by whatsup_will

I created one for the iPod Shuffle. There’s only one little trick involved that isn’t mentioned in this article. So far it’s doing a fine job charging the little shuffle. I’m quite pleased. Check out my box: http://jeffmcfadden.com/tech/shuffleCharger/

Posted at 4:58 pm on Feb 12th, 2005 by Jeff

thanks that does the trick :) btw have u ever check how hot the regulator gets?

also u should add a switch so that u can turn the charge on and off, eg have it has a external battery or just a charger.

Posted at 10:52 pm on Feb 12th, 2005 by whatsup_will

is the 5 volts being sent out enough to run a zen micro??? if not then would i use two 9v batteries or wat?

Posted at 8:08 pm on Feb 13th, 2005 by joseph

#46, I’ve drawn up a plan using your circuit in an ALTOIDS tin. Using a USB female connector, I jumpered pins 2, 3 and 4 together (to run only 1 wire, instead of the 3 in your circuit). All other wiring is the same. The ALTOIDS tin will act as a heat sink for the LM7805. By the way, the little hinge is optional. My plan is at:
http://hb.quik.com/~sueh2/iPodShuffleCharger.png

Posted at 4:44 pm on Feb 14th, 2005 by peteh

Has anyone tired this with a 12V solution? What size batteries did you use to get above 12V for the lm7812 and would it be possible to take a 9V battery and use a dc/dc converter to go from 9V to 12V? (i bought firewire connectors and don’t feel like buynig USB ports to get the 5v, and I would like to use a regulator and not just hook up a 9V battery to my 4G ipod)

Posted at 11:25 am on Feb 15th, 2005 by eric

I’ve read in various places lately that a “switched” voltage regulator doesn’t convert the excess voltage to heat. Can anyone confirm this? And if so, point to a product that can be purchased somewhere? I’ve had a hard time finding one for sure online.

The reason I like this idea better than 4AA is that the 9v has a much nicer form factor for a compact case.

Posted at 1:22 pm on Feb 15th, 2005 by Jeff

Has anyone tried this with a 12V lm7812? Was it two 9V in series to get 18V for the input?

What about a dc/dc converter that would go from 9V up to 12V

I am asking because I have firewire ports and I want to use them, and the firewire spec says 7-24 V and I want to stick to 12V like the 4G ipod likes.

Posted at 3:12 pm on Feb 15th, 2005 by eric

I made my charger and made a tin out of mechano for it then i got my suffle, plugged it in and didn’t seem to do any thing, no you NEED to earth the other pins on the usb like in the users posts above or did i just screw up?

Posted at 6:11 am on Feb 16th, 2005 by Andrew Stewart

#52

the way i would do it, is to get 2 9v batterys hooked up in series, put in a 1N4004 diode to stop reverse current on the negative side of the 9v series, and hook it up to a firewire port.

Posted at 6:32 am on Feb 16th, 2005 by whatsup_will

Does anyone know of a site supplying the female USB connectors?

Posted at 3:23 pm on Feb 17th, 2005 by Rmz

i figured out where to find female usb adapters. there are a lot of those little ps2-to-usb connectors floating around because most pc vendors include them along with their usb keyboards. nobody uses them and your office tech support person probably has a drawer full of them.

they are all encased in plastic, so it’s a bit of a chore removing the usb connector… but they are free and in good supply.

Posted at 3:29 pm on Feb 17th, 2005 by jason striegel

I have a 3G Ipod so this will not work cause it doesn’t charge by USB. Do you think if I attached a firewire socket to it instead of a usb socket it would work?

Posted at 4:22 pm on Feb 17th, 2005 by Bob

All someone has to build now is a box that charges, and can be charged as well.
It could have an input on 1 side and an out put on the other, with a rechargeable 9v battery in the middle. That would be cool… then you would never have to replace the battery and could seal the unit to stop any of the wiring getting damaged.

Anyone brave enough to try it?

Posted at 3:50 pm on Feb 18th, 2005 by Bob

good idea, building my own but I sugest using a bigger box and placing two batterys inside for more power and longer life. Also if anyone knows were to get female usb jacks(a type) in Canada cheap, then please email me at peterdudasca@yahoo.ca

thank you for your help
Peter

Posted at 6:33 pm on Feb 19th, 2005 by Peter

Just built my own. A really entertaining project. For mine I used an Altoids tin for the box, same as the firewire battery pack. I made a small modification. I used two 9v batteries, the first directly connected to the 7805 for 5v USB output, then I connected that 9v in series with another and used that as input into a 7812 for 12v Firewire output. Both ports work great, and I connected the voltage regulators to the outside of the tin for heat dissipation. If anyone would like to see some pictures, let me know, I’ll email to you.

reeselloyd (at) hotmail.com

Posted at 12:16 am on Feb 20th, 2005 by reese

G’Day !!!

My hearty congrats for thinking out a marvellous project and presenting it so very very well.

Anyone could make this, thanks to your easy to follow instructions.

It is a pleasure to see the human mind in action and it just goes to show that in the year 2005, not everything has been invented.

Thanks for an intriguing read and for sharing it with myself and others!

I have bookmarked your site and it now occupies a place on my link bar too !

More projects please !!!

http://www.cyg.net.au/

Posted at 7:02 am on Feb 20th, 2005 by david

i made the charger and housed it in an Altoids tin. I added a switch and an LED so I know when it’s on, works great! the tin acts as a heat sink so it doesn’t get too warm.

My friends think it’s pretty cool, so I’ve ordered parts to make 10 more and those that I don’t give away I’m putting up on ebay.
I’ve got one up now:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5753357865&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Posted at 7:58 am on Feb 20th, 2005 by less

Whats that white board that he hooked it up to at first called?

Posted at 3:48 am on Feb 21st, 2005 by keith

hi keith. they’re called breadboards. they basically just let you easily connect components together without having to solder them. it’s a nice way to test and experiment with a ciruit before spending all the time soldering it together.

you can pick one at a radio shack or just about any electronics store that sells that sort of stuff.

Posted at 4:39 am on Feb 21st, 2005 by jason striegel

Wow that ebay auction sold quickly! I bet you could make a killing if you did not put a buy it now thing up! I will hopefully be getting a free Shuffle from Gratis, I only need one more referal, so I am off to go ahead and buy my supplies! thanks

http://www.auburn.edu/~mayhewb

Posted at 6:08 pm on Feb 21st, 2005 by Butch Mayhew

re 43, USB power is switchable.

Try plugging the shuffle into a powered hub, with its upstream disconnected: the shuffle won’t start to charge until the upstream is connected to a USB host. Many hubs will indicate this by changing the status LED in some way.

Similarly, you can power-cycle attached USB devices by resetting the USB controller; in linux you can do this by rmmodding the USB modules.

That the power doesn’t come on unless it’s connected to a computer was an issue when testing my USB christmas tree – there’s no real way to see if your USB device will work without damaging the computer unless you connect it to a computer. I suggest using a cheap computer.

Posted at 8:27 am on Feb 22nd, 2005 by lj

I’ll be putting another charger up as soon as my supplies come in, I’m going to try them a few way- with and with out buy it now. I was surprised at how quickly it sold. esp. since the additions were pretty darn simple.

Posted at 5:19 pm on Feb 22nd, 2005 by less

Is it possible to use 3 or 4 AA battery’s instead of one 9V battery? I’ve got a bunch of AA-size 2000 mAh rechargeable batteries :)

Posted at 2:29 pm on Feb 26th, 2005 by Ferdy

I found USB female connectors on Mouser.com for $0.35 each. they are part number 154-2742 all I could find were right angle connectors, whatever they worked! It took a week to get them and the rest of my parts for the 10 chargers I made for ebay.

Making one of these was easy but it was 2nd nature by the time I got to number 10.

I’m thinking of setting my roommates into slave labor and manufacturing these in our kitchen!

Posted at 6:16 am on Feb 28th, 2005 by less

a number of people have commented on the fact that to charge the shuffle you have to tie the other pins to ground, but I was wondering if this affects the charging of the 4g ipod. Anyone know about the charging pinout of the 4G with usb?

Posted at 1:30 am on Mar 4th, 2005 by eric

re #70

I don’t think its possible to the big ipod through usb.

re #68 and others,
It should be possible to use any supply that provides 5v or more. so 3 * 1.5v in series wont work (4.5v) but 4 * 1.5v should (6v)

Posted at 9:26 am on Mar 5th, 2005 by Richard

I just made one of these (I put it in an altoids tin also) and it works wonderfully with my iPod. What is the best way to hook up 2 more 9v batteries? Series? I need to keep the stuff in the tin in place anyways, these batteries will keep it nice and solid.

Posted at 1:07 pm on Mar 6th, 2005 by Infamous

I bought an iPod Shuffle, which due to a design flaw by Apple doesn’t work terribly well with certain Macs–namely the USB plug is too short to fit into the high-powered USB port and get charged up (luckily you can sync your music on the low-powered port, but the battery slowly dies). Now you could go out and buy a USB extender, but that’s lame and dull, especially if you already have another iPod that comes with a handy wall-charger.

But that charger outputs to Firewire, not USB. So here’s the question– could I solder up a cable that would be Firewire male on one end, and USB female on the other for the express purpose of charging up my shuffle? Pin 1 to Pin 1 for power, and Pin 2 to Pin 4 for ground? It’d be great while on vacation in areas where you don’t have access to USB ports, and you haven’t got around to making a battery-powered USB box…

Posted at 3:13 pm on Mar 7th, 2005 by Kevin

73: Yes you can. All usb and firewire cables do is conduct electricity. By simply splicing the two together, you can make it work. Just splice it right with no shorts though. But if you do, I be happy to take your dead iPod for you…

Posted at 5:23 pm on Mar 7th, 2005 by CDE

if you are still looking for a powerbook battery pack here is a homemade one:

http://www.macfreak4.homeunix.com/projects/ibookpwr/index.html

Posted at 9:50 pm on Mar 7th, 2005 by markus

I finally did one of this usb battery. its great and its working perfect.

im thinking about using 4AA instead the 9v battery.

Posted at 7:42 am on Mar 8th, 2005 by PC

This was an awesome project. with regards to post #8, anyone ideas on connecting the “National Semi switching regulator” to double battery lifetime and gettin rid of excess heat? is this part larger? and how much more would this part cost?

My shuffle is definately happy :)

Posted at 5:37 pm on Mar 8th, 2005 by Friendly Fire

I just made one with four AA’s. Works NICE! I would definatly reccommend making one. I have a nice case that I made a sliding door with for the usb port. The only problem about the AA’s is size and that isn’t really too big an issue, what I have is about as big as a 20 gb iPod. I havn’t tested battery life but I will tommorow and get back to you guys Thursday.

Posted at 10:34 pm on Mar 8th, 2005 by TheBlueFuzzy

Posted at 10:35 pm on Mar 8th, 2005 by TheBlueFuzzy

Posted at 10:36 pm on Mar 8th, 2005 by TheBlueFuzzy

Sorry about the triple post. Correction to my last post, I just killed my iPod mini with it. I think its cause i used up my iPod battery all the way so it had to be booted by the usb battery… The apple symbol flashed a little and then it showed the low battery sign. Gotta love warranties.

Posted at 5:40 pm on Mar 9th, 2005 by The blue fuzzy

i have a sprint sanyo 8100 phone and i would like to make a usb batt for it. my question is… can i make the same above mentioned batt. except use a MALE usb end to connect to my phone’s female end?

Posted at 6:13 pm on Mar 9th, 2005 by rick

Can i use this same setup but with a different type of connection, other than usb? i have a sanyo 8100 sprint phone that has two different type of connections, one is a regular ac/dc jack for the wall like in cd players, and the other one looks like a usb but might not be. need help please, new to this.

Posted at 11:30 pm on Mar 9th, 2005 by rick

I did this same thing with the end of a DS/GBA:SP charger and velcroed it to the back of my ds (its in an altoids tin) and it works like a charm.

Posted at 7:12 am on Mar 10th, 2005 by Brage

Just built the box and it works well. But it doesn’t seem to charge a 40 gig iPod photo through a usb dock cable. The iPod charges when the usb dock cable is connected to my computer, however.
Has anyone else tried a big iPod with their usb altoid box? Does it charge?

Posted at 10:10 pm on Mar 10th, 2005 by Steve

so can you play music on the shuffle while using the charger? somehow i don’t think you can (probably has to do with the two data lines that are tied low, i’ll have to read the USB spec to verify). apple’s battery pack allows you to play music while using external power. i think it might have to do with special signals, probably on the extra USB pins on the shuffle (http://www.chipmunk.nl/ipod/ipodshuffle-2.html).

if you can’t play music, why not cut the battery out and simply connect a USB connector to a 5V DC adapter. it’ll serve as a nice travel charger. no need for replacing batteries, finding enclosures, or soldering. i’m gonna try to build one soon.

Posted at 10:31 pm on Mar 14th, 2005 by zhz

Why even bother with the USB? You could just solder the connector to your phone to the terminals of the circuit you made.

Posted at 2:12 pm on Mar 15th, 2005 by josh

1) can this provide a strong enough current to charge the ipod mini (2nd gen)? also, how long can a 9v battery charge it for?

2) im interested in making a circuit that could charge a rechargeable 9v through usb when connected to a computer. is that possible?

Posted at 8:53 pm on Mar 15th, 2005 by vinn

86: I believe the extra 5 pins on the usb might be for programming the onboard chips post-production, i.e. add the bootloader/firmware after constrution of the shuffle since it might be easier, faster, and alot cheaper. It would have nothing to do with the normal operation as standard usb only have the 5 pins (v+, V-, d1, d2, shield).

Someone needs to buy a charger and crack it open then report back.

Posted at 3:45 am on Mar 16th, 2005 by CDE

could i use this cable http://www.frontx.com/cpx506.html to connect between ipod mini firewire port and the LM7805?

benbakelaar (at) gmail.com

Posted at 10:21 am on Mar 16th, 2005 by ben bakelaar

could i use this cable http://www.frontx.com/cpx506.html to connect between ipod mini firewire port and the LM7805?

benbakelaar (at) gmail.com

Posted at 11:33 am on Mar 16th, 2005 by ben bakelaar

can you just hook one end of a usb/firewire cable directly to the regulator, and do away with the connector?

Posted at 11:34 am on Mar 16th, 2005 by ben bakelaar

well i answered my own questions :) i’m definitely interested in the rechargeable idea but haven’t found anything small enough yet.

Posted at 3:13 pm on Mar 16th, 2005 by ben bakelaar

So can you use that cable that you linked? Seems like a good thing to use if it works…

Posted at 6:03 pm on Mar 16th, 2005 by mulcbone

So can you use that cable that you linked? Seems like a good thing to use if it works…

Posted at 6:03 pm on Mar 16th, 2005 by mulcbone

altoids tin =). its what i put mine in

Posted at 7:37 pm on Mar 16th, 2005 by vinn

mulcbone, yes you can use that cable, overclockers.net has a nice 1394 2×5 pin diagram. however for my purposes (to create a battery for ipod mini) i need to actually have a female 1394 connector attached to the battery…

Posted at 11:25 pm on Mar 16th, 2005 by ben bakelaar

Seems nice :) Will try this as soon as my new Ipaq arrives (somewhere next week).
Two questions though:

*while reading throught the datasheet of the 7805, on page 21, figure 8 “fixed output regulator”, there are two capacitors used in addition to the ic. Are those useful for this purpose? I’ll be adding the diode anyway so would be just a little extra work…

*I’ve got a Sony-Ericcson cellphone which runs at 3.6V, would there be a way of using a 9V battery to get 3.6V? Adding a resistor perhaps? Or would a DC/DC stepper be something that works? Are those expensive? I’m quite starting at electronics, but it should be possible,right?

Posted at 4:54 am on Mar 18th, 2005 by Fox Davis

I’ve made an improved version with a switching voltage regulator and a output indicating LED. All testing were done on a Palm Tungsten E. These are the parts I’ve used.

- 78SR105VC
Fully integrated switching voltage regulator from texas instruments / power trend. By far the most expensive component (US$18). There are other cheaper options (search the national website), but they tend to be much larger or requires external components.

- 1A Schottky diode
This is connected on the input to protect the voltage regulator from reverse current. It won’t tolerate a very high reverse voltage, but with a low voltage drop it should allow slightly more power to be squeezed out of your battery.

- 1uF multilayer ceramic capacitor
I put one each on the input and output of the regulator to reduce the noise. Not sure if I really need it, especially on the input, but it’s cheap and small so why not?

- 4V Blue LED and 2V Zener diode
This is the tricky bit. As the current required by the LED is pretty low, you can connect these two across the 5V output and still get enough current to light the LED. Voltage drop is around 1.7V across the zener, and 3.3V across the LED. When the battery gets flat, the voltage output will start to drop, and the LED will shut off around 4.5V on the output, letting you know it’s time to change a battery.

If you are just using a resistor and an LED, this will not work. The output voltage will have to drop much more before the LED turns off. Your equipment will likely stop drawing current well before that, greatly slowing the rate of voltage drop. It’ll probably be hours from the time your equipment stop charging to the time the LED turns off.

Note that due to the low current, you’ll be working well within the non-linear region of the diodes. It can be quite hard to determine the right combination of LED and zener, and was pretty much trial and error for me.

Posted at 10:50 pm on Mar 18th, 2005 by Cort

Thanks ben bakelaar. Cort, your project seems interesting as well…could you link a pic or schematic?

Posted at 1:52 pm on Mar 19th, 2005 by mulcbone

Silly question – Most of these projects are focused on ‘charging’ ….(i.e. plugging into a portable device that already has a rechargable battery inside it – what about simply fashioning a custom rechargeable (lithium ion?) battery pack for a device ….(to make it truly portable)? like for this recent item (Aivx) -
http://www.cooldrives.com/aidimi2usbdr.html

Posted at 3:15 pm on Mar 19th, 2005 by Marc

Posted at 3:16 pm on Mar 19th, 2005 by Marc

Schematics for the design mentioned in 99. http://web.singnet.com.sg/~cortwee/hardware/usb_battery.html

Posted at 12:51 am on Mar 20th, 2005 by Cort

i bought the 7805 now where can i get usb/firewire conector

Posted at 3:54 am on Mar 20th, 2005 by mike-n-go

Don’t know if anyone is still reading this thread, but I just build one of these.

I used 4x AA batteries. I plugged in a cheapo MP3 player to test it out. I got about ten minutes of battery life. The multimeter revealed why. Before I plugged in the player, the input voltage from the batteries was 5.9V and the output was 5.03v . After ten minutes, the input voltage was 5.06v and the output voltage was 4.2v . And the voltage regulator was quite warm.

I wanted to try this with a 9V cell to compare, but I didn’t have any new 9v’s lying around. But I suspect the reason for the fast drain is the high amperage of the batteries, and the inefficiency of the linear regulators, and that the batteries are only 1V above the output of the regulator, and the regulator need quite a bit more than 5v to be able to output 5v (6v is enough, but 5.5v probably isn’t. 5.06v definately isn’t)

One other thing, the regulator I used was a 7805CT, if that makes any difference. (which I doubt )

Posted at 5:46 am on Mar 20th, 2005 by Richard

response to post 105:
4xAA gives about 6V. The 7805 requires 2 volts of “drop-out” to create 5V. In other words, you need at least a 7V input for the 7805 to reliable output 5V. If the input is less than 7V, it may or may not work. also when you attach a “load” to the battery, the battery output voltage will appear to drop slight due to the internal battery resistance.

response to post 99 & 103:
i was thinking of using the MAX1675 step-up DC-DC (http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/1878). It will operate on as little as 0.7V input and is very efficient (up to 94%). that means it will work with a single AAA (as in very light charger). it is also very cheap (~$2). the only problem is that it is surface mount, so it’s hard to work with. the 78SR105 solution looks interesting though. it is no longer recommend by ti though. they suggest the PT78ST105 .

btw, i am an electrical engineer working on a battery powered device at work, so i know a little about this stuff.

Posted at 4:08 pm on Mar 20th, 2005 by zhz

i used the lm7805 and put it together just like the artical said, bought a brand new 9v and when i pluged it into my 20g ipod all it does is make the screen lite up and the charging thing dosent move, some times right after i unplug it the batter life meter on the ipod drops? Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted at 8:10 pm on Mar 20th, 2005 by shane

In response to post 106.
That seems like a great idea. The 9V nimh I’m using now have very poor power density. A couple of AAA or AA should be around the same size and pack much more power. Any idea on how to wire up the MAX1675? Not only is it surface mount, it’s really tiny as well.

As for the PT78ST105, it’s not suitable as it requires a minimum 9V input. May not work properly with a 9V battery.

Posted at 11:48 pm on Mar 20th, 2005 by Cort

re 107, I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think the big ipod can be charged through USB. You’ll need to build one that outputs 12V and connects through firewire.

See this hack:
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/3745397085341619/
http://www.drewperry.co.uk/iPod/index.php?page=batterypack

Posted at 8:52 am on Mar 21st, 2005 by Richard

I used a USB to PS/2 Converter as the Converter has a female USB.

When I try to charge my ipaq, it makes the backlight come on and shows charging, but the battery continues to drain, no matter what I turn off. Doesn’t seem to be charging. Am I missing something? Connected to 1 and 4 on the usb and getting 5v out.

Posted at 12:11 pm on Mar 21st, 2005 by Kingzter

#109 or whoever that could answer this..
does that mean that i cant make a USB version (instead of firewire)that outputs 12v to use wiff my 3G iPod?
tanx in advance.

Posted at 9:59 am on Mar 23rd, 2005 by ed

I made a USB battery for my Ipod shuffle but when I checked the volts I got around 10 or so, any idea what I did wrong? It looks like I put the wires in the right place, I used the website in post 109.

Posted at 11:55 am on Mar 24th, 2005 by ipod shuffle

#111:

If your Ipod has USB imput, then sure you could. you’d just need a different solution for batteries thats all….
two 9V might work if you stepped the voltage down, and you’d have a pretty fair amount of battery life with these too.

Or you could use 8 AA or AAA’s to get 12V

Posted at 5:05 pm on Mar 24th, 2005 by FRS

RE #113 and #111

The ipod (3g i’m sure about, probably also applies to 4g) are not designed to charge AT ALL through the USB port. I don’t think it is very likely, but it is possible that the ipod completely ignores all power coming through the USB.

Based on my (very limited) knowledge of the way these things are designed, I think that it is VERY LIKELY that the USB controller inside the ipod pulls power from the USB port. In which case, connecting it to a USB that outputs 12v wuold almost certainly kill the USB controller and probably the entire ipod

Does your ipod come with a wall plug? If so, you could sevre that half way, solder a barrel plug onto the power adapter end, and a barrel socket onto the ipod end. And make a battery pack that produces 12v and has a barrel plug for power output. Just make sure you use the same polarity on all three (positive center is usually used)

SO: If you fry your ipod by connecting it to 12v through the usb, it’s your own fault. I think that its a very stupid thing to do.

Posted at 12:13 am on Mar 25th, 2005 by Richard

#114
tanx for the reply. You’ve enlightened me (and prolly saved me from frying my ipod). Think i’ll scrounge around and find a firewire port and build something like the ipod altoid batt pack.

Posted at 4:57 am on Mar 25th, 2005 by ed

#115
My recomendation: if you can’t find a store that sells firewrite connecters, find and buy a firewire card for your pc that includes an internal firewire port, like this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3666&item=5178936708&rd=1

As if you’re ever going to open up your PC just to plug in a firewire device. So use some desoldering braid to de-solder the internal firewire port. If you do it properly (don’t short anything on the card AND don’t desolder anything else) you should atill be able to use the card.

(Here in Australia, I couldn’t find a store that sold USB sockets. So I had to vandalize a USB extension cord to make my USB battery.)

On another note, I now have an ipod shuffle, but its the 1GB version and i don’t want to take the risk of plugging it into my USB battery. Aside from the AU$230 I have to scrounge up to replace it, it is very hard to find a store that has them in stock. For anyone else in Brisbane, Australia, Infinite Systems ( http://infinitesystems.com.au ) had stock last Wednesday, but I doubt they still do.

So, at least for now, my usb battery will not be tested with my shuffle. I might buy that external battery pack that apple sells.

Posted at 4:12 am on Mar 26th, 2005 by Richard

Is there a way to make a usb-to-wall adapter?

The new iPod minis(which I have), and maybe the shuffles, dont come with them.

Posted at 11:03 pm on Mar 26th, 2005 by steve7515

hey would this work on my new dell axim x50

Posted at 2:59 am on Mar 27th, 2005 by andrew evans

Hi Ive built a usb charger and attached LED. For some reason the voltage drops too low to charge the phone can someone pls help. And can anyone tell me where I can get some parts (usb) for this project

Posted at 10:58 pm on Mar 27th, 2005 by spence

#117
Buy a 5v power supply and wire it to a USB cable. You probably should not try to make your own power supply unless you know what you’re doing, as it can be dangerous. The power supply unit should be rated for at least 500mA.

#119
Did you connect the LED in series?

Posted at 9:47 am on Mar 28th, 2005 by Cort

#117 and #120
i fried the wall supply for my HPC a while back (it was purchased overseas and rated at 120v, and I plugged it into a 240v outlet)

Anyway, the output from the supply was 5v at 1 amp, and none of the electronics stores I visited sold 5v wall warts. I still used the thing for a couple more years, but only for solitaire (it was powered by two AA batteries)

anyway, moral of the story is, 5v supplies are imposible to get except with devices that use them. The best such device to try would probably be a USB hub.

Or you could attach a barrel socket to a circuit similar to the one in this article, and attach any old wall wart to that. It should be at least 7 volts, and more than 1 amp (I would suggest 1.5 amps)

Posted at 5:23 am on Mar 29th, 2005 by Richard

#119: what type of power supply are you using for this? I originally used 4 x AA, but found they didn’t supply enough voltage. A 9 volt battery is far more effective.

Posted at 5:26 am on Mar 29th, 2005 by Richard

any way to make this with a solar panel? just curious

Posted at 9:55 pm on Mar 30th, 2005 by Ryan

re #123
yes it is possible. solar cells produce about 4w, so you should be able to do it with one or two cells. However, I would recommend using at least 4.

You would have to wire them up the right way to get the right voltage and amperage. And personally, I would hook the cells up to a voltage regulator.

It won’t work (at all) unless the panels are directly facing the sun AND there is no cloud cover. So if you build one, you won’t be able to use it in the middle of a city. Or even on the outskirts. I’m guessing you want this for a long drive? You wouldn’t be able to generate enoguh power unless it was on the roof of the car AND aligned properly.

If you want this for a long car journey, buy a cigarette lighter plug, and connect that to your voltage regulator. Power the whole thing off the car’s battery. Because most cars have a generator to recharge the battery, you’ll be able to use it as long as there is petrol in the tank.

Posted at 10:13 am on Mar 31st, 2005 by Richard

I just ordered a sample PT78ST105 to make a usb car charger. I already have a dead usb keyboard with some female usb sockets and a cigarette lighter plug from a charge-it brick from woot.com. Can’t wait to try this out.

Here is TI’s page for the pt78st105
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/pt78st105.html

Posted at 7:10 pm on Mar 31st, 2005 by mrklaw

Belkin makes a cigarette lighter plug adapter for cars that has a USB port, and a red LED. It puts out 5.5V and one sticker said 700 mAh at input of 12 to 24V. I use it to charge my PDA. I tested it with 9V from 6 AAs on the input and it appears to put out 5.5V and charge my Sony PDA’s 3.7V Li Ion battery through its USB cable. You can pull out the ciruit board and put it in a box, or make a box with a cig lighter port for this to plug into. They have a PCB with a switching chip and several diodes, resisters and caps. I have found these for $1 at the 99 Cents store (packaged with cellphone and PDA USB cables) and for $1 at an electronics swap meet.

Posted at 12:53 am on Apr 2nd, 2005 by Steve Michael

#120, #122 thanks for the suggestions I was able to get the LED working once I connected it in series. However, I added a 10A 125 VDC spst switch and for some reason the battery get very hot can anyone pls help with some specific directions

Posted at 10:54 am on Apr 2nd, 2005 by captv

#126
What I meant was that you should check to ensure your led is not connected in series. If you connect the led in series, there will be a voltage drop, and your phone will not get the full 5v. The led should be connected in parrallel with a resistor to limit it’s current, and the led and resistor together should be in parrallel to the 5v supply to your phone.

Depending on how much current your phone draws, it may be normal for your battery to run a little warm. But I think it’s more likely that something is shorted here. Check your wiring again.

Posted at 9:11 pm on Apr 2nd, 2005 by Cort

So how do we make this work with the PSP???

Posted at 6:00 pm on Apr 3rd, 2005 by Jetblac

129:

Well, you’d have to figure out on what voltage the PSP charges and get the appropriate adapter. If it was, say, 12 VDC, you could get 2 6v batteries hooked up to a diode (so the current doesn’t reverse!) then hooked up to an adapter that fits into the PSP’s charging socket. If it’s less/more than 12 VDC, add/remove batteries and add a voltage limiter if needed. I’d imagine that it’d charge rather slow, since the current isn’t too strong, but it should work.

Anyone know what voltage PSP’s charge on? I should make one of these for a friend with a PSP (heh, lucky fucking bastard)

Posted at 11:25 pm on Apr 3rd, 2005 by Infamous

Someone mentioned above that pins 2,3 and 4 need to be soldered together. I cannot figure out why this should be done, since pins 2 and 3 are data pins. Will the charger work if pins 2 and 3 are left bare (specifically on a 20g iPod)?

Posted at 2:29 am on Apr 5th, 2005 by alx

cool…wanna try it myelf…

Posted at 8:42 am on Apr 6th, 2005 by K3yz

*sigh*

AFAIK, only IPOD SHUFFLE can be charged through USB.

Any other IPOD requires a firewire or other charger. USB won’t charge it.

So #131, get yourself two 9v batteries, a lm7812 or similar, and a firewire port. Wire the 9v batteries up in series.

The reason pins 2,3,4 aparently need to be soldered together is because of the way the shuffle works. Some element of its design requires this. I’m not sure why. I’m not prepared to risk plugging my shuffle into my USB battery because I don’t want to fry it.

Posted at 10:20 am on Apr 7th, 2005 by Richard

Has anyone else noticed that hackaday converts all your comments to lowercase???

Posted at 10:23 am on Apr 7th, 2005 by Richard

The lowercase has to do with the css settings. Its come up in comment pages for a different hack.

Posted at 12:15 pm on Apr 10th, 2005 by Eric

I just purchased a pcmcia usb card in order to add usb ports to an old pre-usb notebook, and wouldn’t you know it, *the card needs a usb port to power it* (catch-22)! Geez.

So I went searching online for a way to power it with an external battery pack, and found your article. Can’t wait to try it. (I’ll have to canabalize an old USB/PS2 keyboard adaptor for the female usb recepticle because they are impossible to find.)

Keep up the good work.

Posted at 1:14 pm on Apr 10th, 2005 by Mugsy

i made one of these hoping to power my bus-powered 2.5 USB external Drive. the LED lights up, but the drive doesn’t start up.

then i tried it without the voltage regulator. using 4AA NiH batteries to get 4.8 volt. it starts up.

i was hoping to use the voltage regulator so i wouldn’t have to carry my charger with me

any ideas to get this setup to work with a bus-powered hard drive?

Posted at 9:06 pm on Apr 10th, 2005 by Cain

using USB/PS2 adapter… you don’t have to take it apart…just find the 5+ and ground on the PS2 and connect it to those 2 pins

Posted at 9:08 pm on Apr 10th, 2005 by Cain

#137

Do you have a multimeter? If so, measure the voltage and amperage WITH the voltage regulator, then measure the voltage and amperage WITHOUT the voltage regulatr. Let us know what the results are.

If its like most 2.5 inch HDDs, it will require 0.5A at 5v. It is possible that your voltage regulator is using too much power.

Posted at 5:19 am on Apr 11th, 2005 by Richard

#139

no i don’t have a multimeter

i’m trying to use the 9V setup since i tested the harddrive with a several configs.

i tried
3AA alkaline = 4.5V. (HD doesn’t start)
4AA alkaline = 6V w/ VR (doesn’t start)
4AA alkaline =6v [no] VR (doesn’t start)
6AA alkaline = 9V w/ VR (HD starts up)
4AA NiH = 4.8 (starts up)

so since the 6AA=9volt worked. I’m using a 9Volt battery since it takes up less space than 6 AA. since my current set up is like the one described here using a 9volt battery.
can someone measure the amp output?

Posted at 2:32 pm on Apr 11th, 2005 by Cain

hi cain,
the 7805 needs at least a 7 volt input to function correctly. this is why it works with 6 aa batteries but not with 4.

if you are using alkaline batteries, 9-12 volts on input is probably about right. as alkalines are used their voltage drops fairly steadily. as soon as it drops below 7 volts, the regulator will not function.

if you use nicad or nimh batteries, you may not need quite as much of a voltage head above 7 volts.. 7.2 is cutting it a bit close, but they do tend to hold their voltage more constant until they near the end of their charge (where it begins to drop rapidly).

the higher your input voltage, the more waste heat is produced by the 7805, so it’s a bit of a tradeoff between getting the most out of your batteries and using them most efficiently

good luck and let us know how it works out!

Posted at 3:04 pm on Apr 11th, 2005 by jason striegel

great portable battery. i hooked my own up and found that it works great for an ipod mini or iriver H3** great!

Posted at 2:35 pm on Apr 12th, 2005 by Ed Beck

great portable battery. i hooked my own up and found that it works great for an ipod mini or iriver H3** great!

Posted at 2:37 pm on Apr 12th, 2005 by Ed Beck

I own a 40 gig Ipod and I charge it every day thruoght the USB port. It is a fourth generation so maybee usb support is new. I built one of these and it doesnt seem to work right. I wired it correctly am getting 5.2 volts out but my Ipod doesnt take a charge from it. The backlight comes on when I unplug it. I havent tried shorting the data pins yet, will let you know if this works.

Posted at 10:57 pm on Apr 12th, 2005 by Rob

I tried it and she still no work. Ive double and triple checked every thing and it still dont work. So I thought maybee I fried the IC but It still puts out 5v. Is it possible for them to fail in a way that it puts out the proper voltage but thaen when current is drawn it goe son the fritz?

Posted at 11:27 pm on Apr 12th, 2005 by Rob

I’m crap at electronics! Can I buy one from someone?

Thanks again.

P.S. Great idea!

Posted at 5:24 am on Apr 17th, 2005 by Matt

Ok, I’m assuming the last few of the comments are frustrations with the author’s design, not another design mentioned in the comments. The USB spec, as most of you know, if not all of you, can handle up to 500 mA peak. If the voltage across the regulator is 5V, then there must exist a voltage drop between the regulator and the load (the device). Check for grounding problems. Make sure the soldered circuit is clean and make sure the solder job is clean, too. What’s best to do, if you haven’t done it already, is measure the voltage when the load and regulator are both connected. If you measure a voltage drop, then you know that there is a grounding problem. Check the wires and make sure there’s no damage to the insulation. That’s the key, insulation.

Posted at 9:12 pm on Apr 19th, 2005 by Jeff

Matt/#146 I’ll make one, but how much are you willing to spend >:)

Posted at 7:25 pm on Apr 20th, 2005 by cde

Nice! I’m not very experienced with electronics, so the simplicity of this project really worked for me. I used a multimeter correctly for probably the first time ever.

I meant to mount the assembly inside a small ferrara pan jaw busters box (the kind that costs 25 cents), but without a glue gun that was hopeless. Instead, I ripped the plastic handle off a spoon and mounted the stuff to that with some garden wire (to secure the 9V battery clip) and a lot of electrical tape. I call this “the gimp”:

http://www.extrafire.net/pictures/2005/april/IMG_2816.JPG

This project is especially useful for me because I used to work in A/V support, and we threw out 9 volt batteries (from the handheld mikes) like it was our job. For a couple months now, I’ve had a box containing 500 or 600 9V batteries just sitting in my living room, gathering dust. They’re going to power my palm Tungsten T3 now instead.

Posted at 12:54 am on Apr 21st, 2005 by nick

This is just for those who want to use this for a psp battery.

4 nimh rechargable batteries in series provide a peak voltage around 5.4 volts. during their power discharge curve, they tend to level out around 4.8 volts, and when they start to run out of juice (roughly less than 10%) their voltage starts to fall rapidly around 4.65 volts. Of course, these values will be different depending on the brand of battery.

The psp power supply I have outputs 5.4 volts, so the rechargable batteries should not overvoltage the psp, and using an adjustable power supply, the psp will continue to work (without the internal battery) until the voltage drops to about 4.65 volts.

So, now I am going to simply plug 4 batteries (nimh) to the psp power input. I figure it should work, and from my estimates, it should last as long a the standard internal battery. to keep currents low I plan to use this as a supliment to a fully charged psp internal battery.

On a side note: Usb specs state that a usb port will need to provide 5 volts within a range of 4.75 to 5.25. any usb device worth working with should be able to hande this range also, to it should give you some margin of freedom to play with. I hope this tidbit helps.

Posted at 7:23 pm on Apr 21st, 2005 by deenko

well, the above mod work great, i am now doing a test to see how long the batteries last.

Posted at 10:08 pm on Apr 21st, 2005 by deenko

Ok, it turns out i was mistaken in a few of my above posts.

I stated that only the ipod shuffle has the ability to charge from USB. According to the wikipedia article on ipods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod
the 4th gen big ipod and the 2nd gen mini also have support for usb charging

that said, DO NOT FEED ANYTHING MORE THAN 5V INTO YOUR IPOD. If you supply 12v (or anything about around 5v) you’ll almost certainly fry the thing.

Supplying 12V through the FIREWIRE port SHOULD be ok.

#140:
As for the external hard drives, its probably what #141 said. But personally i woudln’t connect anything to any of my precious USB devices (especially if I had a bus-powered external HDD) unless it had been through a voltage regulator first.

Posted at 7:50 am on Apr 22nd, 2005 by richard

Well 152 is right, but USB devices should handle a max of 5.25v without problems.

Posted at 3:44 am on Apr 23rd, 2005 by CDE

I was wondering if someone could make a diagram for 4 ni-hm batteries in a altoids box, with a switch to kill the drain from the batteries when not in use and a led for activity. also I’m looking for a way to plug an external power source to recharge the ni-hm batteries.

also something off topic:
my electric shaver does not keep a charge that long anymore. it has 2 AA ni-cad batteries inside that have a piece of metal attached to the ends of the batteries then it’s wired inside in the shaver. If i would to take the metal ends off the ni-cad batteries and install 2 AA ni-hm and resolder the metal back to the ends of the batteries, would that work instead of replacing with ni-cad? which is better ni-cad or ni-hm?

Posted at 11:33 am on Apr 24th, 2005 by nick

as a reply to 154, DO NOT SOLDER NI-MH BATTERIES. WHile it is possible and it will work, you activily destroy the battery’s seals, causing gasses to leak out and corrode electronic components nearby. This is a common problem with RC Car builders.

As for the schematic, I am working on that kind of design for myself, but I do not have the time right now. I’ll post in the future when I get a design going.

Posted at 3:29 am on Apr 26th, 2005 by deenko

thanks for the info. If I were to super glue the metal contacts to the ends of the batteries either ni-cad or ni-hm would it still get the connection? thanks

Posted at 9:37 am on Apr 26th, 2005 by nick

Nick, aslong as the superglue doesn’t get between the tabs and the battery, it should.

Posted at 8:48 pm on Apr 27th, 2005 by cde

If you live in the uk you can purchase a Small narrow box for 1

Posted at 11:45 am on Apr 28th, 2005 by games

thanks, now works better!!

Posted at 11:43 am on Apr 29th, 2005 by Barnizagaitas

I must say that this works great if you have a USB charger cable for it! But, I’d ratcher use the diode desing so I can make it give 4.5v instead of a stright 5.0v (because I don’t want to blow my $250 mew gadget!)

Posted at 11:00 am on Apr 30th, 2005 by Weirdguy0101

Errrr…messed up on 160…I ment to say it works great for the PSP

Posted at 11:13 am on Apr 30th, 2005 by Weirdguy0101

Hey! I’m having trouble using this thing with my iPod. It is a regular 20 gig, 4G iPod. It CAN be charged through USB cuz it does when you connect it to the computer. I’m almost 100% sure that I wired it right, but it seems to drain my iPod’s battery instead of charging it. Is there a way to fix it so it charges it? The charging meter comes up as usual and it appears to be charging. I left this thing on for like 5 hours, came back, and my iPod battery was almost dead. HELP!

Posted at 10:35 pm on May 1st, 2005 by Frank Cummins

In Australia jaycar (www.jaycar.com.au) stock the USB terminals that are needed, but they arent cheap at AUD$2.20 for 1.
Question:
Using a DC wall plug pack that puts out 500ma at 9v how would I go about dropping it down to 5V?
Thanks Doc

Posted at 9:04 pm on May 2nd, 2005 by Doc

RE: Frank Cummins
I have the same problem with a 4G 40GB with a AC to USB wall adapter. The ipod display shows charging, but the battery drains and the iPod gets very hot. I think there may be a requirement for a signal through one of the other usb pins to enable USB charging.

Posted at 9:15 am on May 3rd, 2005 by Ro

i just built one last night, except that i used a radio shack project box. love it!

Posted at 9:45 pm on May 4th, 2005 by paul

re #162 and #164
a couple of people above noted that you have to solder the pin 2 and 3 wires to ground for an ipod shuffle. The same thing might apply to a 4g ipod.

re #163
try a 7805 voltage regulator, like this one:
http://dseau.resultspage.com/search.php?p=R&srid=S8&lbc=dseau&w=7805&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2edse%2ecom%2eau%2fcgi%2dbin%2fdse%2estorefront%2f%5fsessionid%5f%2fProduct%2fView%2fZ6545&rk=1&uid=239927058&sid=2&ts=p2&sessionid=4279c7e509849594273fc0a87f9c0790&method=and
or
http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZV1505&CATID=&keywords=7805&SPECIAL=&form=KEYWORD&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=

BTW I would measue it with a multimeter and make sure you do in fact get 5v from it before I plugged anything in to it, if i were you. Also it would be a good idea to check to see that the current isn’t much less than 500ma

Posted at 3:14 am on May 5th, 2005 by richard

nice. couldl u use that to charge a PSP or DS becuz im pretty sure those need 5v to charge….

Posted at 12:18 pm on May 6th, 2005 by hans

I attemted to make one of these for my ipod photo (30gig) and had the same problem as #162. I have also taken pins 2&3 to ground, like i have heard needs to be done for the shuffle. Without taking those pins to ground i didnt seem to get any response at all. Also, when i first tested the voltage i got around 5.02v (i dont remeber exactly, but it was just above 5v) after attemting to charge for a few hours i tested again and got 4.88v. I am using 4 AA batteries insted of a single 9v. Is it possible that it drained the batteries and didnt charge?

Posted at 5:16 pm on May 7th, 2005 by stillboy

re #167
yes you should be able to, if you can find the right connector for the DS/PSP power in port

Posted at 7:22 pm on May 7th, 2005 by richard

re #168

as i found out, 4xAA batteries are not very appropriate for this type of project. The 5v regulator causes a voltage drop of ~2v, so you need at least a 7v supply.

Posted at 9:12 am on May 9th, 2005 by Richard

i wanna purchase some of your items

Posted at 2:53 pm on May 11th, 2005 by elizabeth

whatever you do, do __not__ try to skip the voltage regulator part! i fugured that since it’s written 5-30vdc on the back of my ipod, it would handle 9v directly all fine, but i was proven wrong… my ipod is now dead, and all i got out of it was that i spotted a new battery icon with a warning sign on it. guess that was a bad sign…

of course, the ipod has a internal voltage regulator, but i guess that the usb power pins bypasses it since it always expects to get 5v computerish power (guess that the ie. the hdd runs on 5v, beeing a computer part)…

Posted at 6:45 pm on May 15th, 2005 by starfish

jeeze all this over making an external battery pack… heres an even better solution make it WIRELESSLY CHARGED. i know it might sound like a hoax but i did it to my mouse.take a 5v 12A powersupply feed it into a NE555 ic after it goes through a resister. make the right circut for an astable oscillator and use the square wave that comes out as a trigger for a bigass FET send the power through a coil of magnet wire before it goes back to ground. plug that into a portable generator that you have in the wagon behind you and on the ipod have another coil around a ferrite with a diode to mooth out the current AC-DC it should be able to charge the battery from your shirt pocket. just snake the cord through your shirt and try not to look like an idiot while wearing this thing.

Posted at 10:43 pm on May 17th, 2005 by Darwinbug

hey, i would either ike to make this, or a firewire charger for my 4th generation ipod.i have an extra dokck to firewire cable that i chopped the firewire end off. i just need to know, which wire (clear or black) is power or ground? thats all i need to know. thanks!

Posted at 8:16 pm on May 18th, 2005 by eric

waaay back in post #8, brk suggested using a national semi switching regulator or similar to help get rid of the excess heat produces by the 7805. Has anyone tried this?

Also, is there a wiring diagram available, Jason? Or a website with ALL of the great ideas people have tried here, with parts lists and diagrams?

Posted at 9:13 am on May 26th, 2005 by Patrick Sharp

hy i just want to make an usb-to-wall adapter,for that, i have a phone charger that gives me 8.7V. i was thinking of buying an lm7805 to get it down to 5V and a female type A usb connector and “atach” these things to the phone charger..what do you think? will it work?

Posted at 12:13 pm on May 26th, 2005 by andrei

i’m planning to get an ipod later this week and i wanted to build a charger. does the ipod come with a cable that allows you to charge with usb or firewire, or do you have to buy that separately?

also, is it correct that i should use a 5v regulator if i wanted to charge with usb and a 12v regulator for firewire? is it less likely to fry with usb?

Posted at 3:50 pm on May 26th, 2005 by Zach

I was wondering, I have the hole cut in my mint tin and I have the female usb end cut and the wires exposed. What wires are what, since they are encased in some thick plastic? like which wires are needed for me to solder to the voltage regulator? the black is ground right and the red is the 5 volt?

Posted at 10:22 am on May 28th, 2005 by nick

i just checked, and the charger that goes with the nintendo DS or the gba: SP has a voltage of exactly 5.2, so technically you could just chop the nintendo end off and solder a female USB plug onto it.

Posted at 3:06 am on May 29th, 2005 by drtoxic

When I was tearing apart a usb cable for the female end, I accidentally tore out the pins, so I just ended up using the cable that plus into the usb on my zen micro. I also added a switch so I don’t have to keep unplugging my battery. The other cool thing is it all fits inside a box that a deck of cards came in so its completely disguised. Then when I want to recharge, I jsut open the box, plug in the cable, and flip the switch and it charges. I did run into a bump though, probably because I have a zen micro, it wouldn’t charge unless I had the white and green wires from the cable soldered onto the ground of the recharger, I wonder why it needs this.
-Peace

Posted at 12:08 am on Jun 1st, 2005 by flatlandfury

i have an iaudio u2 and I wired up everything correctly, including the white and green wires to ground. but when I plug in my u2 it doesn’t appear to do anything. if i press the on button while it is plugged in it shows that it’s connected for a few seconds and then turns off. any ideas?

Posted at 3:35 pm on Jun 3rd, 2005 by Antoine

Posted at 3:39 pm on Jun 3rd, 2005 by Antoine

I bulit one using some AAA and the voltage regulator for use with my iPod. I cam across a problem when I tested it out. the iPod detects power and but doesn’t use it to charge or to power itself. I then ran the iPod on my computer using the data on the cable bu the power on the battery pack and it charged fine. I am looking into how the AC adapter for the iPod is wired so it will charge without having to be used by the computer and have normal use on it. any suggestions?

Posted at 1:54 pm on Jun 5th, 2005 by Dittto

ok, after working on it some more I found a solution and have been able to charge my iPod. I connect the iPod to the batter and then reboot it pressing play and menu for a couple seconds at the smae time (I have a 30gig iPod Photo) and then it will run on the batter and chanrge itself. now all I need is a case. here’s a picture of it charging my iPod: http://home.comcast.net/~ditto_125/pictures/ipod_battery.jpg

Posted at 3:29 pm on Jun 5th, 2005 by Dittto

i made one for my ipod as well built from an extra dock that i had lying around works great thanks for the inspiration

Posted at 9:26 pm on Jun 12th, 2005 by jason

btw, i decided that i was going to make this (to charge a shuffle). here are the pics that i took of it. the main difference between this and the how to here is the addition of a power switch between the 9v battery and the regulator. also, you’ll notice 2 usb ports. that’s because i got it for free and that’s all they had. currently, both are soldered together. lastly, i dont know if this makes any difference at all, but the regulator is a CW7805, not LM. can anyone tell me the difference?

http://home.comcast.net/~michaelprice/Pics/Pic1.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~michaelprice/Pics/Pic2.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~michaelprice/Pics/Pic3.JPG

Posted at 5:40 pm on Jun 13th, 2005 by michael

Just a quesion; how did you cut the altoids tin? It’s really hard to do it neatly.

Posted at 12:54 pm on Jun 14th, 2005 by windwaker

i used a pair of tin snips to cut the place for the usb port. the whole for the switch was just punched out with a nail. you should be able to get them at walmart or home depot. these ones are pretty similar (found on google images) http://fcsurplus.ca/tools/images/402981b.gif

Posted at 6:20 pm on Jun 15th, 2005 by michael

Ah, I see. Gotta get some of those.

Posted at 12:11 am on Jun 16th, 2005 by windwaker

i tried to build one of these to power my 4g ipod. i followed the directions exactly (i think) and it didnt work. all it does it drain my battery. i tried to reverse the polarity, but that just made the regulator super heated. should i not be doing this for my 4g? or am i just really really stupid at making these things? what am i doing wrong?

Posted at 3:08 pm on Jun 16th, 2005 by matt

Okay.. I made one of these.. it gives out 5.2 volts with a perfectly new battery. To use with my ipod ((4g 20gig or 60gig photo)) what would I have to do? I was thinking combining 2 9vs and a regulator to make it some voltage that the ipod needs. Maybe 12v, I’m not sure. Can anyone help?

Posted at 4:41 pm on Jun 16th, 2005 by DFeNCe

yay! i got mine to work (i’m the complainer from post 190) by, as i read after i had posted, grounding the usb cable. for post 191, it seems to be running fine on the 5 volts that it’s putting out. my ipod is charging now, we’ll see how it goes later. i put it in an icebreakers tin, seeing as how everyone else used altoids. support us products!

Posted at 6:53 pm on Jun 16th, 2005 by matt

For anyone trying to get this to work with their 4G iPods, I’ve just made a variation on this thing, except I used a KA7805 (absolutely no difference between the KA and the LM7805 from what I’ve read), using 7 AA batteries (I had a 4-AA and a 3-AA container lying around). What normally happens when I turn it on/plug it into the iPod, is that if the iPod is off, it will turn on, but will not charge. If you put it to sleep, the animation won’t come on, and it will still be sleeping. What I did is I shorted the data pins on my connector (the remaining two pins in between the + and – pins). When you plug it in, it still won’t show the charging animation at the top-right part of the screen. However, if you have “Sleep” enabled in your menu (check Google on how to make it show if you don’t have it there already) or if you hold Play for 3-4 seconds to make it sleep… the charging animation will show – it’ll be charging. If you press any key again to start the iPod back up, you’ll now see the charging animation – the iPod now knows it can now charge. What I think happens is that when you plug the iPod into the USB jack on your charger, it detects the voltage, and tries querying the data ports, asking “Hey, what am I connected to? Who are you? Can you give me power?”. Of course, it gets no response, so it does nothing, even if the pins are shorted. However, when you put it to sleep, it once again does the query, but apparently slightly differently, as this time shorting the pins will work, and it’ll accept the charger as a power source. I’m not sure if this will work for you, but it did for me. I’ll be posting a quick guide (complete with link-back to this article and pics explaining the process) shortly on my site, http://varu.ca. Good luck :)

Posted at 5:24 pm on Jun 17th, 2005 by varu

Or not.. hooked the two shorted pins to the ground as well just to try it out.. both variations drain the iPod’s battery. If I had the time and skills to do this, I’d put an osciloscope and a port monitor on and see exactly what the iPod and the comp tell eachother when you plug it in… but I think the better alternative is to just go with the FireWire, it seems to work with that one. Probably cause of the different pinouts on the iPod connector.

Posted at 9:27 pm on Jun 17th, 2005 by varu

I have my and this usb battery works only as a “aditional battery” The AA, AAA, 9V, bateries doesnt have power enought to actually charger the ipod mini.

Right now im playing with my car’s lighter and built a usb lighter adapter. With this one i am able to actually charge my ipod battery.

cheers

Posted at 12:52 pm on Jun 21st, 2005 by PC

Hey how do I charge my hp h4155 pocket pc its 2000mA

Posted at 4:59 pm on Jun 29th, 2005 by Kawser

Hey how do I charge my hp h4155 pocket pc its 2000mA

Posted at 4:59 pm on Jun 29th, 2005 by Kawser

Hey how do I charge my hp h4155 pocket pc its 2000mA

Posted at 5:31 pm on Jun 29th, 2005 by Kawser

196, 197, 198:

what voltage does the ppc wall charger output?

check out the datasheet for an LM338T current regulator

Posted at 9:01 am on Jul 1st, 2005 by nick

I’ve made the battery, but im a little scared to try it on my iPod mini. Does it really kill the iPod, and if it breaks can i fix it?

PS i have to warranty

Posted at 4:51 pm on Jul 2nd, 2005 by karimoh

Hi. I have made this from parts on maplin, and added the ability to use a usb power input (cigar lighter adaptor thing). It has 2 output ports, and when i plug in my zen touch, it turns on (like plugging it into the computer), but then when i turn it off it just turns off (when on the computer, it charges). Anyone know? This is really annoying. Thanks :)

Posted at 1:07 pm on Jul 5th, 2005 by russ

Look at my battery:
http://www.russ-nex.co.uk/russ/guides/Portable%20Power/batt.jpg
It has 1 USB input (for in-car) and 2 outputs. Power Source is switchable (battery or usb input)

Posted at 2:28 pm on Jul 5th, 2005 by russ

would this same setup work to power or recharge a ZEN micro?

my son bought a zen micro on ebay, but this set up didn’t come with a power adapter. #$%^#$%^!!! It will power and recharge through the usb, but i was wondering about just cutting off the end of a usb mini 5 pin and hooking up the positive and the ground to a 5 volt, 1000 mA power adapter. Would that simple type of connection work? or is there more to the usb wiring than that? Or are Zen micros too new to know anything about that yet? just curious, trying to find a way around having to spend $30 extra bucks…

Thanks in advance for any help.

Posted at 11:42 pm on Jul 16th, 2005 by Rick

does anyone know where you can buy JUST the mini-usb connector (preferably with soldering contacts)? I’ve googled til I’m blue in the face but can’t find a retail supplier!

Thanks

Posted at 11:41 am on Jul 19th, 2005 by dave

Does anyone kow if this hack will work with a Nokia 5100 series cell phone. The cell phone battery is rated at 3.6v DC and the wall charger supplies about 9 volts DC at no load. I am thinking that I could use a pigtail wired to the the LM7805 and 9v battery (or 4 AA cells) and plug the end of the pigtail coming out of the box containing the battery and VR into the cell phone charger socket. Question is, would the 5v from the regulator be enough to charge the cell phone and not overcharge? Thanks for any help. Emergency use of course.

Posted at 2:28 am on Jul 20th, 2005 by Yesrek

#205> I think it would blow a circuit, but what’s the rated cell phone current flow?

Oh, I did this hack and for some reason it won’t charge my ipod mini. I check with my voltmeter and it’s abot 5.06v through the USB. The iPod turns on when I plug the usb end in but it does not charge. Is there enough amps flowing through for the ipod to charge?

Posted at 11:49 pm on Jul 23rd, 2005 by Crowley

i know absolutley nothing about any of this, but nontheless i want to give it a go. i have a 4th gen 20gb ipod. could io make a usb charger rather than a firewire one?

it has been mentioned that to make the charger, a “lm7812 12v regulator” is needed. are either of these what is needed?:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=8067&doy=26m7d
or
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=8065&doy=26m7d

i’ve got the female usb connector from an extension lead so thats ok. a 5.1v diode is listed under what is needed, would a 5v one do? i’ve got a 330ohm resistor.

Posted at 8:22 am on Jul 26th, 2005 by jp

ok, i just finished the charger last night. i put it into a small plastic box from maplins. the only problem is the heat from the lm7805 is a lot and started to melt some of the inside of the box where it touched off.
does anyone have any ideas of how to stop it melting the box?
at the moment the power in is a 9v battery with 8.1v left in it and the output from the charger of 5.1v.

Posted at 9:05 am on Jul 27th, 2005 by Brian

I did one power supply using a 7805 and a couple of capacitors, it works great for my Ipod and Motorola m500. To feed the Motorola you DO need a heatsink on the 7805. Also made a 12v to 1,5v (car use) for the Muvo Tx FM (1,5 rated) using a LM 317. Works great also.

Posted at 4:15 pm on Jul 29th, 2005 by Ivan

Adding comments to 209: even with 2 capacitors (one in the input 10pf and another in the output, 10uf) I got a lot of noise when using in my TLC (diesel engine). But I put both dc-dc converters in a plastic box, and common wiring for both. Gone to get some filters and solution.

Posted at 9:24 am on Aug 2nd, 2005 by Ivan

for devices other than the ipod mini do you still ground the data wires?

Posted at 1:46 pm on Aug 4th, 2005 by ayeyen

I’m the same guy from post #86. I built a USB charger with an old phone charger and a 7805 to bring the voltage down to 5V. It works perfectly with my ipod shuffle. Here’s a link: http://verbicide.ca/drivel?itemid=106

Posted at 10:03 am on Aug 15th, 2005 by zhz

awesome idea. if you were to use a rechargeable 9v
how would you wire in a jack to charge without dissconnecting battery. would you use a diod so it wouldn’t backfeed into the rest of the circuit?

Posted at 11:16 pm on Aug 17th, 2005 by Brad vander meyden

I use one at Perth Western Australia.

It is brilliant.

Thank You for sharing

Posted at 2:28 am on Aug 22nd, 2005 by Perth Western australia

I use one here at Perth.
Thank you for sharing such a brilliant design with us.

Posted at 2:29 am on Aug 22nd, 2005 by Perth

Hi, i just assembled the circuit using the LM7805 about 10 minutes ago. First I used a car mobile phone charger that gives out a voltage of ~8v as the power source and when I hooked my shuffle to it all that happened was the green led on the front came on and disappeared after a second or two, and when i pressed the battery test button the indicator flashed green for 3 or so seconds and then went out. Then I tried hooking up the 12v source directly to the regulator (2.7AH UPS battery) and the result was still the same. I was afraid the shuffle was busted but it still works. what am i doing wrong?

Posted at 2:39 pm on Aug 24th, 2005 by Pasan

Does any one know if i can use my ipod mini wile being pluged into the usb battery

Posted at 1:11 pm on Aug 25th, 2005 by Andrew

i am currently making one, with a 7805, a usb female, and a 9v battery alone.. didn’t quite test the circuit for a long time but out of curiousity, how much will the 7805 ic heat up by? i’m at the point of making a casing for the circuit now…

Posted at 11:48 am on Aug 26th, 2005 by Matthias

where does the battery leads connect to on the female usb connector and the 7805?

Posted at 4:39 am on Aug 29th, 2005 by capagotks

Don’t want to get too complicated here, so i’ll try and keep it short.
In order to find out how hot something gets in air (no heatsink) you need to know Tjc (Temperature coefficient junction to case) and Tca (Temperature coefficient case to ambient)
For a LM7805 regulator TO-220 package Tjc is 4deg C/W and Tca is 50degC/W
So the total is 54 deg C per watt.
So for every watt you disipate the temperature of the juncion (the silicon inside the regulator) will rise by 54 deg above the ambient temp.
For a linear regulator you will dissipate the volts dropped across the regulator times by the amps through it, so if your ipod draws 100mA from this device you’ll drop 4V (9V-5V = 4V) which makes for 0.4W (4V * 0.1A = 0.4W) The temperatur of the junction will be 21.6 degC hotter than the air.

However since the air is enclosed it will heat up tooso the ambient temp wil increase. Say (for instance) that the air temp reaches 50degC this will mean that the junction temp is 71 deg

Posted at 10:21 am on Sep 29th, 2005 by rhyuso

i picked up a L7805ABV voltage reg. it regs it down to 5V, but i dont think it brings down the amperage much. on radioshacks site its part # 2761770. so should it still work?

Posted at 10:23 pm on Oct 7th, 2005 by marco

I got to about post #100 before I skipped to the comment section. LM7805 is great for this type of charger!!! Unless these people can make their own printed circuit boards, a switching regulator is a stupid recommendation. An smps would be great, but thesepeople aren’t EE’s.

I want to charge my iPod mini while being able to play music. Any ideas?

Posted at 9:38 pm on Oct 25th, 2005 by MAtthew Brush

Hey, an idea for the case. In DT (design and technology) we are doing acrylic stuff at the moment. White acrylic looks really cool. If you have a strip heater (or a nice DT teacher) then you could make (i don’t know how to explain this) a u, and then a table. (argh how to explain without drawing it). White acrylic looks very iPod-esque… downside is it scratches a la ipod nano white; ipod 5g white.

Posted at 5:03 am on Oct 26th, 2005 by luke

Does anyone know if something like this can prolog the ipod’s internal battery’s life expectancy? I was thinkin that if I used the external battery all the time and kept the internal ipod one from discharging, I wont go through any charge cycles at all. or would I?
does anyone know where the ipod draws its energy from first? internal battery or external supply?
btw wat voltage should I use for a mini? and can I use two of those 3.6v rechareable battery packs connected in series?

Posted at 5:38 am on Oct 26th, 2005 by Ahmed MAhmoud

Has anyone tried this with their nano?

On a side note, I made the “Altoids case” for my nano. Works great and smells yummy too.

Posted at 1:42 pm on Oct 27th, 2005 by angusW

I’ve tried lm7805 with my nano. Works great. Did not ground the data pins (2,3). I was able to charge the nano and listen to music at the same time. I’ve got a long plane flight in Dec so this will come in very handy.
Matthew, an smps is a good idea. They do not loose as much power as a linear regulator. Cooler running and the battery will last longer using a smps.

Posted at 10:44 am on Oct 29th, 2005 by angusW

Dumb question time: What is the purpose of dropping the Voltage? The back of my Ipod says it will take 5 to 30 Volts DC at 1.0 amps max. Why not just run the full 9 volts to the Ipod through a fuse or other current limiter?

Posted at 7:00 am on Oct 30th, 2005 by Grant

Found this site…

“http://store.cd4power.com/cgi-bin/cd4power.storefront/43657ab8084449c2271d0c9f894206bf/Catalog”

that sell switching regulators. They are very close to the size and shape of a normal LM7805 but with up to 95% efficiency. In other words they run cool with no external cooling necessary and the battery will last longer. No external components needed so you can use the same setup that Mr. Striegel uses. The only downside is no overvolt protection and price. Overvolt protection is not really a concern in this type of cct. They cost almost $10us + shipping. I ordered the 7805sr and 7805srh. The only difference between the two is one is vertical and the other is horizontal. I’ll get them in a couple days so I’ll try them out and let you know how they work.

later
angusW

Posted at 10:44 pm on Oct 30th, 2005 by angusW

I put together a replacement wall charger (via USB) for my iPod mini a while back, but was revamping it today. While looking for info, I came across this site, and just have to say that it’s good stuff.

Originally, I was using a spare power adapter rated for 6V at 600mA spliced to the red and black wires to the female end of an USB extension cable. It worked, but I eventually got worried about irregular specs and decided to change the adapter.

The current adapter is rated for 5V at 140mA, so now the voltage is more exact, and the amperage is much lower. However, now I wonder if the amperage is too low. It seems to charge fine, but I still wonder.

So, I guess there’s two reasons for me commenting. First, to ask if someone knows the proper amperage for the iPod on USB (firewire would be nice too). Second, to tell my experience in case it helps someone.

Posted at 3:34 am on Nov 3rd, 2005 by cdjstyle

I’ve got the switching voltage regulator and have tried it out. It works. Not sure how efficient it is. The data sheet for the 7805sr says at 9v input it is about 92% efficient. My meters show an output of 4.97v, 145mA.

The thing I like about this charger is that you can listen to music while it’s charging.

If you are going to get a switching voltage regulator and you live outside of the USA then I suggest going to this site instead, http://www.mouser.com/, as they charge less for shipping. Parts are about the same price as the site I quoted above in post 228.

later

angusW

Posted at 6:24 pm on Nov 4th, 2005 by angusW

Great “hack”. Went to radio shack bought everything I needed under $15 (including premade case #270-1802. Took about 1/2 hour (I’ve never made any electronic device before). Seems to work great. Perfect problem solver not only for my ipod but also my battery hog PPC 6700. Gracias gentlemen.

Posted at 2:48 pm on Nov 10th, 2005 by Aw

Hey guys, I just purchased a 60gb ipod video 5g and was wondering how well this tutorial applies to the new ipod. I hope it’s similar since the 5g charges via usb and I figure I can just get the lm7805 regulator and rig it up with 2 9vs but I wanted some input beforehand to make sure that this hack is safe for the new ipod. Also, I do you guys think I should get a switching regulator or jst stick with the lm7805 and an altoids case? I’m wondering if the switching regulator will really save me that much battery life.

Posted at 12:22 pm on Nov 12th, 2005 by John

#232
I’m in the same spot as you are. I set everything up the same, but also added an external jack to plug in a ac to dc adapter thingy or a car charger. I checked the connections,etc, and it says its 5 volts on the 9volt battery or the jack. What I can’t figure out is why its not charging (well it may be, but the annimation isnt on) and wondered if i had to short those pins. any ideas guys?

Posted at 1:37 pm on Nov 13th, 2005 by poppeseed

hi,
i would like to use a wall wart in the above mentioned setup. im using an old cell phone charger. My worry is that its output is 5.7v 800mA. Will it work with this setup or do i need more voltage? Also, the current is rather high at 800mA. Wont this destroy the shuffle??

Posted at 10:46 pm on Nov 17th, 2005 by DEnnie

Great device, I need something like this for a road angel (speed camera detector) so I dont have to use the in-car charger. Is it possible to buy this device? Havent seen anyone who sells it

Posted at 10:02 am on Nov 20th, 2005 by Sy

Req#232 I have a 30G Video Ipod. I just did it. It works fine, except I dont know if its charging the iPod since when I turn it off, the charging sign isnt showing. It works for Mini and Nano. Is it possible that it needs more voltage to charge the 5g iPod, and if so, how much more voltage does it need?

Posted at 3:52 pm on Nov 21st, 2005 by Dustin

regarding 101-102 post. as mentioned by marc, can we use this battery pack to power devise that doesnt come with a battery? i bought aivx (http://www.cooldrives.com/aidimi2usbdr.html) few months ago, and i hv to say it is a great product. it will be much more beter if i cud make it completely portable. the devise hv an 5v dc power inlet. it is also mentioned there 1.5A, if any1 knows wut tat means…

it will be great if sum1 can help me wit diz.. been going around months on the net looking for a sutaible battery pack..

thankz

Posted at 7:47 am on Nov 26th, 2005 by krishna

my email
krishnarule(at)hotmail.com

Posted at 7:54 am on Nov 26th, 2005 by krishna

… where do you buy a lm7805? the explanation was clear, but i didn’t quite get the “you local hacker store part”… I know you can get it online, but where else do they sell these things?

Posted at 4:46 am on Nov 27th, 2005 by K-unit

This is my first soldering project…. I burnt the shit out of 2 fingers. Still hurts, but then again, I only did it a few hours ago. Nice project!

Posted at 11:56 am on Dec 4th, 2005 by corbs132

@# 239, its called radioshack.

Posted at 2:57 pm on Dec 4th, 2005 by corbs132

so how about install an on/off switch so that the battery is not continuously inputting power. That way the 17 day dranage can’t take place.

Posted at 12:19 am on Dec 5th, 2005 by Mike

Cause it’s a pain in the ass, lol

Posted at 3:37 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by corbs132

I checked the radioshack.com site for specs on the 7805 and english is the only supported language. I’m thinking what would the other languages voltages be like:

Irish – all over the place
French – 12 volts because thats how they say it is.
Italian – +5 volts until their leader gets caught then it goes upside down and becomes -5v
Russian – it eventually gets to 5 volts and drops down to 0 for no reason.
American – stays at zero because the voltage can’t figure out how to travel because it went to public school

Posted at 7:10 pm on Dec 19th, 2005 by Matt DeGeorge

the only problem that i see it that my 30 gb ipod video at least it rated 5- 30 volts @ 1 A. max and i would assume that this project is going to produce more than 1 A.

Posted at 3:21 pm on Dec 26th, 2005 by tim

Does the iPod shuffle trick have to be used with the 30 gb Ipod Video?? just wondering because I did this, but when I plug in my ipod, nothing happens, but when I use a multimeter to check the voltages, I get a perfect 5 volts. Any help would be nice.

Posted at 2:07 am on Dec 29th, 2005 by Kaleb

Just finished my usb battery. Used to charge my ipod nano. i simply used 4 NiCd or NiMh cells (AA) and connected it straight to the USB port. the voltage reading was about 5.4V, and this is just a bit above the official USB tolerance of 4.75V – 5.25V, and my nano had no problem with it. you dont need any fancy electronics, or connecting 9V and 1.5V cells together, simply two wires. the usb device can handle a much wider tolerance than the official values. hell, the ipod can handle 12V with firewire, minimum, and that can increase up to 20V or 30V.

Posted at 6:14 am on Dec 29th, 2005 by sonal

I’m pretty sure it won’t work for an ipod video. My old belkin 12V-> USB adapter for my cell phone works for my Mini, but not my 30GB ipod video. The specs are 5V, 500 mA, which matches USB high power. I haven’t tried modding it using the shuffle trick.

I suspect it may have something to do with USB high power requirements — which require a device to negotiate before switching to high power mode. Perhaps the video and shuffle are in this category?

In any case, it IS possible, with the right specs. Note that the apple USB charger output specs are 12 V / 1A, and is compatible with all ipods, including video and shuffle (so either the “shuffle trick” is used, or the higher voltage overrides any logic that waits to charge until the bus controller).

Posted at 3:42 pm on Dec 29th, 2005 by Jon B

you do not need regulators or anything. simply get 4 NiCds or NiMh, which should give you a voltage of about 5.4. to 5.6V. then connect the wires to your usb port and done. i made mine out of a battery holder, two wires, a piece of solder, and a usb port. thats all there is. and my ipod works, and charges faster than it did on the computer

Keep it simple stupid

Posted at 3:52 am on Dec 30th, 2005 by Sonal

#248 what size of NiCds or NiMh did you use

Posted at 2:58 pm on Dec 30th, 2005 by smooter

In order to work with the iPod video, you need to ground the data pins. I am using 100 ohm resistor to connect the data pins to ground(just in case something goes wrong)

Posted at 7:40 pm on Dec 31st, 2005 by Ed

hi
I was wondering if this works with ipod mini, since in it’s manual, the apple company specificaly indicates the need of a “high-power usb 2.0 port”, whatever that is.
in short, I made a simple test of connecting the usb connection to just the two peripheral contacts on the port, giving it just the 5v power.
it didn’t work.
do you maybe know how to hack a “high-power usb 2.0 port”?
I’m interested in building a car charger for my ipod mini, so if you have an educated time saving full suggestion for the build, I’d very much like to hear it…
thanks!

Posted at 3:05 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by abe

Has someone tested the shuffle trick with IPod 5G yet?

Posted at 9:54 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by crash440

Yea pretty straight forward. Could i hook it all up the same way except for two 9v batterys hooked up in a series? Or would that put too many amps to the psp?

Posted at 4:21 am on Jan 7th, 2006 by Matt

Cool, easy enough. The thing i am wondering, is how is the Amps limited? If i was to do the same thing, but with a car battery, would it work, or fry the psp because too many amps?

Posted at 4:46 am on Jan 7th, 2006 by Matt

#249
This kind of power supply will work with a Palm T5? Or is beter to build the USB battery v2?

Thaks

Posted at 11:24 am on Jan 12th, 2006 by peter

I tested the voltage the thing was puttin out and it was like 4.95v which is fine, but when i plug in my ipod(video) its back light turns on, but it doesn’t show that it’s charging. Did i do somethin wrong, or is it just that my ipod is different than older ones?

Posted at 1:13 pm on Jan 16th, 2006 by PenguinPsycho

Hey sorry this is a little bit off topic, but does anyone know if apples “iPod USB Power Adapter” ($29) has any special circuitry inside of it to stop overcharging or anything like that. I got a new video iPod and think it is crazy to have to spend $29 for an

Posted at 11:39 pm on Jan 17th, 2006 by Eric

i purchased a 7805sr (2 actually) from

http://store.cd4power.com/cgi-bin/cd4power.storefront/43d165bd0477e872271e0c9f89420710/Product/View/8075851

as described in #228. after alittle fooling around, some more reading and alot of head scratching, i finally got it to work on my 30 gig 5g ipod. connect usb pins 2,3 and 4 together., those goto the center pin of regulator, battery positive goes to pin 1 and usb power positive goes to pin 3 of regulator. works like a champ. i’m using an 8 cell aa holder from the rat shack with nickle-metal hydride cells. i don’t see any reason why a 9.6 volt rc car battery pack wouldn’t work, the rat shack has them along with a charger. i charged an almost dead ipod and the 7805sr didn’t even get warm. it shows 5 volts with or without the ipod connected..grounding the usb data line is no big deal.when connected to the computer, the usb data line will be pulled high while it’s sending data…

another thing i looked at… i plugged a usb cable into the usb port on the computer and measured between the power ground, signal ground and signal plus wires…got a reading of 22k….so…just for the heck of it…i’m gonna stick a resistor into those 3 wires and then connect them together and see what happens..

Posted at 6:00 pm on Jan 20th, 2006 by Timt49

i purchased a 7805sr (2 actually) from

http://store.cd4power.com/cgi-bin/cd4power.storefront/43d165bd0477e872271e0c9f89420710/Product/View/8075851

Posted at 6:03 pm on Jan 20th, 2006 by Timt49

doing a search on ebay showed some ipod car power adapters with the wide connector on it. they were listed with a 12 volt at 1 amp output. it may be that putting 12 volts in on the power (usb pins 1 and 4) will do the trick. but having fried 1 ipod, i’m not about to try it.

now the switching voltage regulator that output 5 volts did work ok after twisting 2,3 and 4 together and connecting it to the negative battery terminal. (basically putting the usb signal to ground.) i have some auto to 5 volt adapters for my ipaq and they don’t work. i also have a 110 v to 5 v ipaq adapter (with usb port) that charges the ipod like a champ. i pluged in a usb cable that i cut in half and measured power. using the black as ground, the 3 other wires showed 5.1 volts. that was 5.1 volts on the power, data ground, and data + wires..it shows charging icon as soon as it’s pluged in. with no having to press any buttons to tickle it into gear:))

Posted at 8:25 pm on Jan 21st, 2006 by Timt49

I used these instructions to create one and it works like a champ! I also added a place to connect to the power from my cigarette lighter.

I took the lighter apart and soldered two wires onto the back, one for power, one for ground. Those two can then be run into the speaker input that I have soldered to the voltage regulator.

I had thought that the cigarette lighter’s fluctuating power (and turning the car on/off) might cause a problem, but so far I have had no issues.

Thanks! This site is awesome.

Posted at 5:05 pm on Jan 23rd, 2006 by Jeremy

i need a diagram of an ps/2 to usb adapter. i want to make it myself. you maybe know how to do one.. :) thnxs

Posted at 8:30 pm on Jan 24th, 2006 by manu

Turns out the problem with USB output is that when the iPod is connected into the battery, it asks “who are you? can I have power?”. By default, USB provides 100mA without enumeration, but the iPod follows the standard and asks for permission to go into high power mode. It doesn’t receive a response, and just “wakes up”. The iPod doesn’t know that it can grab the full 5v from the battery until it receives that signal. The question is, how can we tell the iPod its good to grab the full voltage available to it?

Posted at 10:27 am on Jan 29th, 2006 by silivrenion

I just made one very similar for my ipod shuffle. Yet, I used a 4AA battery pack (with a on/off switch), and used rechargeable batteries which at full strength provide just over 5V. (NiMH usually go a bit higher than their rated 1.2V)
Therefore I didn’t need to have a voltage regulator.
If you don’t want to use rechargeable batteries, you can put a LED (which takes up 0.6V and shines so it acts as a charging indicator), and you’ll then only have around 5.2 to 5.4V to the device.
Like several other people said, yes the ipod shuffle needs some sort activation to start charging, so this above charger wouldn’t work, but like “Dewy” said, if you connect the other 2 usb pins ( or I only connected one of them) to ground (4th pin), then it charges. Don’t ask me why this works as I only got it by accident.

Here is a picture of what I did:
http://lisitsa.fastmail.com.au/ShuffleCharger

You probably can’t see, but the black ground wire, and the green wire is connected to the black battery pack wire.

Posted at 9:03 pm on Feb 4th, 2006 by lisitsa

Alright, i made this, but im having a problem. the voltimeter reads correctly, at 5.5 volts when i test from the leads, and when i test the pins inside the usb port. When i plug in my iPod, the screen lights up, and it acknowledges that somethings there, but it doesnt say charging or anything. its a brand new battery
what is wrong? theres no extra solder shorting anything out or anything, but its being lame

any ideas?

someone catch me on aim
invu4uremo

Posted at 8:43 pm on Feb 7th, 2006 by xliv3vilx

Motorola Razr V3’s charger actually deliver 5V output from wall outlet with a USB adapter since it’s how V3 is charged, I managed to charge my iPod nano with it :) Check out http://blog.chris-chan.com/?postid=5

Posted at 3:28 am on Feb 14th, 2006 by Neo

FYI – Using a Belkin Automotive USB charger, I was able to successfully charge an IPOD 20GB 4G Photo by tying pins 2 & 3 to 5 Volts with a 1K ohm resistor. This is known as “pull up” resistors. I only used 1 resistor with one end tied to 2 & 3 and the other end tied to 5 Volts. My charging indicator works and no apparent damage to the IPOD.

The output measured 5.3 Volts, but everything appears fine. I suspect this 1K ohm resistor could also be tied to ground.

Pins 2 & 3 are differential data pins and apparently the IPOD Photo expects to see something other than floating pins to activate the charging mode.

Posted at 10:57 pm on Feb 16th, 2006 by rjenkins

very nice idea for the case nice an compact

Posted at 7:17 pm on Feb 17th, 2006 by chaos

I just put togeter this usb battery pack, tried it out on a sanyo vi-2300 cell phone worked great, tried it on my 30GB ipod video and it works great…the only thing i did differently was soldered 3 wires together to the ground on the 7805 and then one went to the output of the 7805..i have it charging my cellphone again to see the battery life before it needs to be changed, and the ipod is fully charged anyways, im in the military spend alot of time in the field..this thing is EXTREAMLY usefull

Posted at 2:51 pm on Feb 18th, 2006 by Mike

Posted at 2:54 pm on Feb 18th, 2006 by Mike

wow, i just stumbled upon this. quick question. well, maybe not. i’m assuming this set-up can charge ANY device that can be charged via a computer’s USB port. but can this be used, say, to charge an o2 XDA II mini/I-mate Jam/HTC Magician?

i’m quite curious about it but am too scared to fry up my gadget.. :D any help would be much appreciated

Posted at 9:03 am on Feb 23rd, 2006 by jedhonx

I sent in a tip about a hidden game that I found on my T-Mobile SideKick II. I dont think it was posted, but I thought it would be cool to have it posted… Either way, if there are anymore SK2 hacks, hints, or posts… I’ll be looking out for them.

Posted at 4:35 pm on Feb 24th, 2006 by don ortiz

FYI to all…works like a charm on a 5G iPod video.

see my link…
http://kevinrye.tripod.com/electronics/usb/usb.html

Posted at 11:49 pm on Feb 25th, 2006 by Kevin RYe

FYI to all, works lika a charm on a 5G iPod video

see my link:

http://kevinrye.tripod.com/electronics/usb/usb.html

Posted at 11:51 pm on Feb 25th, 2006 by Kevin RYe

Question here—

Just made one of these using a 12v power supply and a 7805–tested it and it outputs 5v.

Soldered it to the +5V and gnd pins on a usb cable.

Plugged my Creative Zen Micro in and it says it is charging.

However it does not seem to register any higher on the battery meter over the last 10 hours. But it shows the charging symbol.

Anyone know if its charging or not? Or how to make it faster if it is?

I read somewhere that devices can only draw 100mA until they identify themselves to the USB host and then they can get 500mA.

Could it be that it is only currently drawing 100mA to charge so it’ll take longer?

I tested across the three pins on the inside that the battery contacts and found the voltage across them when attached to the 7805 and the computer–they turn out to be the same.

The 7805 I’m using will go over 1A and is heatsunk–yes it is getting hot. It has not shut off yet.

I really hate to let the company rip me off with their charger at $29.99.

Any help appreciated—Thanks a lot!

Posted at 9:05 pm on Feb 27th, 2006 by drew

Will thie work on a 60 gig video ipod?

Posted at 1:43 pm on Feb 28th, 2006 by lanomed