Bitbanging Qualcomm Charge Controllers

December 13, 2016 by Bryan Cockfield 15 Comments

With more and more manufacturers moving to USB-C, it seems as though the trusty USB port is getting more and more entrenched. Not that that’s a bad thing, either; having a universal standard like this is great for simplicity and interconnectability. However, if you’re still stuck with USB 2.0 ports on your now completely obsolete one-year-old phone, there’s still some hope that you can at least get rapid charging. [hugatry] was able to manipulate Qualcomm’s rapid charging protocol to enable it to work with any device.

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Smartphone Hack For Adding Magnet Power Dock

June 18, 2016 by Richard Baguley 35 Comments

Here’s a neat hack for making a magnetic charging mount for a cell phone. We know what you’re thinking, but this is definitely not a traditional contactless charging system. Those use magnets but in a different way. This hack involves putting a couple of magnets onto the case of the cell phone, and a couple more on a charging base. You then wire these magnets into the power inputs of the USB port, and a USB cable onto the base, so putting the phone on the base magnets completes the circuit. The magnets themselves become the charging contacts.

It’s a neat idea, but makes us wonder what this will do to the compass sensor in your phone or your credit cards if they are nearby. With these caveats, it is a neat hack, and could be easily adapted. Want to make a vertical cell phone mount, or a way to attach (and charge) your cell phone to the fridge? This can be easily adapted for that.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Wirelessly Charged Self-Heating Coffee Mug

May 16, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 14 Comments

Many productive hackers bleed a dark ochre. The prevailing theory among a certain group of commenters is that they’re full of it, but it’s actually a healthy sign of a low blood content in the healthy hacker’s coffee stream. [Bharath] is among those who enjoy the caffeinated bean juice on a daily basis. However, he’d suffer from a terrible condition known as cold coffee. To combat this, he built an app-enabled, wirelessly chargeable, self-heating coffee mug.

We know that most hackers don’t start off planning to build objects with ridiculous feature lists, it just happens. Is there an alternate Murphy’s law for this? Any feature that can be added will? The project started off as some low ohm resistors attached to a rechargeable power bank. A insulated flask with a removable inner stainless steel lining was chosen. The resistors were fixed to the outside with a thermal epoxy.

However, how do we control the resistors? We don’t want to burn through our battery right away (which could end up more literally than one would like), so [Bharath] added a Linkit One microcontroller from Seeed Studio. With all this power at his disposal, it was natural to add Bluetooth, a temperature sensor, and app control to the cup.

After getting it all together, he realized that while the insides were perfectly isolated from the liquids held in the flask under normal use, the hole he’d have to cut to connect to the charging circuit would provide an unacceptable ingress point for water. To combat this he added the wireless charging functionality.

With his flask in hand, we’re sure the mood boost from not having to slog through the dregs of a cold container of coffee will produce a measureable improvement in productivity. Video after the break.

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SNES Controller Modified To Be Completely Wireless

February 20, 2015 by Rick Osgood 9 Comments

[Pat] was looking for a way to wirelessly control his Fire TV unit. He could have just went with one of many possible consumer products, but he decided to take it a step further. He modified a unit to fit inside of an original SNES controller. All of the buttons are functional, and the controller even features a wireless charger.

[Pat] started out with a Bluetooth video game controller marketed more playing video games on tablets. The original controller looked sort of like an XBox controller in shape. [Pat] tore this controller open and managed to stuff the guts into an original SNES controller. He didn’t even have to remove the original SNES PCB. [Pat] mentions that it was rather tedious to rewire all of the buttons from the original controller, but in the end it wasn’t too difficult. The only externally visible modification to the original controller is a small hole that was made for a power button.

In order to make this unit completely wireless, [Pat] also installed a Qi wireless charging module. Now, placing the controller on a charging pad will charge up the small LiPo battery in just about 45 minutes. This controller would be the perfect addition to a RetroPi or other similar project. If you’re not into Bluetooth, you can try using a Logitech receiver instead. Continue reading “SNES Controller Modified To Be Completely Wireless” →

Programmable Lithium Charger Shield For Arduino

November 19, 2014 by Marsh 12 Comments

Surely you need yet another way to charge your lithium batteries—perhaps you can sate your desperation with this programmable multi (or single) cell lithium charger shield for the Arduino?! Okay, so you’re not hurting for another method of juicing up your batteries. If you’re a regular around these parts of the interwebs, you’ll recall the lithium charging guide and that rather incredible, near-encyclopedic rundown of both batteries and chargers, which likely kept your charging needs under control.

That said, this shield by Electro-Labs might be the perfect transition for the die-hard-‘duino fanatic looking to migrate to tougher projects. The build features an LCD and four-button interface to fiddle with settings, and is based around an LT1510 constant current/constant voltage charger IC. You can find the schematic, bill of materials, code, and PCB design on the Electro-Labs webpage, as well as a brief rundown explaining how the circuit works. Still want to add on the design? Throw in one of these Li-ion holders for quick battery swapping action.

[via Embedded Lab]

THP Semifinalist: Autonomous Recharging For Multirotors

September 2, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 20 Comments

Even with visions of quadcopters buzzing around metropolitan areas delivering everything from pizzas to toilet paper fresh in the minds of tech blogospherites, There’s been a comparatively small amount of research into how to support squadrons of quadcopters and other unmanned aerial vehicles. The most likely cause of this is the FAA’s reactionary position towards UAVs. Good thing [Giovanni] is performing all his research for autonomous recharging and docking for multirotors in Australia, then.

The biggest obstacle of autonomous charging of a quadcopter is landing a quad exactly where the charging station is; run of the mill GPS units only have a resolution of about half a meter, and using a GPS solution would require putting GPS on the charging station as well. The solution comes from powerful ARM single board computers – in this case, an Odroid u3 – along with a USB webcam, OpenCV and a Pixhawk autopilot.

Right now [Giovanni] is still working out the kinks on his software system, but he has all the parts and the right tools to get this project up in the air, down, and back up again.

The project featured in this post is a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize.

A Head Unit Docking Station

June 9, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 22 Comments

dock

[Ivan] had a simple idea: being able to control his Android device from the small keypad on his car’s steering column. This would allow him to cycle through apps, navigation, and audio tracks while never taking his hands off the wheel. Feature creep then set in and [Ivan] asked himself how he could charge his phone through the same interface. What he ended up with is a head unit that’s also a dock.

While [Ivan]’s steering wheel doesn’t have the nice integrated remote control buttons found in newer cars, he does have a Blaupunkt remote, a small, clip-on controller that has a an IR transmitter on it. The IR receiver was connected to a PIC microcontroller, sending commands to the phone for up, down, left, right, menu, and home. Audio output from the phone is handled by a small USB sound card connected to a USB hub, sending the audio signals directly into the head unit’s amplifier.

Having the phone charge while it’s still in USB host mode is the crucial part of this build; not being able to charge on a long car ride would quickly drain the battery and make a car dock kind of pointless. To accomplish this, [Ivan] simulated a Galaxy S4 dock with a few resistors in the USB port, allowing the phone to control the USB sound card, listen to the emulated keyboard and mouse, and charge at the same time.

It’s not a pretty build, but it is extraordinarily useful. In the videos you can see that [Ivan] pretty much pulled this build together from stuff he had sitting around – a great reuse of junk, and a great addition to his car at the same time.

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