Re: Case mod feasible

2008-09-23 Thread Minh Ha Duong
Dear Breakable,

  The "Minty power" links at the bottom of 
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Battery demonstrates that building a 2 AAA 
battery pack USB charger is feasible. As 1.2 * 4 is almost 5, building a 
4-pack would probably be simpler.

You will probably want to connect a 47.5 kOhms resistor between the "ID" pin 
and the "GND" pin in the USB connector to identify it as a FreeRunner 
compatible charger.

-- 
Minh HA DUONG, Chargé de Recherche, CNRS
CIRED, Centre International de Recherches sur l'Environnement et le 
Développement
http://minh.haduong.com

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Re: Case mod feasible?

2008-09-22 Thread Kelvie Wong
On Monday, September 22, 2008 15:39:24 Andy Selby wrote:
> AAA batteries are 1.5 volts, so 4x1.5=6volts, if you find a diode that
> has a voltage drop of 1 volt you won't need any voltage regulation
> circuitry.
>

Actually, most AAA (and AA) rechargeable batteries are about 1.2 volts when 
full.

-- 
Kelvie Wong

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Re: Case mod feasible?

2008-09-22 Thread Andy Selby
> Basically what I want is to add 4 rechargable AAA batteries and plug that
> into usb port.
> That gives me about 1200ma at 4.8v, which should comply with the USB
> specification (5v),

AAA batteries are 1.5 volts, so 4x1.5=6volts, if you find a diode that
has a voltage drop of 1 volt you won't need any voltage regulation
circuitry.

> This should avoid the requirement for sophisticated electronics,

Voltage regulators aren't sophisticated, its just a VR chip and one,
maybe two resistors for calibration.

>Anybody thinks that this is not feasible or not worth doing for some reason?

See my post here on batteries
http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2008-September/029965.html
I got a battery and charger for under £8

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Case mod feasible?

2008-09-22 Thread Breakable
Hi,
I am just thinking to do a casemod for Freerunner.
Basically what I want is to add 4 rechargable AAA batteries and plug that
into usb port.
That gives me about 1200ma at 4.8v, which should comply with the USB
specification (5v),
would it not?
This should avoid the requirement for sophisticated electronics,
and extend the battery life to max 4x + 1 (the original battery).
While not overloading the form factor too much.
It could address the biggest issue in freerunner now - battery life.
Anybody thinks that this is not feasible or not worth doing for some reason?

PS:Waiting for the software to mature does not seem like a solution to me,
I would wait for the technological utopia to materialize instead ;)

Regards,
Breakable
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