How to build a portable charger for your MPx Player
 

Alright so I never really thought of the practicality of a portable charger until today. So I built one in the last half hour. It works with my MPx. Anyways, according to some threads, I found people getting many times more hours out of the external charger than the battery. So let's get at it.

First, a parts list. Now in this one I will be using the 4 AA battery pack, though it is just as easy to make it with the 4 AAA pack or even a 9V battery.

Parts needed:
Some kind of portable power source:
4 AAA Battery pack:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=family
OR 4 AA Battery pack:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=family
OR 9V Battery clip:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=family

7805 Power regulator:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

USB End
I usually get these from tearing apart free usb hubs I pick up at conventions, cause they're all usb 1.1

Some wire
Soldering skills

http://www.xbrav.com/images/usb/usb1.jpg
http://www.xbrav.com/images/usb/usb2.jpg

Pin layout for 7805:
http://www.williamson-labs.com/image...-protected.gif

Pins for usb:
http://www.interfacebus.com/USB_Type_A_Connector.gif

So if we're working from the pics, then the wiring is straight forward.

Instructions:

1) Connect the red wire from your battery pack to the input pin on the 7805.
2) Connect the black wire from your battery pack to the Common on the 7805.
3) Connect the output pin of the 7805 to Pin 1 on the USB end.
4) Connect the Common pin of the 7805 to Pin 4 on the USB end.

And that's it!

Post pics if you made a creative case!

*EDIT*
Although mine charged fine, some of yours may require it to be on that "CONNECTED" screen to actually see it charging. In order to see this, connect pin 4 on the USB end to pins 2 and 3 on the USB end.

Re: How to build a portable charger for your MPx Player
 

Or if you prefer it to look really professional check out this sweet unit

http://www.houseofdap.com/index.php?...d&productId=38

Dave

or somthing much eaiser to use check out this one

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3060

rechargeable 2500 mah , it will recharge your m6 4 times fully on one charge of it

Maybe I'll find how to build a better charge pump and hook it to a standard phone battery... hmm...

create somthing so it can recahrge itself and give out power from the same USB port > use a am > am usb for charging. with a simple 2 way switch

Yeah I see where you're getting at. Right now I'm just using disposable batteries, so it's kinda futile. However, with a rechargeable option it will be more feasible.

I wanted to do this quick and nasty fix today, cause I work all the time. Gonna draw up some schematics on how to make it more awsome. This was a dirty job version.

Nice thing about mine though is that I can power up multiple devices if I wish, just attaching more ports in parallel. Pointless, but hey it's something!

Does anybody know the maximum mA you should blast into these guys? I know USB peaks out at I believe 500mA. I don't want too many amps going into my little pride and joy haha.

Thanks for sharing this with us all XBrav!

Great work on the device and thanks for passing on the guide to everyone else.

hi peeps
thought i would throw my bit in
bought following of uxcell
http://www.uxcell.com/uxcell/retail/...07011100ux0004
and
http://www.uxcell.com/uxcell/retail/...06112400ux0003
to charge my and my kids players when out and about and they are in bed etc
BUT DO NOT WORK
will work on rockchip players thought but not on ANY actions based players that i own. i do not know what they do with ntheir usb ports on the actions players but they are wierd. none of the above from uxcell work on my players but will on rocks. just a note to those who listed alternatives in this post - just beware thay most probably will not work!!
this is my experience anyway - currently trying to relate this to uxcell with little progress - language barriers etc
cheers

I believe it doesn't work because some require PC confirmation before charging (sorry for terminology). Some players start charging as soon as they see +5V on the VCC. Others require a PC link, which is a pain to emulate.

Someday I'll figure out a way to do it easily, but for now it might be kinda hard.

*Update*

So by shorting the D+ and D- on the usb, I got even better results. So I'll add it into the instructions.

Re: How to build a portable charger for your MPx Player
 

Here`s much prettier one with same instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/E7NY7843WIEQHOAXQ7/

I will try this, when I get the right parts. :wink:

I just got a 1500mah rechargeable battery. Has solar charger on it too. About 9.5 x 4 x 1.25 cm. Just a bit bigger than a Nano. They build it in basically the same case as a Chipod.
Many Chipods have 270mah batteries. With this add-on, I would expect to get over 5 times the amount of run time. Since it has a solar cell on it, it could run a heck of a lot longer. Has cool LED flashlight. Uses the same AC adapter and usb cable as chipods do.
I got it on ebay for $13 including shipping http://search.ebay.com/search/search...+Solar+Charger
It charges my Razr phone and my thumb drive mp3 player.

If you make a battery pack from 4 rechargeable batteries, you probably won't need a regulator. NiCad and NmHd are about 1.2V each. 4 x 1.2V = 4.8V Close enough to 5V

A regulator wastes a lot of battery power as heat.