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Gear / Technical Help => Remote Power => Topic started by: Patrick on May 24, 2011, 11:49:15 AM

Title: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: Patrick on May 24, 2011, 11:49:15 AM
I am hitting Bonnaroo this year and am worried about my Droid keeping a charge all day with me taking pictures, using GPS, the bonnaroo app, facebook, etc.  On top of this, reception at the farm is not always great, which is usually a death wish for my battery life.  I was originally going to wire up something to charge my phone using the DVD batteries in my taping rig but don't want to risk not having juice for the rig itself.  So I started poking around the internet and found something that I think will work great...

It's call the MintyBoost and I found it on instructables.com: http://bit.ly/iQcyLH

(http://www.instructables.com/image/FXVN3MOKHCEP2807KY/MintyBoost-Small-battery-powered-USB-charger.jpg)

Looks like a pretty simple circuit, but I still decided to buy the whole kit from  this site (http://bit.ly/m26NNT) so I didn't have to track down all the parts from other sites.  The kit was $20 and I would easily have paid that much in shipping from Mouser/Digikey alone.

I'll snap some pictures during the build and let y'all know how it turned out.  Seems like a cool project and will come in handy for emergencies when I don't have an outlet handy.

And no, I don't have any affiliation with the product or it's designers even though this post reads like a paid advertisement  ;D
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: rastasean on May 24, 2011, 11:46:59 PM
Hopefully you get it working. I have a very simple 4 aa battery usb sled but it won't power my girlfriends iphone and when I had a cell phone, it didn't power it; however, it powers usbpre2 and a couple other 5 volt things.
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: vanark on May 25, 2011, 04:14:31 PM
I picked up 2 (two) of these off of Woot last week for $8.99 total for the two.  Arrived today and is currently plugged into my Thunderbolt which is a battery hog.  Comes with both micro usb and mini usb connector.  I'll report back how it does, but currently still at 100% on the battery after 1 hr.  I have an extra battery, but this might be what gets me thru the day at the festy.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YHC22CZAL._SS500_.jpg)


Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: vanark on May 25, 2011, 09:37:44 PM
I picked up 2 (two) of these off of Woot last week for $8.99 total for the two.  Arrived today and is currently plugged into my Thunderbolt which is a battery hog.  Comes with both micro usb and mini usb connector.  I'll report back how it does, but currently still at 100% on the battery after 1 hr.  I have an extra battery, but this might be what gets me thru the day at the festy.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YHC22CZAL._SS500_.jpg)

Powered my battery hog Thunderbolt for about 4.5 hours on 2 Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA disposables.  No idea how fresh the batteries were - they came with the unit.
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: Patrick on May 26, 2011, 09:40:34 AM
Rory I bought one of those Energizer things in an airport once during a phone emergency for an old Samsung flip phone.  It worked for an hour or two and would stop charging.  This happened no matter how fresh the batteries were.  I considered it a total waste of money and am suspicious to give it another shot.
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: vanark on May 26, 2011, 11:51:56 AM
My understanding is that it works better on a fully charged battery as opposed to charging a fully drained battery.  Not sure I expect more from 2-AA batteries.  I'll be interested to know your results with the MintyBoost kit.
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: Patrick on May 26, 2011, 05:45:59 PM
My understanding is that it works better on a fully charged battery as opposed to charging a fully drained battery.  Not sure I expect more from 2-AA batteries.  I'll be interested to know your results with the MintyBoost kit.

This makes perfect sense.  I guess I need to not run my phones battery down to empty, and instead keep it topped off during the day.  I'll post pics of my finished kit when it arrives.
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: Patrick on June 05, 2011, 01:03:00 PM
Finally got the Mintyboost built and cased.  Extremely easy build.  I covered the inside of the altoids can with gaff tape.  Looks kinda ghetto but I was afraid of the bottom of the PC board shorting together inside the can.  The device works great charging my Motorola Droid and the girlfriend's iPhone 4.  It gets a little warm, nothing too bad and the gaff tape does a good job of "insulating" some of the heat.  I need to add some epoxy to the usb connector to make it rock solid.  It's a little flimsy now.

Would absolutely recommend this to anyone that isn't afraid of soldering.  It was super easy. 

https://picasaweb.google.com/100000562913989722761/MintyBoostBuild?authkey=Gv1sRgCPSsiLKhsq360AE&feat=directlink
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: kirk97132 on June 05, 2011, 03:24:21 PM
I picked up 2 (two) of these off of Woot last week for $8.99 total for the two.  Arrived today and is currently plugged into my Thunderbolt which is a battery hog.  Comes with both micro usb and mini usb connector.  I'll report back how it does, but currently still at 100% on the battery after 1 hr.  I have an extra battery, but this might be what gets me thru the day at the festy.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YHC22CZAL._SS500_.jpg)
Use one of those for a MT-I and it does the trick BUT MT has to have charge and batteries need to be fresh in the external.  I would not depend on it for a two set show and change batteries at set break. 
Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: achalsey on June 25, 2011, 06:54:25 PM
I just grabbed one of these for 7 bucks w/ shipping for All Good.  Hoping its not as flimsy as it looks.

http://www.bgmicro.com/bh341usb.aspx

(http://www.bgmicro.com/images/BH341USB.jpg)

Title: Re: Portable USB Charger - MintyBoost!
Post by: rastasean on June 26, 2011, 11:56:16 AM
I just grabbed one of these for 7 bucks w/ shipping for All Good.  Hoping its not as flimsy as it looks.

http://www.bgmicro.com/bh341usb.aspx

(http://www.bgmicro.com/images/BH341USB.jpg)

That's what I got! As I mentioned, I haven't been able to power the iphone and  a cell phone I once had but it would work great for something like the usbpre2.