D cell holder for MintyBoost - photos

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Lucidus
 
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Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2013 8:12 pm

D cell holder for MintyBoost - photos

Post by Lucidus »

Here are photos of a three D cell battery pack add-on for my MintyBoost.
It works well for charging an iPhone 3GS. (From my previous posts, you can see that two or three AA alkaline batteries could not charge my 3GS.)

I got the battery holder from DigiKey, but you might consider finding one with wire leads already attached (e.g. http://www.batteryspace.com/batteryhold ... liant.aspx), although the wire size of these is really too thin to be mechanically and electrically ideal.
If you solder leads to a holder like I have, it is ESSENTIAL to use some kind of heat sink to avoid melting the cheap plastic, as shown in the last photo.

I got the battery pack plug and jack from a hobby store. They sell them for making battery packs for radio control planes and cars. Make sure the wire size is #18 or thicker.

My MintyBoost still works with two AA cells, but as the leads to the D cell holder are in parallel with the AA cell holder it is ESSENTIAL to remove the AA cells before connecting the D cells or the AA cells would likely seriously overheat from overcharging, maybe even catch fire. A safer arrangement would be to wire it so only one holder at a time could be connected.

Perhaps Adafruit would consider adding a 3 X D cell holder and battery pack plugs/jacks with heavy gauge leads to their battery accessory offerings.
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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:42 am

Re: D cell holder for MintyBoost - photos

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

Thanks for the suggestion!

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