Two USB outputs

[paulhurleyuk]

I'm considering a Mintyboost to help power my phone and my GPS receiver when out mapping (honestly, it's addictive. See http://www.openstreetmap.org. Ideally I'd like two usb connectors for this. What would people suggest, my options are:

Connect two female usb connectors in paralel (and understand that this will halve the current available to each connector)
Construct a usb Y power cable to do the same thing.
Build two minty boosts on the same PCB running of the same power input. (I'm planning to use 2 sets of AA's in paralell,

Any ideas ?

Thanks

Paul.

[The_Don125]

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch ... =AE9926-ND
One of those maybe?

A small modification would have to be made to the board, but that would give you two usb outputs.

[paulhurleyuk]

Yes, that's a great start. I had found a bigger tin (that used to hold Shrek branded sweets) and was planning two single female USB ports side by side, but stacked would work too.

My main thought was whether anyone else had done this already, and whether the limit of sharing the current between two ports affected them, or whether they'd recomend designing a PCB with two minty boosts so you'd still be able to pull full current from both ports. (I've done some small electronics and eagle stuff, but then used breadboard, I'm itching to try toner etching on pcb....)

Paul.

--
http://www.paulhurley.co.uk

[adafruit]

its unlikely that the mintyboost can charge two devices at once, the chip cant provide more than 250mA

[moses_410]

hey, a while back a guy posted his story about getting detained at JFK with a modified mintyboost. The story wont pertain to your question but from the pictures it looks like he has two USB outputs, heres his forum post [ http://www.ladyada.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3715 ] and heres the story with the pictures [ http://www.natch.net/stuff/TSA/ ]

hope that helps, you could probably try to get in touch with that guy too...

[The_Don125]

I think the Mintyboost can put out somewhere around 200mA to 280mA, so I'd imagine it should be able to charge something. I think the USB spec allows for a 100mA minimum on the power lines, so using two USB ports at once on this thing should be no different than trying to power 4 devices off of a 4-port USB hub, where each gets 100mA (because the USB spec also sets a 500mA max, and the hub itself uses 100mA).