Dyno-hub integration? Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[skhargarten]

Hi. I'm interested in the feasibility of using a minty boost as part of a small project to charge my phone, light batteries, and etc from a dyno hub. While I was at first considering simply rigging a buck up between the (roughly, surge inclined, 6v 3w) dyno hub and the (5v, 3w input) powerboost 500 and seeing what happens (without the phone plugged in during charging, and the battery in some kind of sufficiently paranoia-inspired explosive failsafe container), I came across this piece of equipment on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AX ... FUCHKQ6HFL

If you do a little pricing on the the systems available in the whole "charge my phone from my bike" market niche, you'll find that this is damn reasonable. I shit-you-not, most of the "solutions" I've come across in this market are in the $200-$300 range, *after* the ~$120 you've spent for the dynohub.

Now, I could simply use one of these along side it and call it a day:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P7 ... P4X9EWVXLJ

(Sidenote: amazon reviewer "The Lone Consumer" does not play.)

But that would deny me the satisfaction of rigging something up myself up myself. And perhaps more importantly, a minty-boost integrated set-up would allow me to use rechargeable AA's, which means I can charge spare batteries for my bike lights as well, swap the light batteries w the minty boost batteries in a pinch, and fall back on a wall mounted ac charger as an alternate charging solution for my ample "reservoir" of battery power. Heck, I could even work a solar panel into the operation!

I could also slap the minty-boost kit into one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Blackburn-Local- ... bike+light

While they're not the best costing deal around for my problem (there has to be something I could get for $5 or so somewhere, right?), using one of these to build a minty box would give me a very elegant mounting solution, and the whole package would scream "steal me" quite a bit less than the battery/ charger from amazon, especially if I apply some "aesthetic" ducktape to it. Heck, if I'm lucky, maybe I can even get the thing to still function as a light!

My options then, are the following:

A) simply buy the first two components off amazon, and call it a day

B) rig a minty-boost up to the biologic dynamo kit via the powerboost 500. One key question I need answered: Can I rig a micro-usb port on the minty boost instead of a usb port reliably?

C) Just go buck-to-pb500-to-mb3.0, as I originally planned. Interestingly, this is not the most cost effective solution.

So, then I want your advice. Do options B or C look feasible to you guys? Do the batteries in the minty boost stand a fair chance against the irregular power production from a dyno hub? Are these components durable enough to survive bike -mounting? And who shot JR, etcetc....

[adafruit_support_rick]

The mintyboost will handle 6V, the PowerBoost will not. So you could go hub->mintyboost->LiPo charger.

You could also use the solar charger, which will handle 6V input. I think I would go that way. You can connect the BAT output of the solar charger to the BAT input of a PowerBoost Basic
https://www.adafruit.com/products/390

[adafruit_support_bill]

You could also use the solar charger, which will handle 6V input. I think I would go that way

I agree. The solar charger is probably a better choice. It is better suited to handle the variable output from the hub.

[skhargarten]

Wait, so I'm confused, rick. You're saying the minty boost would go between the hub and the powerboost/ solar charger?

And do you think I would still need the buck with the solar charger?

[adafruit_support_bill]

You would not need the MintyBoost if you use the solar charger. You would probably still need the buck converter on the output if you need to limit the output to 5v.