Category Archives: battery

Custom Circuit Makes for Better Battery Level Display

Posted on July 13, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

Isn’t it always the way? There’s a circuit right out of the textbooks, or even a chip designed to do exactly what you want — almost exactly. It’s 80% perfect for your application, and rather than accept that 20%, you decide to start from scratch and design your own solution.

That’s the position [Great Scott!] found himself in with this custom LED battery level indicator. As the video below unfolds we learn that he didn’t start exactly from scratch, though. His first pass was the entirely sensible use of the LM3914 10-LED bar graph driver chip, a device that’s been …read more

Continue reading →

Posted in bargraph, battery, battery gauge, battery meter, comparator, led hacks, lm324, lm3914, misc hacks, voltage | Leave a comment

Amiga 2000 Emergency Repair

Posted on July 8, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

Big companies spend small fortunes on making sure their computers stay running and that they can be repaired quickly in an emergency. You wouldn’t expect an emergency repair on an Amiga 2000, though. [RETR-O-MAT] bought an Amiga 2000 that did boot, but was known to have a leaky battery on the motherboard. He wanted to rush to replace the battery before the leakage caused serious damage. You can see all this in the video below.

The computer looked lightly used over its 32-year lifespan, even when the case came off. The battery corrosion was evident, though. Even the bolt holding …read more

Continue reading →

Posted in amiga 2000, battery, battery corrosion, corrosion, repair hacks, retrocomputing, teardown | Leave a comment

This Smart Pill Uses A Stomach Acid Battery

Posted on July 7, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

[Curt White] is working on a smart pill whose copper-zinc battery will use his own stomach acid as the electrolyte. It’s not that unusual of an idea, MIT tested a similar approach in a pig. It’s also better than using lithium ion batteries, something we covered in this PSA.

His starting point is a small, hacked activity tracker with its Nordic nRF51822 ARM Cortex-M0 and Bluetooth LE SoC. Most everything else is removed. The battery electrodes are sewn onto a plastic mesh cut to the activity tracker’s dimensions. Three coin type super capacitors and a boost converter sit between the …read more

Continue reading →

Posted in 2018 Hackaday Prize, battery, bluetooth LE, Medical hacks, pill, The Hackaday Prize | Leave a comment