Category Archives: battery

Fail Of The Week: An Electric Bicycle, Powered By AA Batteries

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

Very slowly, some very cool parts are coming out on the market that will make for some awesome builds. Supercapacitors are becoming a thing, and every year, the price of these high power supercaps go a little lower, and the capacity gets a little higher. It’s really only a matter of time before someone hacks some supercaps into an application that’s never been seen before. The Navy is doing it with railguns, and [David] is building an electric bike, powered by AA batteries. While [David]’s bike technically works with the most liberal interpretation of ‘technically’, it’s the journey that counts …read more

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Posted in battery, DC supply, electric bicycle, Fail of the Week, Hackaday Columns, supercapacitors | Leave a comment

Giving A 6th Generation iPod A New Lease On Life

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

It can be disheartening when a favoured device begins to break-down. Afflicted by an all-but-dead battery and a fritzing-out hard drive, Redditor [cswimc] sensed the imminent doom creeping up on their 6th generation iPod, and responded by reviving and upgrading the decrepit device instead!

It’s no easy task to crack open one of these things, so they found themselves taking their time and carefully wedging the pry tool between the front and back covers, working their way around the exterior. Once separated, gingerly disconnecting the few ribbon cables allowed the iPod to be opened fully. From there, they turned to  …read more

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Posted in battery, how-to, iFlash, ipod hacks, itunes, Rockbox, sd card, upgrade | Leave a comment

Great Emergency Lights from Not-So-Great UPS

Posted on March 25, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

We know your shame. Like you, we wanted to save some scratch and bought the bottom-of-the-range UPS, only to discover that it is no use to man or beast as it lacks the power to perform any reasonable task. It’s now sitting in a corner, to gather dust as its batteries deteriorate.

Not so fast with the UPS abandonment! [rue_mohr] came up with a modification for a small APC UPS that turned it into something a little more useful. Removing the mains inverter from the picture with a few displaced wires and PCB mod, the UPS is now a 12V …read more

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Posted in apc, battery, emergency light, led hacks, led strip, ups | Leave a comment

Monitor Power Consumption of Low-Power Devices

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

Perhaps the most important consideration to make when designing a battery-operated device of any kind is the power consumption. Keeping it running for longer between battery changes is often a key design point. To that end, if you need to know how small programming changes will impact the power consumption of your device then [Daniel] has a great tool that you might find helpful: an ESP8266-based live power meter.

The power meter itself is battery-powered via a 600 mAh battery and monitors an e-paper module, which also displays information about power consumption. It runs using a NodeMCU and measures voltage …read more

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Posted in battery, energy, ESP8266, meter, NodeMCU, power, tool hacks, usage | Leave a comment

Coin Cells: The Mythical Milliamp-Hour

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Just how much metaphorical juice is in a coin cell battery? It turns out that this seemingly simple question is impossible to answer — at least without a lot of additional information. The problem is that the total usable energy in a battery depends on how you try to get that energy out, and that is especially true of coin cells.

For instance, ask any manufacturer of the common 3 V lithium 2032 batteries, and they’ll tell you that it’s got 230 mAh. That figure is essentially constant across brands and across individual cells, and if you pull a constant …read more

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Posted in battery, capacity, coin cell, contests, coulomb, current, Featured, internal resistance, Original Art | Leave a comment

Ask Hackaday: Preserving Electronic Devices

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Conventional wisdom holds that we no longer make things to last for the long haul, and that we live in a disposable world. It’s understandable — after all, most of us have a cell phone in our pocket that’s no more than a year or two old, and it’s often cheaper to buy a new printer than replace the ink cartridges. But most of that disposability is driven by market forces, like new software that makes a device obsolete long before it breaks down, or the razor and blades model that makes you pay through the nose for ink. It …read more

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Posted in Ask Hackaday, battery, diabetes, elctromechanical, insulin, Medical hacks, Original Art, preservation, pump | Leave a comment

Smart DC Tester Better than a Dummy Load

Posted on November 12, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Testing DC supplies can be done in many ways, from connecting an actual load like a motor, to using a dummy load in the manner of a big resistor. [Jasper Sikken] is opening up his smart tester for everyone. He is even putting it on Tindie! Normally a supply like a battery or a generator would be given multiple tests with different loads and periodic readings. Believe us, this can be tedious. [Jasper Sikken]’s simulated load takes away the tedium and guesswork by allowing the test parameters to be adjusted and recorded over a serial interface. Of course, this can …read more

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Posted in battery, dc, generator, Microcontrollers, power supply, solar, solar cell, supply, tool hacks | Leave a comment

DIY 9V Battery

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Volta’s pile — the first battery — was little more than silver and zinc discs separated by paper soaked in salt water. A classic classroom experiment is to build a pile from copper pennies, tin foil, and vinegar or lemon juice. [Omars2] has a different take on this old experiment. He creates a 9V battery using some zinc screws, copper wire, and salt water. There’s a video of the battery, below.

A syringe piston serves as a substrate for the cells, and each cell is just a screw with paper wrapped around it and then 35 turns of copper wire …read more

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Posted in battery, classic hacks, penny | Leave a comment

The Art of Blinky Business Cards

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Business cards are stuck somewhere between antiquity and convenience. On one hand, we have very convenient paperless solutions for contact swapping including Bluetooth, NFC, and just saying, “Hey, put your number into my phone, please.” On the other hand, holding something from another person is a more personal and memorable exchange. I would liken this to the difference between an eBook and a paperback. One is supremely convenient while the other is tactile. There’s a reason business cards have survived longer than the Rolodex.

Protocols and culture surrounding the exchange of cards are meant to make yourself memorable and a …read more

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Posted in 2032, 555, 555 timer, basic circuit, battery, board, Featured, flashy, flexible, flexible printed circuit board, Interest, l, led, pcb, Printed Circuit Board | Leave a comment

Monstrous USB Power Bank

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

At some point, cleaning out the spare parts bin — or cabinet, or garage — becomes a necessity. This is dangerous because it can induce many more project ideas and completely negate the original purpose. [Chaotic Mind], considering the pile of  batteries he’s collected over the past decade, decided that instead of throwing them out, he would recycle them into a grotesque USB power bank.

Inside the bulk of this power bank are an eye-popping 64 18650 Lithium Ion cells, mostly collected from laptop batteries, and wired in a parallel 8×8 pattern with an estimated capacity of over 100,000mAh(!!).  The …read more

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Posted in 18650, battery, duct tape, fire extinguisher, hardware, lithium, power, power bank, usb | Leave a comment