Noob with portacast lust....

[hailrazer]

Charge rate. Doesn't matter for the average user.

Any Lithium-Polymer Pak will work fine. Just pick the size you need and the mAh you want and go from there.

[Shugs81]

how do i calculate the battery life?

[hailrazer]

How many mAh the battery is divided by how many amps the system draws.

An average N64 portable with Psone screen will draw around 1.5A. So if you have a 4500mAh battery then 4500/1500 = 3 hours.

[Shugs81]

aaaahh... cool... wondered how that worked....

there was a post before to some ebay screens.... i'm sure it was stickied on here but i can't find it now....

anyone remember seeing it?? *** Ignore this.. it was on the bacteria forums...

either way...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

Looking good for using this screen... well... that is if i don't decide to go bigger!!

[Shugs81]

Right.... expect a few questions.... I've had the dreamcast apart and taken loads of (not very good quality) photos and I have a few questions....

I was thinking of doing a little kind of photo thread showing what bits are what in the dreamcast.... While i don't know the ins and outs of electronics I understand what everything is in the dreamcast...

has something like this been already done? or is this something like this not really needed? just opening it up had made everything clearer as to how I'm going to build my portacast and also what I want to do with it...

if it's already been done let me know so I can look at unfuzzy pics!!! lol... I will take better ones once i get another dreamcast to turn into the portacast but as I was pulling apart the one that I still use I didn't want to wreck it....

Infact.... I was planning to blog the build anyway so I'll just link to it.... effectively making this post pointless... lol...

[Shugs81]

Can I use a laptop battery???

I've got a dell one from an old laptop rated at 11.1v.. tho doesn't have the ampage on it... though the laptop apparently is 19.5v at 3.4a... yup thats amps... still powers it for about 3 hrs and i've got a power charger brick thing too...

looking like i only need a monitor now!!! bargain build! oh... and a case too...

[Shugs81]

right...

http://okbatt.co.uk/batteries.php/DELL/ ... 4QodOzOclA

I'm assuming that the battery i have is the 4400mah one... so would it be usable?? looks like it would...

what would i need to do to the power supply to use it in place of the pico psu? is that even possible?

[Shugs81]

Just discovered some cheap plastic i bought to make a guitar scratchplate is actually HIPS plastic!!!!

If anyone can confirm about the battery it means i just need my screen and I can get this mo fo built!!!!

[Shugs81]

http://www.hugill.me.uk/wp-content/uplo ... 233145.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.hugill.me.uk/wp-content/uplo ... 233213.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.hugill.me.uk/wp-content/uplo ... 233422.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(couldn't get the images small enough... grr...)

I'm assuming the board attached is a protection circuit... I'm planning on pulling the motherboard of the laptop apart to try to retrieve the power section of it so that I can use the same plug but just need to work out how to get the pico psu there...

also... the way the batteries are wired seems a bit odd to me as I can't work out if they're in series or parallel... I'm assuming the ridged end of the battery is positive so starting from the right hand side the two cells have the two positives connected with a wire coming off to the pcb at a point called up... then the two negatives are connected together with another wire going to UM, but the metal bit connecting the two -ve's is folded again to connect the next two cell's +ve's... the two -ve's of that sell have a wire coming off to UL, and again connected to the next 2 +ve's... with a wire coming of the -ve's to UG...

i think UP=Universal Positive and UG=Universal ground... but no idea about t'others...

The connecter is labelled (if the pic isn't clear enough) P-,P-, alert, sys, batt, dat, clk, P+,P+.

I'm guessing the only bits needed will be the P+'s and P-'s... and they would be wired together?? as in the 2 P+ together and 2 P- together not all 4 together... that = burny nasty mess...

as this is a 4400mah how much battery life would that give me? this is @ 11.1v....

to confirm this is the pico psu I would use to connect right?? http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. would it be a case of connecting the battery to the black and white cables? then obviously the molex can be cut off and and the appropriate wires soldered to the right bits.... where would i put the charging bit in? or would it be a case of attaching the power of the batteries to the end of the pins and the appropriate sized socket and the wall plug will just charge the battery?

ta!

p.s. can one of the mods change the tite of this thread so it's spelled right? just noticed it!!

ta again

[Shugs81]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT

well... bought this.....

as it seems to be a 2 cell battery.... what sort of protection circuit would i need?

[Shugs81]

This just arrived yesterday!!!

7.4v 5200mah and less than £30!!! Joys of hong kong!!

Anyone have any advice on how to hook this up to my portacast and how to sort out a charger/protection circuit?

Thanks peeps!