What’s inside a counterfeit Macbook charger? After my Macbook charger teardown, a reader sent me a charger he suspected was counterfeit. From the outside, this charger is almost a perfect match for an Apple charger, but disassembling the charger shows that it is very different on the inside. It has a much simpler design that […]
Counterfeit Macbook charger teardown Continue Reading
Many AA or AAA battery chargers charge batteries in pairs, but plenty of devices use 1 or 3 batteries, meaning that some of your batteries get overcharged and some get undercharged. NiCd and NiMH batteries also benefit from an occasional full discharge, which most normal battery chargers won’t do. If you’re anything like me you’ll
Smart Battery Charger Continue Reading
A friend has approached me regarding his solar project. He wants to install a solar panel together with a battery and an inverter in order to have power at his allotment garden. He had looked at a hobbyist project where an arduino was used to build a MPPT (maximum point of power tracking) charge controller.
Arduino MPPT Solar Charger Shield Continue Reading
Ensuring your vehicle batteries are always in good condition is important. Preserving of our environment is/should be mandatory. This project supports both purpose. It recycles an outdated feature phone wall adapter to create a lead-acid battery float charger. The wall adapter gets a new life and the lifetime of the battery extends. You can build
Lead Acid Battery float charger Continue Reading
Have you ever wondered what’s inside your MacBook’s charger? There’s a lot more circuitry crammed into the compact power adapter than you’d expect, including a microprocessor. This charger teardown looks at the numerous components in the charger and explains how they work together to power your laptop. Most consumer electronics, from your cell phone to
Macbook charger teardown Continue Reading
Li-ion cells become more and more popular due to their capacity and reasonable prices. In this entry I will show how to build a simple li-ion battery charger based on MCP73831 chip. It’s a quite useful device for DYI projects, in addition its cost is only around 1,5 euro. The device uses USB port as
Build A Simple USB Li-Ion Battery Charger Based On MCP73831 Chip Continue Reading
It’s been a long time since I posted an update on my battery charger project (in fact it has been a long time since I have posted anything!). I have been Very Busy with projects for my work and when I am not working for work, I am working on battery chargers. When I am
The Best NiMh Charger (for now) Continue Reading
since I really like using LiFePO4 AA and AAA batteries in some of my projects [1][2][3], I finally gave in and built a dedicated charger for them. Previously I used a lab power supply to mimic the constant current/constant voltage charging curve, which worked also fine. But after seeing Patrick Van Oosterwijck nifty LiFePO4wered/USB™ [4],
LiFePO4 Charger Continue Reading
Here is a tried and tested sample circuit of a Li-Ion battery charger that can be used to charge any 3.7V Li-Ion battery using a 5VDC (USB, Solar Panel…) power supply. At the heart of the circuit is one microchip MCP73831, available in SOT-23-5 package. MCP73831 is a highly advanced linear charge management controller for
3.7V Li-Ion Battery Charger Circuit Continue Reading
One of the most fun and useful projects on instructables is to create your very own solar USB/ iPhone charger. They’re not overly difficult to make, nor are the parts overly expensive or hard to find. For the most part they do a rather good job of charging up small gadgets. Mostly. The big flaw
Lithium Battery Solar USB – iPhone – Arduino Charger Continue Reading
