DIY iPod battery pack
p2pnet.net News Feature:- Apple has been getting a lot of unwelcome attention, lately, because of its expensive and longevity-challenged iPod batteries.
In fact, at the moment, there are five class-action lawsuits accusing Apple of misrepresenting claims of the battery life in its iPod digital music player.
So would you like extra playing time – like, another 10 hours?
“On occasions I found that the iPod battery wasn’t quite large enough to cope with very long journeys,” says Drew Perry on his web page here.
” I wanted a way to improve this … So I grabbed a few batteries, clips, soldering stuff, bits of wire and a deck of cards.
Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>
iPod Battery Pack
By Drew Perry
First a little background stuff… The iPod is rated as 8-30 volts (or mine is anyway) and the Power Adaptor gives out 12 volts. I wanted to simulate the Power Adaptor as close as possible, so I figured I’d also give out 12 volts. Since that isnt a common value for Batteries I decided to combine two PP9’s and two AA’s. This is the circuit:
It was not entirely coincidental that these batteries just so happen to fit perfectly inside a playing card case. This is the one I used:
With a sharp knife I cut open the card case, and made sure that the batteries would fit. This is the arrangement I’ve put them in:
Next I cut out a shape in one of the bottom flaps for the Firewire socket. It’s a regular 6-pin Firewire socket, which I bought from CPC. Then I stuck the firewire socket in place with some All-Purpose Adhesive from UHU. It now looks like this:
I figured that since it takes quite a bit of force to unplug a firewire plug that I should re-inforce the cardboard with more cardboard. Basically I made a little bit of card which held onto all the sides of the firewire socket and was also stuck to two sides of the card case. Then I made up the circuit using three PP9 clips and a 2x AA holder. Soldered it together and soldered it to the Firewire socket. Now it looks like this:
Then I placed the batteries back where they should go and tucked all the wires into place. Note that I also added a card strengthener on the lower left flap. It looked like this:
Then I got out my glue again and stuck the card case back together again. After the gue had dried it looked like this:
That’s basically it! I measured the voltage out-put from all charged batteries and got 11.6. Not bad compared to the Power Adaptor’s 11.7! I just use the lead that came with the iPod to connect the Battery Pack to the iPod and it worked fine. I find I get about an extra 10 hours iPodding time – depending on the batteries I put in it.
February 29th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
interesting idea and a nice article.
nice picture at the top of the article, but where are the rest of the graphics?
all that i can see is:
… This is the circuit:
… This is the one I used:
… This is the arrangement I’ve put them in:
… It now looks like this:
… Now it looks like this:
… It looked like this:
… After the gue had dried it looked like this:
i assume that the two PP9’s are wired in parallel and
then wired to the two AA’s(in series).
to me, the critical part is the wiring of the Firewire socket.
March 2nd, 2004 at 1:04 am
This is only for 1st generation iPods, or 2nd/3rd generation ones that have a Dr. bott’s PocketDock adapter
March 2nd, 2004 at 5:33 pm
Yeah, click on the title at the top of Drew’s article. It’s linked to his web page.
March 27th, 2004 at 9:36 am
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August 27th, 2004 at 7:57 pm
I also can’t figure out the wiring of the socket. Pin 1 is power, pin 2 is ground, pins 3-6 are data. I emailed Drew and got “My guide is intended for poeple with a good knowladge of electronics, and those people could work it out pretty quickly with a multimeter. Ah well.”
Anyone figure it out?
August 21st, 2006 at 10:19 pm
When my iPod battery started to fail I bought a new replacement battery from http://www.laptopsforless.com/mp3playerbattery/apple-ipod-Battery and it works great. I am not much of a DIY person so a replacement battery was a much easier way to go.