So I almost blew up my batteries...

[klu]

Hey there, new to the boards.

So I'm currently trying to wire everything up for my portable. I was just starting and wired my batteries to the protection circuit like so:

Which is exactly how the instructions that come with the circuit board tells you to do:

Now everything was fine to this point, but then I tried to wire the power to the psOne screen andddd... well.... this is how I wired it:

The orange in that picture is fire hahaha. One of the two negative wires started on fire but I don't remember which.

Anyway, I'm like 99.9999% that my mistake is the one I pointed out in the last picture, with that power wire from the screen going back to the battery. I say this because before I soldered the wire down to the battery from the screen, it kept sparking. But since I'm clearly an idiot, I soldered it down anyway, and errr'thang went up in flames.

SO, where am I suppose to wire the power line to from the screen?

Thanks for any help!

 

[βeta]

The P+ for the charging jack is also 7.4V out. P- is Ground. Your batteries might not work anymore. if they inflate, they are going to catch on fire. Dispose of them.

 

[Prog]

^
If the batteries work, hook your system up to where the charge jack is now. You need a way to switch between them. If you want simultaneous play & charge, hook up a dual pole dual throw switch like so (credit to ShockSlayer):

 

[vskid3]

By wiring the screen directly to the battery, you just completely bypassed the protection circuit. Like beta said, P+ and P- are where you need to solder the wires to whatever you're powering (which is why the diagram in the instructions says charge and load).
However, the fact that you burned up a wire and that there were sparks tells me that you did something else wrong. You should be able to use the batteries without the protection circuit (very unrecommended), so I assume that you either used the wrong place for the screen's ground (you didn't draw it in) or you did a terrible soldering job and messed something up. Basically, if you want us to be able to help you, you're gonna have to provide pictures.

 

[klu]

ahhhh okay, thank you for the responses. I don't know why I was under the impression that the protection circuit was just there to make sure things were okay when you were charging the batteries.

well, i'll figure out if the batteries work and if they do I'll follow the diagram ProgMetalMan posted.

Thank you all!

 

[klu]

So I've decided to get everything else wired up ahead of time before I plunge back in to the batteries.
I got all video and sound wired when I started on the step down regulator.

Now, this is the diagram I'm going off of:

and I've done this so far:

but when I try to solder the resistor to the pth08080, the resistor gets like really hot... is that normal? I don't want to almost cause a fire again haha.

Edit: I have a 100uF capacitor i'm using, and the resistor is the 1800ohm

 

[hailrazer]

The resistor goes to the negative of the cap. You have it on the positive side.

 

[klu]

thank you! for future reference, how exactly can you tell the positive side from the negative side of the capacitor? i remember reading somewhere that the longer lead normally means positive, but both leads from my capacitor are the same length...

 

[PRXVII]

The stripe on the capacitor indicates the negative side.

 

[klu]

Hi all, back with another battery question today.

Now I don't think I will be doing this because of the size problem, but I was thinking the other day about using replaceable batteries in an n64p.

I searched around the ben heck forums and found this ancient thread:
http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=4977

About half way down or so, a user named "Godzilla" had the same idea. Long story short, it could work but the problem is that the battery life would be pretty awful. I think I read in another thread (possibly on ModRetro) that every time the batteries died, you would need to replace them with new batteries, thus costing a HUGE amount of money.

The aforementioned thread, though, was from 7 years ago, and battery technology has progressed since then.

Now, you can buy rechargeable AA batteries, such as nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride. Their amperage is also pretty high it seems.
(see this link for a picture of one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... G_0006.JPG)

So my question is: If space was not an issue, couldn't you use 8 1.5V NiMH rechargeable batteries to get 12V and kick ass battery life? And then just use a step down regulator to get to 3.3V? Or is there something about NiMH batteries I'm not aware of that would limit their battery life?

Thank you for any input!

 

[vskid3]

NiMH are 1.2v, so you would need 10 to get 12v. You should already have a regulator for 3.3v anyway.
The main reason AA size NiMH batteries have been strongly discouraged is the PSone screen. It can only be used with 7.2v, 6 cells, safely (taking into account the higher voltage of NiMH after charging). At that voltage, the power draw is well over 1A, which will drain your 2.5Ah AA NiMHs super fast. NiMH does better with lighter loads over a longer time. In order to use NiMH at 7.2v, it is recommended that you use at least sub-C size batteries.

 

[klu]

NiMH are 1.2v, so you would need 10 to get 12v. You should already have a regulator for 3.3v anyway.
The main reason AA size NiMH batteries have been strongly discouraged is the PSone screen. It can only be used with 7.2v, 6 cells, safely (taking into account the higher voltage of NiMH after charging). At that voltage, the power draw is well over 1A, which will drain your 2.5Ah AA NiMHs super fast. NiMH does better with lighter loads over a longer time. In order to use NiMH at 7.2v, it is recommended that you use at least sub-C size batteries.

yeah I already have a regulator. Well now that makes a lot more sense as to why replaceable batteries are not used in n64p's, thanks for the info!

 

[Basement_Modder]

8 1.5v AAs would be 12v @ 2500 mAh (average AAs I've seen)

That would be flax battery life.

10 1.5v AAs wired in 2 parallel banks of 5 in series would give you 7.5v @ 5000 mAh, which would be above average battery life.

If space is not limited, 15 AAs wired in 3 parallel banks of 5 in series would be 7.5v @ 7500 mAh, which would last for *Can'tSayThisOnTV*ing EVER. (well, like 5 1/2 hours.)

Too big in my opinion, but definitely doable.