Wii Portable... Recommended battery?

[Jonathan Holt]

I'm making my second wii portable, focusing more on aesthetics this time as I plan to sell this one. I want to put an internal battery in this one so it will be completely portable. I know it has to have 12v output to work with the wii, but does anyone have any recommendations? Also what would be the ideal mAh to give an hour or so of battery life and not be too bulky?

 

[Noah]

The Wii can be run off of custom regulators so that a 7V4 battery pack can be used. You can find the Wii trimming guide over on BitBuilt and it goes into detail about where the voltages need to be placed in order for it to work.

Just one option, of course you could still use a 12V pack if you don't plan on trimming the board at all.

 

[Jonathan Holt]

The Wii can be run off of custom regulators so that a 7V4 battery pack can be used. You can find the Wii trimming guide over on BitBuilt and it goes into detail about where the voltages need to be placed in order for it to work.

Just one option, of course you could still use a 12V pack if you don't plan on trimming the board at all.

I'm going to try and stay away from trimming the board if possible. Do you have any recommended 12v batteries that would work good? I looked up 12v battery packs and most of them are massive...

 

[Shank]

Use a 14.8v pack. The Wii has regulators that can accept anything above 10v. Don't get an 11.1v as the voltage drops below 10v before the battery runs out of power

 

[Jonathan Holt]

Use a 14.8v pack. The Wii has regulators that can accept anything above 10v. Don't get an 11.1v as the voltage drops below 10v before the battery runs out of power

Thanks, that's good to know. Any idea how fast the wii consumes power? I am looking to get about an hour minimum of battery life if possible. I'm not really savy on figuring out power consumption, dont know if there is a formula or something I can use to determine that...

 

[Shank]

Depends on your revision, if you are using custom regulators, and what else you are powering. Power consumption should be between 6-20 watts. Check my superguide on bitbuilt if you aren't sure what revision you have.

 

[Jonathan Holt]

So, I've been looking at battery packs, and they are not the size and shape I was hoping for. Ideally I was wanting to go with a 3000mah one to get the most battery life. But with the housing I went with (http://www.polycase.com/zn-40 and http://www.polycase.com/zn-45), it probably won't fit, so I think I'm going to settle on a 2500mah battery instead. I couldn't find any smaller capacity batteries that had 14.8v output. Do you think that will give it sufficient battery life? I did a little research to figure out battery life based on watts, but I think my math is off because I got a battery life of around 65 hours for a wii with a 3000 mah battery lol

 

[moderategamer]

I don't know how much space you can expect to have spare but these batteries are low profile and have a 5000 mAh capacity will probably end up taking up more apace than 18650s but worth a look. have you considered using custom regulators so you can run off of a lower voltage?
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__18560__Turnigy_5000mAh_1S_20C_Lipoly_Single_Cell_.html

 

[Jonathan Holt]

I haven't really, this is the first project I've done that's dealt with any board modifications, alt. power sources, etc. I don't know much about regulators or how to use them, I'm kind of learning as I go.

That battery looks good as far as the size, but with it only being 3.7v I'd have to get 3 or 4 and run them in sequence right?

 

[moderategamer]

snip

Yeah to get the 14.8v you want you would need 4 of them in series. I'm learning too and haven't done any research in to the wii so I don't know what Voltage you can get away with but If you can get away with 7.4v on custom regulators then you would only need two in series but the battery life would not be great.

 

[Jonathan Holt]

Yeah to get the 14.8v you want you would need 4 of them in series. I'm learning too and haven't done any research in to the wii so I don't know what Voltage you can get away with but If you can get away with 7.4v on custom regulators then you would only need two in series but the battery life would not be great.

I guess the advantage to getting 4 or so and running them together is I don't necessarily have to have then stacked on top of each other, so I may have an easier time fitting them in there...i may try that I'd they aren't too expensive.

 

[Jonathan Holt]

Sorry to double post, but I've got a question for all you battery/power gurus. I am going to be running the wii and the lcd screen off the battery/power supply, and both require 12v. I'm also looking at an audio amplifier board that will take 12v as well. Will I be able to have three things drawing 12v from the battery or power supply at the same time?

 

[moderategamer]

Sorry to double post, but I've got a question for all you battery/power gurus. I am going to be running the wii and the lcd screen off the battery/power supply, and both require 12v. I'm also looking at an audio amplifier board that will take 12v as well. Will I be able to have three things drawing 12v from the battery or power supply at the same time?

Yes you can draw all three it just draws more power.

 

[Jonathan Holt]

Yes you can draw all three it just draws more power.

Awesome thanks! I put some plastic spacers in the housing so I can get an idea of how everything is going to fit in there. I'm not sure how ShockSlayer fit his battery in there, but it is going to be very crammed in there. I figure at best, I might be able to get either two 7.4 LiPo batteries side be side and run them in series, or possibly just go with a smaller battery, but there is no way a 14.8v LiPo battery will fit in there, unless I go with a smaller mAh and sacrifice some battery life. It's all experimental for me right now. I may not even have an internal battery for this model seeing how it will set me back $60+. I am going to sell this one, so it very much depends on whether I will get any interested buyers if there is no battery pack.

I appreciate the help everyone. I feel like a volunteer medical helper trying to perform heart surgery lol

 

[Jonathan Holt]

I have another question, is there a clear benefit to using a li-po battery compared to a li-io battery? The li-io batteries seem to be much smaller and cheaper, I was considering using them instead. Thoughts?