Altoids Small PSP Charger

The PSP is a great gaming system. It has all I need. Music, video, pictures, and games! But...there comes a time in any great person's life (*ahem*) when...THE BATTERY DIES. This is a problem. So, I made a small on-the-go charger for the times when there's no outlet around. This is very easy build, and its fun, too! I hope you like it!

Step 1: Step 1: Materials

These are the materials you will need:

-PSP (duh!)
-Altoids container (doesn't matter which)
-5 volt regulator
-switch
-12 or 9 volt battery
-wire
-duct and electrical tape
-PSP charging cable
-9 volt battery clip or leads for a battery
-hot glue gun (preferably with hot glue)

Comments

[seben]

you need a resistor or your gona fry and permanently damage your psp

[Adum24]

Isnt that what the regulator is for?

[zack247]

um... i made something similar witha 9v battery, and with my psp 1000, it doesn't charge right. why?

[Adam Manick]

Try to use a higher current power source. Like two 9 volt batteries. You may also need smoothing capacitors hooked up to your voltage regulator. Try to search up 5 volt regulator circuit.

[zack247]

hey, just how much current does 1 9V battery have? what about AA's?

[Adam Manick]

9 volt: 300mah to about 600mah
AA: about 800mah to about 1 amp

[Adum24]

A couple of things may be wrong. 1. Your connections aren't secure. 2. A short is being caused if you used a mint tin and didn't insulate it. 3. The PSP 1000 does not accept any chargers besides ones made by Sony or other major companies (although this probably isn't the case). 4. The regulator has some how stopped working, maybe because of too much power. 5. Your battery is dead. Try these suggestions out to see if you can fix your problem. If not, try remaking it based on this instructable.

[zack247]

well the thing is, it works with other usb devices, just not the psp. and i had to make a psp charging cable (via usb), and it charges fine witha pc. just not this charger type. im not sure why, though. what happens is i'll plug it in, start the charger, and the psp charge light will turn on. if i try to turn it on after its done charging, the psp refuses to turn on until about 10 tries later. this doesn't happen if it charges from a pc's usb port, though.

[Adum24]

I tried to originally make this with a USB cable so I could enter it in the USB contest, but it wouldn't work. I'm not sure why this happens with your PSP. It could just not work like mine. It might be because you PSP is old and is unfamiliar with different chargers. Does your PSP take a couple of tries to turn on when you don't use that charger? If so, there's your problem. If not, I'll give you this suggestion. If you don't want to switch the USB cable with a PSP charging cable, then make a splice in the USB wire, and hook it up ti your PSP wire. Now you have two cables running from the charger.

[zack247]

no, the psp charges fine with any usb port, just not with anything else. (actually, i haven't tried a wall universal usb charger yet)

[Adum24]

Then my only answer would be to use a psp charging cable instead of USB.

[isacco]

Congratulations! The project is nice and useful. Unfortunately some pictures are too blurry. If you could update the instructable with better pictures, it would be nice to our eyes. If your camera does not have macro mode, try to scan small objects, such the Altoid box, in a flatbed scanner.

[Adum24]

Will do.