Altoids Small PSP Charger

by Adum24

5.7K2315

Intro: 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)

STEP 2: Step 2: the Circuit

This is the super-simple diagram for the circuit. DO NOT SOLDER THE PSP CHARGING CABLE INTO THE CIRCUIT YET!!!!

STEP 3: Step 3: Preping the Altoids Tin

Using a nail, hammer a hole about the size of the cable in the back. Run the cable theough this hole. Then make a cut on the side for the switch.

STEP 4: Putting in the Circuit

Now  you can solder in the cable to the circuit. If you had done this before, you couldn't have put the cable through the hole and you would have to unsolder and re solder. Make sure you cover the inside with duct tape.

STEP 5: Finishing Putting in the Circuit

Put the switch in the slot you made earlier and squeeze everything else in. I put the leads to the battery on opposite sides of the Altoid tin and it held the 12 volt battery in pretty well.

STEP 6: Testing, 1...2...3...

Now you can test it by putting in the plug and turning it on. YAY, IT CHARGES!!! I hope you had fun building this!

15 Comments

Adum24 10 years ago

It's a 12 volt battery. It's very small and you can usually find it at any store by where other batteries are sold.

seben 12 years ago

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

Adum24 12 years ago

Isnt that what the regulator is for?

zack247 13 years ago

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

Adam Manick 13 years ago

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 13 years ago

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

Adam Manick 13 years ago

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

Adum24 13 years ago

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 13 years ago

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 13 years ago

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 13 years ago

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 13 years ago

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

isacco 13 years ago

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.