Another Altoids Ipod Charger

by soundman3103

34K119126

Intro: Another Altoids Ipod Charger

Alright this is my first Instructable and I made a different version of the Altiods ipod charger. I made my first version off of another instructable but i wanted to make it my own so i made this one

STEP 1: Materials

Soldering Iron
Solder
Lots of wires
dremel or something to cut the altiods case
drill
drill bits
9vbattery
9v battery clip
5v Regulator
LED
Resistor (im not really sure which one)
female usb (www.http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Ntt=806-KUSBX-AS1N-B

this is a pic of the regulator

STEP 2: Hooking Up the Battery and Switch

Hook the 9v Battery clip up to the batter
Take the red wire (positive) from the clip and solder it to one end of the switch
then solder the other end of the switch to the resistor and solder the resistor to the positive side of the led

STEP 3: Led to Regulator

Now solder the other end of the led to pin 1 of the regulator (there should be a schematic on the back of the regulator box.
Next take a black wire and solder it to the middle pin of the regulator aka the ground.

STEP 4: Wiring the Ground

Solder a wire going from the out of the regulator (pin 3) and solder it to pin one of the usb port.

Take the wire you soldered onto the ground (pin 2 of the regulator) and solder it to the negative of the battery.

Ok now the confusing part. Solder another wire onto the negative of the battery. Take the end of that wire thats not connected to anything and connect it to pin 4 of the usb. Sorry if this sounds confusing

The picture should help a little.
I also tried to make a schematic in paint

STEP 5: The Case

Its time to modify the altoids case. You can do however you want really all i did was drill a hole in the side for the switch
I also drilled a whole in the front for the led

Next i took my dremel and put two slits down the side for the usb and then u just put everything in

129 Comments

rwinter3 10 years ago

I have built this circuit for my ipod 5 but when I flick the switch it doesn't work?

Nitro_Hawk 9 years ago

The charger needs to have a certain voltage across the Data- and Data+ ports in between the negative and positive pins on the type A female usb.

BuggyBoy 9 years ago

I used a 330 ohm resistor for the LED... this might help

http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz

also a heatsink might be a good idea if the regulator gets too warm.

genuis321 10 years ago

It's a 150 ohm resistor

corbitt_27 10 years ago

What happens when the batteries run out of power

agm88 11 years ago

i have an ipod 4g and afraid to build this because im afraid to blow the batery
can any one help with a safe ipod charger

guitarcrazy189 14 years ago

will this work for the ipod touch 3g?

29er sailor 12 years ago

Good idea..

Here is something that would work for the touch and iPhone!

http://www.adafruit.com/index.phpmain_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=14

Master T

shantanu007 15 years ago

for some reason this wnt charge my ipone 3g and every thing is wired correctly even the light turns on.

penuwana 15 years ago

dude the iphone uses pin 2 and 3 along with the five volts from 1 and 4, 2 has 2.5volts and pin 3(of the usb or firewire) is 1.8volts look it up 1 found this out too

shantanu007 13 years ago

Thanks man this worked for me

CaseBoy 13 years ago

you have to connect the the 2 middle pins together.

soundman3103 15 years ago

You need to take the light off. thats my momentary fix ill try to figure out how to wire it in. When you turn it on the voltage goes down to 4 but you need 5 so if you take the light off itll go up to five

shantanu007 15 years ago

Would getting a 6v regulator fix the problem?

soundman3103 15 years ago

thats not a bad idea just check the voltage before you plug it into anything im not responsible for damaged stuff

yano 15 years ago

usb ports normally put out ~5v, so 6v would probably be too much. I don't know if it would do any damage, but I wouldn't try it personally I've heard that some of the newer iPods require you to ground the circuit, so you might want to try that

DYLEGO 15 years ago

6v regulator goes to 1v led first, bringing it down to5v

FrostEnergy 14 years ago

Just a word of advice to any of you who plan to use that circuit for anything of worth, dont! its not safe enough to charge them with out frying them over time. I have posted one that is basically the same, with some capacitors used as filters, the 330 ohm resistor can be anywhere between 100 and 330 ohms, and the 15k, can but substituted with a 10k, havent tried anything in between!