Added a USB Charger to a 3.7V Box Mod

[Huffheinz]

I had a couple of hours to play around last night and added a madvapes 510 USB charger to my single 14500 box mod.

I ran up to Radio Snack and got the smallest panel mount coax power jack and power plug I could find. I ended up using size N, which is way too big but serves it's purpose.

I took the battery connector and USB male plug off the charger PCB, soldered in some wires, drilled a hole in the box for the LED and wedged it in the AA battery slot. The PCB is a little too tight and it bowed the edge of the box out a bit, but it still closes fine and you don't notice it unless you look really close.

I lifted the wires up in this pic so you can see how I routed them:

Here's what it looks like with the bottom cover in place:

I clipped a sacrificial USB cable and added the coax jack:

Here's the wiring diagram for the whole mod:

And here's the layout:

It's kind of a mess but it does the job. It takes a few hours to charge up the 900mAh 14500. When I plug it in the LED lights red when it's charging and turns green when it's done. I'll just plug it in at night and it'll be ready to go in the morning.

I suppose it would work as a passthrough, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm a little afraid the it might fry the charger. Besides, I don't have a 2-amp USB source yet so there's really no advantage over the just using the battery.

I'll order some USB mini-B female sockets for the next box I build, but for now, I have two USB cords with the coax jack on it (one for the car and one for home) and that will do the trick.

 

[misterD]

shoot! yours look much better than mine (does not take much)! but mine has a mini usb as connector
am i the only sloppy around here?

where i got the mini usb's from
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170457196852&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

 

[Huffheinz]

...but mine has a mini usb as connector

I heard you did one of these, but I couldn't find the thread. I'm pretty jealous of the mini USB connector (thanks for rubbing it in ). How did you mount the mini USB? Do you have any pics?

 

[misterD]

same as you. if you want i can send you some (3 maybe?).

 

[chev327fox]

That was a really good idea!!! Nice work!

 

[karmatized]

just a tip those little usb chargers arent very good. They are low on the mah output. Ebay has some for 3 bucks a peice with 2x the mah

 

[chev327fox]

just a tip those little usb chargers arent very good. They are low on the mah output. Ebay has some for 3 bucks a peice with 2x the mah

Wouldn't it just make it charge slower?

Geeze Huffheinz I can't get over how clean that looks, you did a hell of a job.

 

[misterD]

if i vape on my 18650 all day long and plug it in overnight it fully charges it... if im stationary i do vape plugged in so in reality im not vaping unplugged that much. if thats what it means vaping as PT than it works. doesnt work without the batt though
i have 3 of these higher chargers
2Pcs USB 5V Lithium Li-ion Battery 1 Cell Charger Board - eBay (item 350351022884 end time May-13-10 16:38:44 PDT)
but i really think that the way to go is having just a mini usb on the device so you could add a charger to a cable and have charger cable or come up with a dummy batt with a female usb on it you could stick on your regular charger and plug a cable to that connector to your mini usb on your PV

 

[Huffheinz]

Wouldn't it just make it charge slower?

Yep...the ebay charger with 400mA output is twice as fast as the madvapes one I use with ~200mA output. The 14500 I use has a capacity of 900mAh. (200mA / 900mA/hr = 4.5 hr) In theory, I could charge a fully depleted battery in 4.5 hours, but the protected batteries never fully discharge and it would be catastrophic if they did.

Thanks for the tip, karma. I'm not really worried about the lower mA output of the madvapes charger. I don't really need a fast charge, I only use this mod when I'm on the go, but I do like the dimensions listed on the ebay charger ([FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]PCB Size (24x13.2)mm)[/FONT]. 13.2mm wide would fit perfectly in a AA battery slot.

MisterD, thanks! I'll PM you my address. I would like to offer a little something in trade (some juice, perhaps), or I could pay it forward. I thought about adding the charger to a USB cable, but I like the idea of the charger on the mod using a standard mini USB cable.

I'm glad to hear that you can have it plugged in and vape without frying the charger. Using it while plugged in is not technically a passthrough since the output of the charger is so low (200mA) it wouldn't be enough to vape with. When you fire it up while it's plugged in, you are using the power from the battery.

 

[misterD]

if you PM me your address today i'll mail it to you tomorrow. when you work with it leave the pins as they are. if you straight them up they'll come out of the holder.

 

[jiff]

this makes me want to add a usb charger to my juice box.... Maybe I will with the next one... Should be able to squeeze it in somewhere...

 

[WillyB]

I had a couple of hours to play around last night and added a madvapes 510 USB charger to my single 14500 box mod.

I ran up to Radio Snack and got the smallest panel mount coax power jack and power plug I could find. I ended up using size N, which is way too big but serves it's purpose.

I took the battery connector and USB male plug off the charger PCB, soldered in some wires, drilled a hole in the box for the LED and wedged it in the AA battery slot. The PCB is a little too tight and it bowed the edge of the box out a bit, but it still closes fine and you don't notice it unless you look really close.

I lifted the wires up in this pic so you can see how I routed them:

Here's what it looks like with the bottom cover in place:


I clipped a sacrificial USB cable and added the coax jack:

Here's the wiring diagram for the whole mod:


And here's the layout:


It's kind of a mess but it does the job. It takes a few hours to charge up the 900mAh 14500. When I plug it in the LED lights red when it's charging and turns green when it's done. I'll just plug it in at night and it'll be ready to go in the morning.

I suppose it would work as a passthrough, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm a little afraid the it might fry the charger. Besides, I don't have a 2-amp USB source yet so there's really no advantage over the just using the battery.

I'll order some USB mini-B female sockets for the next box I build, but for now, I have two USB cords with the coax jack on it (one for the car and one for home) and that will do the trick.

Looks good. Seems like you had enough room to recess the DC jack into the box and eliminate the protruding outside nut completely (that's the only thing that looks a tad awkward). You could then basically flush mount the DC jack. Or if your DC input barrel is long enough drill a small hole the same size as your DC input barrel into your case and mate up the jack from the inside (and glue). You could grind down the DC jack to make up for the plastic's thickness if need be.

It's so much easier to drill a nice little round hole than carve out a clean mini USB slot and fiddle with them little fragile pins.

I suppose it would work as a passthrough, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm a little afraid the it might fry the charger.

What you have is a charging circuit that will keep your battery topped off between puffs. I don't see how this would fry your charger. Your unit is running off the battery. This is like the Joye 510 PT with inline battery, the Janty Stick or the Bartleby. None of these are really passthroughs.

Very pretty work... as usual.

 

[CloudBurst]

I want to do this!!! Very nice!

 

[candre23]

Mini-USB female connectors - $.51 for one, or $.34 each for 10+

http://mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kob...=sGAEpiMZZMtV0NIoyAjRfXUmOQbmQzx4xWjlEm3t8N8=

 

[Huffheinz]

Looks good. Seems like you had enough room to recess the DC jack into the box and eliminate the protruding outside nut completely (that's the only thing that looks a tad awkward). You could then basically flush mount the DC jack.

It's so much easier to drill a nice little round hole than carve out a clean mini USB slot and fiddle with them little fragile pins.

I agree, I'm really not happy with the nut on the outside. I had originally planned on drilling a slightly undersized hole and using the threads on the barrel to tap itself into the plastic until it was flush. But the DC jack is just too large and there wasn't enough room to spin it inside the case.

MisterD is sending me some mini-B-USB sockets to play with, but I have to admit, I'm a little scared of getting a solid mount (I have an aversion to epoxy), cutting a clean access hole and soldering those little tiny pins. I will just have to play with them and see what I can work out.

Actually, the DC jack is working out nicely. I just plug it in at night and it's good to go in the morning. I'd sure like to find a panel mount socket and matching plug in a smaller size. I'm not very well versed in electrical components so I'll do some research and see what I can find.

What you have is a charging circuit that will keep your battery topped off between puffs. I don't see how this would fry your charger. Your unit is running off the battery.

You are absolutely correct. I realized this when I took another look at the wiring diagram. The USB power is coming in strictly through the charging circuit (5V@200mA). Not enough power to vape with. I had toyed around with the idea of using the extra pole on the master on/off switch to create a true passthrough, but didn't think it necessary.

 

[Huffheinz]

Here's how I took apart the madvapes 510 charger and wired it up for the mod.

I put a flat blade screwdriver between the battery threads and the plastic case and gave it a twist to pop it apart.

Which leaves you with this:

Then I scraped some white rubber protectant off of the two output wires (not shown), and removed them from the PCB with the soldering iron.

The trickiest part is removing the USB plug from the input side. The outer casing is held in by two tabs (one on each side) which are inserted into two slots, bent over and soldered onto the PCB. I removed the solder from the two tabs with solder wick and straightened them out with a pair of needle nose pliers. Then I rocked the USB plug back so it was perpendicular with the PCB, pulling the tabs out of the PCB slots and bending the 4 little pins straight. Then I just pulled it off, the 4 pins slipped right out of the USB plug because they were soldered into the PCB. Then I heated up the pins and pulled them out of the PCB one at a time with the needle nose and cleaned up the solder with the wick.

I stripped and pre-tinned my four wires, held them with the needle nose, and soldered them to the correct hole in the PCB.

There are 4 pins on the USB jack. The outside two are the + and - and the center 2 pins are not used. The other side of the PCB (not shown here) is marked for + and -. (You can see the long slots on the input side where the USB jack tabs were.)

This thing is small. It looks big in the picture but it's exactly as wide as a USB plug and won't even cover the pad of my thumb.

Anyway, that's how I did it. Sorry I don't have more pictures to show the USB removal, but I didn't take any pictures in-process and I don't have another one on hand.

Hope this helps.

 

[chev327fox]

Yep...the ebay charger with 400mA output is twice as fast as the madvapes one I use with ~200mA output. The 14500 I use has a capacity of 900mAh. (200mA / 900mA/hr = 4.5 hr) In theory, I could charge a fully depleted battery in 4.5 hours, but the protected batteries never fully discharge and it would be catastrophic if they did.

Thanks for the tip, karma. I'm not really worried about the lower mA output of the madvapes charger. I don't really need a fast charge, I only use this mod when I'm on the go, but I do like the dimensions listed on the ebay charger ([FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]PCB Size (24x13.2)mm)[/FONT]. 13.2mm wide would fit perfectly in a AA battery slot.

MisterD, thanks! I'll PM you my address. I would like to offer a little something in trade (some juice, perhaps), or I could pay it forward. I thought about adding the charger to a USB cable, but I like the idea of the charger on the mod using a standard mini USB cable.

I'm glad to hear that you can have it plugged in and vape without frying the charger. Using it while plugged in is not technically a passthrough since the output of the charger is so low (200mA) it wouldn't be enough to vape with. When you fire it up while it's plugged in, you are using the power from the battery.

I was always told that a slower charge was a deeper and better charge anyways... I could be wrong though, not a battery guy.

Also I lik the look of the "nut" thats holding the charge hook up, adds some "chrome" type color to it.

Chrome won't get you home but it might get you laid

I agree, I'm really not happy with the nut on the outside. I had originally planned on drilling a slightly undersized hole and using the threads on the barrel to tap itself into the plastic until it was flush. But the DC jack is just too large and there wasn't enough room to spin it inside the case.

MisterD is sending me some mini-B-USB sockets to play with, but I have to admit, I'm a little scared of getting a solid mount (I have an aversion to epoxy), cutting a clean access hole and soldering those little tiny pins. I will just have to play with them and see what I can work out.

Don't be afraid of hot glue it works real good at holding things in place in a mod, epoxy is stronger but overkill in my opinion for what your using it for...

 

[Huffheinz]

I was always told that a slower charge was a deeper and better charge anyways... I could be wrong though, not a battery guy.

I don't know if this holds true with the chemistry of the Li-Ion's.

Also I lik the look of the "nut" thats holding the charge hook up, adds some "chrome" type color to it.
Chrome won't get you home but it might get you laid

I don't really mind the idea of a nut hanging off the side. I just hate the size of this one. And I really do think a flush mount would look cleaner.

I'm not really into chrome and neither is the wife. Now, if the chrome would make my 3-yo daughter go to bed early...I'd be wearing suits of it.

Don't be afraid of hot glue it works real good at holding things in place in a mod, epoxy is stronger but overkill in my opinion for what your using it for...

I do not doubt the functionality of epoxy or hot glue, I just prefer mechanical fasteners. I like the look of a nice threaded fastener or press fit component with a tiny dab of invisible CA (superglue) to hold it in place. It looks better and is more serviceable.

 

[jiff]

Thanks for the description of how to take that charger apart.

I'll definately be making a box mod with one of these in it now.... damn have to wait for payday...

I actually like the look of the nut on the outside case. Maybe I'm wierd, but I like the look of a bunch of things sticking out.

 

[sheff]

What an awesome thread and I know it is probably dead, but thanks for the info.