Friday, August 1, 2014

MicroBoost success

My initial prototype boards for a MintyBoost SMD clone came back. They work up to 500 mA. I tried to run one at 1A, but the inductor failed spectacularly. I do think I'm going to try and upgrade the next version to 1A if I can. I've found a beefier inductor and I already have some good Schottky diodes that are a step up from the MBRA140. I've also changed the shape a little so it has a better shot of fitting in the "gum" size AdaFruit tins for a 2 AA variant (that would only really be expected to work at 500 mA though).

But I dunno if I want to bother. About the only argument I could make in favor of adding this to my Tindie store is that I think my design could be made much cheaper than any of the other prices for this I see elsewhere - probably $10 for a complete board with your choice of either 500 mA or 1000 mA "Apple charging" resistors (you have to use resistor dividers to tell an iDevice how much current is available, and you'd want to set up a 2 AA charger for 500 mA and a 3 AA charger for 1000).

But would anyone want one?

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