Weird charging question...
 

Ok, so I am pondering some things here...

I have a NIntendo DS (thanks Mike!) and I was wondering if I could use the charge port to power the unit from an external battery.

The wall charge outputs 5.2v dc at 450mah. The internal lipo is a 1000mah 3.7v lipo.

Now I have a few of the longer than a c cell - cells out of a laptop battery. I was wondering if I could parallel a few of them together and just feed into the charger port on the ds? The guy who I got the DS from already made a pigtail with a micro deans on it, but he suggested to remove the internal battery when using an external battery. S I am guessing this plug is hooked up parallel to the internal battery where it goes into the unit, and not at the charger port. The 5.2v must be regulated by a circuit to charge the internal battery, so can I use an external 1smulti-p lipo setup to power and charge the internal battery? I understand there will not be a cutoff, that is why the pigtail is attached where it is now as the internal circuits must cutoff the internal battery. Maybe I should just integrate the micro deans and make a switch of some sort to select which power source?

I just wondered if there would be any down sides to doing this? The external battery would only put in 4.2v at most, while the charger puts in 5.2v...

Any info would be handy. I am making up a case to hold everything and the laptop cells would fit nicely in one corner!

Dont give him all the credit :lol: I modded the thing for him :)

it is indeed running parallel to the battery I think you would need some sort of intelligent control to the transfer of power from one battery to another. id just mod s stock charger to connect to whatever hobby charger you have.

I actually want to have a larger portable external battery... Just wondering if I can plug it into the charger slot... Or should I plug it into the denas micro? I really do not want to have to remove the internal battery every time I want to use the external one...

just use the micro deans, you are just effectively parallel'ing the internal battery. no sense in using the charging circuitry. also, sell me a crt .5 center diff...........

unsure about the charger, you can check for a connection between charge port contact to the Micro deans, if it creates a connection then your good to go.
Probably easier to use the micro deans...

So you guys think it is safe to use the micro deans and leave the internal battery in place? Paralleling different mah cells is generally not such a good idea, as the lower mah cell will generally discharge at the same rate as the higher mah cells... I will have to figure out some sort of switch...

Using the charge port isolates the draw to the internal battery (I assume) and allows the external source (another battery in my case) to recharge the internal battery... I will try both ways.

if the internal did draw down quicker than the external, then its voltage would drop, which would then be quickly replenished by the higher voltage of the external battery. they would self balance and work as a system (sort of) just don't leave it plugged in or the back and forth balancing would eventually drain both.

or so I ascertain...