Daily DIY

I needed a wall charger for my iPod, but I didnt want to fork over 30 bucks for the Apple wall charger. I had a extra Motorola USB charger, which would work nicely except it had a miniusb jack at the end. I looked for a mini usb to regular usb converter but came up empty. The only option left was to take the charger under the knife.



This Instructable will show you how to take a USB Motorola Phone Charger and stick a female usb charger for charging USB devices, which in this case is an iPod.



WARNING: After this is done you will no longer be able to charge your RAZR(and probably other motorola models) phone, since a special circuit is needed to get the phone into charge mode. I’ll update this instructable as soon as I fix the issue.


By: rbhays

This instructable will show you how to make your own solar battery charger from very simple components. It is taken from my documentation provided with a kit I supply - you should easily be able to source the same components yourself of course.



If you have any comments on how to improve the documentation then please do not hesitate to say



http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Electronic-Widgets-Inc




By: DoveP

Using the ac adapter from an old parallel port external Zip drive and a USB to PS2 mouse adapter, I made this Ipod charger.


By: pir8p3t3

My Thinkpad’s power connection started getting flaky, so I made a magnetic connector that works just like Apple’s MagSafe connectors. It’s effective, cool-looking, and breaks away cleanly when kicked. I used common materials that I had around or could find at my local hardware store, so you should be able to duplicate my efforts.



These directions should work for any power connector that has the same basic design, if you make adaptations for differing sizes. See the second and third pictures in this step for a "before" portrait and a little bit of terminology.



This modification isn’t destructive in any way, so it should be possible to restore your laptop to its original condition just by removing the pieces you’ve glued on. You can’t use an unmodified power adapter once you’ve modded your laptop, but fortunately it’s pretty easy to make the plug part, so you can make two or more spares.



Remove the battery before working on your laptop, and unplug the power cord.


By: breath

this project was inspired by the following web page:

http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/62/44/

that said, there are unlimited numbers of things that can be powered by usb. with the holidays coming up, why not christmas lights? i’ve added a switch to the original design to allow me to turn them on and off without unplugging the usb cable. The whole thing is mounted into an enclosure (altoids tin, of course), purely for aesthetics.



this is my first instructable and therefore i started small. hope it’s cool.


By: pdub420

(This instructable is for those who have basic knowledge of electric/electronics)



I found about a dozen used cell phone chargers very cheap from a local shop.



The cell phone chargers have faults in the plugs and cables only, the actual charger circuit were working perfect. I removed the cable and plugs and used these in many projects



In this instructable I will show you how I made a durable night lamp which will give service for many years.


By: iffee

One day as I was watching some uber-cheesy kung-fu movie, I had a thought: Wouldn’t it be cool if I had some dangerously pointy, throwy things? Which lead me to googling for how to make my own stars. What turned up was a page on how to make simple paper throwing stars. (I’ll show you how to make those, too.)

Even after that, my thirst was not satisfied, so I scrounged around my house for some material that would serve my needs. Pretty quickly I realized that old CD’s were perfect for this project.


By: tinglystix

Not long ago, I upgraded the hard drive in my laptop from an 80GB 4200RPM to a 120GB 5200RPM. Not wanting to let my old 2.5" drive go to waste, I bought a rather nice USB enclosure for it.



Ah, but there was a catch. USB ports can only supply a maximum of 500 milliamps. The hard drive will need 550mA, meaning that the use of an AC adapter (or special USB cable) would be necessary under high load conditions.



I HATE those clunky AC wall adapters. I don’t see why we should have to deal with them. Why can’t we just have a centralized 12 volt power system in our buildings? We have it in all of our cars! That would be much more efficient.



The way this HD enclosure "solves" the power problem is to include a special USB Y-cable that can draw power from two ports. So one port handles power+data while the other just supplies power. This means that sometimes I’d have to give up two ports for one HD (or use an after-market AC adapter.) Not cool.



But I’m not here to complain. I’m here to awesome this problem out of existence. And we do that with some bits from Radio Shack, and, of course, a tin of Altoids.



I got the idea from ladyada’s article where she built a 2 x AA battery encased in a smaller Altoids gum tin. While it works and is super portable, it utilizes a power-management system that requires exotic parts (but you can just buy the whole unit minus Altoids from her.) Plus the output current is limited to about 200mA. Nowhere near enough power for what I need.


By: Sitnalta

You always want to keep your Nintendo DS lite charged up and ready to go, and this Cyclone Charger Stand lets you park your DS quickly, giving you some special red light illumination while you wait. It’s available in White, Enamel Navy or Ice Blue for $9. – Charlie White

NDS Lite Cyclone Charger Stand [Brando]

I know everyone loves batterys but they are so expensive. Why waste your 9volt battery while your outside in the bright sunlight. So I decided to make a charger with both a solar power option that has an output of 6 volts and a 9volt which has the output of 9 volts. There will also be two 5 volt regulators just to make sure that there is no overload or damage to your usb device. There will be two leds one for the 9volt being on and the other for the solar power being on. Two switches one for the 9volt and the other for the solar panel. Altogether this charger will save you money bring you more power and it will be even safer for your ipod or usb device.
By: RealRitzcracker