Universal portable powering idea? Crap or what.

ShaolinDrunkard · Post by **ShaolinDrunkard** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:00 pm

I had an idea the other day,

I wonder if you could use a car D/C to A/C inverter to power a portable.
If you used two batteries (probably 7.2v), wired them together to get 14.4v, then used a regulator to step it down to 12v, you could take the invertor apart and remove both ther a/c plug and the D/C plug to make it smaller. You could wire whats left of it up to the 12 volts, and then you would have A/C power that you could connect directly to an n64 or dreamcast. I have one of these and i took it apart, and with all the extra stuff removed its actaully pretty small. And I think you could flatten it out to fit into a case. The one I have is actually my brothers, so I had to take it apart and put it back together before he got home, but its simliar to this one.

http://www.atbatt.com/product/ItemID/6692.asp

Ive, actally seen them smaller than this too.

I dont know, maybe this idea is crap, let me know.

Post by **Gamelver** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:21 pm

well....this WOULD work, but it's a lot of wasted energy....best to convert the voltages directly

.

sniper_spike · Post by **sniper_spike** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:22 pm

That's... going to take up way to much space. You're better of getting a DC-DC to convert voltage for you. :\

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:23 pm

So you want to go from a battery to an inverter to the wall power supply to the sytem to a 7805 in the system. thats converting the power like 3 times, just to get (for example, a NES) 5v! It might work...It would be extremely ineffecient though. Since all the systems use DC voltage anyways, a small DC to DC converter would be much smaller, lighter (some wall power supplys weigh several pounds), probably cheaper, and much much more effecient.

However if you wanted to make a portable without having to mod anything, this would be a good way to do it. And you probably wouldn't need a 12V reg, I think the inverter could take a few extra volts.

psychotic_mechanic · Post by **psychotic_mechanic** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:01 pm

G-force wrote: However if you wanted to make a portable without having to mod anything, this would be a good way to do it. And you probably wouldn't need a 12V reg, I think the inverter could take a few extra volts.

Correct +12V on a car is usually around 14V or so.

Post by **marshallh** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:45 pm

Just grab a Morex 80W car power supply. It puts out 3.3v, 5, -5, 12, -12, and 5vsb. I think that would run just about any console

ShaolinDrunkard · Post by **ShaolinDrunkard** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:19 am

Just an idea...

Can someone point me in the direction of these dc-dc convertors, the reason I was thinking of this in the first place is because i'd like to someday make both a portable dreamcast and a portable n64, neither of which i know how to power... i hope I can handle making one of these convertors.

Thanks for the feedback.

Anyway, back to the drawing board.

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:33 am

While using the same power source for many systems is usually cheaper, it isn't always the most efficient. it's a trade off you have to choose on a per system basis.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:56 pm

There are some really nice (and amazingly, FREE) DC-DC converters from ti.com mentioned in the N64 forum, a thread called "FREE DC-DC CONVERTERS"