GameCube Portable Battery Problems (Solved)

Portables, case replacements, mods etc, all in here!
Post Reply
User avatar
ZephaniahNoah
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 6:42 am
Location: Earth

GameCube Portable Battery Problems (Solved)

Post by ZephaniahNoah » Tue Jul 14, 2015 7:35 am

I have four 3.7V batteries hooked up to my GameCube motherboard going through a 12v 3A regulator. The problem I'm having is specifically with the charge circuit. (I think.) For some reason I can't find anywhere on the internet how many volts I'm supposed to put into the circuit. I'm giving it 12V 3A but nothing seems to happen. But I did find out that my batteries can't take more then 5 amps. This http://www.uctronics.com/download/18650-Charger.pdf is the diagram I fallowed for connecting the batteries. I connected/disconnected the appropriate resistors to modify it (the circuit) for S4 use. This is the resistor I used...
Image
If you search "1k ohm resistor" on Google this is what you will see. So I know I connected the protection circuit right. Which makes me wonder, it must be the input. Does anybody know anything about these?
Oh and one more thing. When the batteries get low the GameCube's screen turns off and the power button flashes. Not sure if it means anything other than that it is not receiving enough power. It still runs fine on wall power though.
Last edited by ZephaniahNoah on Thu Jul 23, 2015 9:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
bentomo
Posts: 51
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:39 pm

Re: GameCube Portable Battery Problems

Post by bentomo » Tue Jul 14, 2015 4:22 pm

What is your actual charger?

The protection circuit just keeps the batteries from shorting, over/undervolting and from high charge currents. You'll need an actual charger or charger circuit to charge the batteries.

If you look at the P+ and P- terminals it will say charging and discharging electrodes, this is where you attach a charger.
ImageImageImageImageImageImage
User avatar
ZephaniahNoah
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 6:42 am
Location: Earth

Re: GameCube Portable Battery Problems

Post by ZephaniahNoah » Tue Jul 14, 2015 7:21 pm

bentomo wrote:What is your actual charger?

The protection circuit just keeps the batteries from shorting, over/undervolting and from high charge currents. You'll need an actual charger or charger circuit to charge the batteries.

If you look at the P+ and P- terminals it will say charging and discharging electrodes, this is where you attach a charger.
I know, and I'm adding 12V 3A to the charge circuit but nothing seems to happen. :( Oh, I forgot to add that to the post, whoops! :P
User avatar
bentomo
Posts: 51
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:39 pm

Re: GameCube Portable Battery Problems

Post by bentomo » Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:39 pm

Ok I think there may be some misunderstanding here.

The board you've link to in the op is not a charging board. It's a charging protection circuit board. You do still need one but it's not going to charge your batteries. You'll need something like this.

http://www.batteryspace.com/smartcharge ... isted.aspx

An actual battery charger limits the current that is being input into the protection circuit, where as a DC 12v 3A power supply will just try to pump as much as it can into your poor batteries, in this case 3A. Lithium ion batteries take some delicate care to charge correctly. So your whole system will look like this.

Charger->protection circuit->battery cells->system

Now there are some more complications if you have the system running while your batteries are charging. Your charger will need to have enough amperage to power the load and charge the batteries at the same time. The problem with battery space smart chargers however is that they are meant to be standalone chargers and are not necessarily meant to be drawn from while charging, meaning either your system won't work or it will be bad for the charger.

Take a look here: http://forums.modretro.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14089

And the reason that nothing appears to be happening is that discharged 14.8v packs sit at about 12v, there will be no current flow between the power supply or the battery pack.
ImageImageImageImageImageImage
User avatar
ZephaniahNoah
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 6:42 am
Location: Earth

Re: GameCube Portable Battery Problems

Post by ZephaniahNoah » Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:12 pm

Wow... Wish I knew this stuff before. Thank you very much for the information bentomo! :)
Post Reply