HOW TO – Vehicular 5V power

With this you can make your own car-to-usb charger… Scott writes – “Users of our VFD-420 serial display frequently use it in automotive applications. Unfortunately, designing a bullet-proof 5-volt regulated power supply for use in the harsh vehicular power environment can be difficult.

An article in the June 1999 issue of Nuts & Volts magazine tackled this very problem. Here, reprinted with their permission, is the circuit from that article. “ – Link.

If you’re interested in powering other devices via USB (5V) check out the MintyBoost (another new item in the MAKE store)…

Make your own iPod battery-pack and recharger! Build your own MintyBoost: a small & simple (but very powerful and very MAKE-like) USB charger for your iPod (or other mp3 player), camera, cell phone, and any other gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge.

The charger circuitry and 2 AA batteries fit into an Altoids gum tin, and will run your iPod for hours, 2.5x more than you’d get from a 9V USB charger! You can use rechargable batteries too.

Some soldering is necessary, but even if you’ve never soldered before it should be pretty easy. Tested with iPod nano/mini/photo/video/shuffle, Blackberry, iPaq, LuxPro Tangent, Rio Carbon, Samsung T809 and more.

Batteries and tin not included. If you live in an area that doesn’t have Altoids gum, you can buy a tin (including the gum) from us. Get one now!