~5v USB Battery Pack

My mobile phone can't go geocaching with the display-on and locating for more than about an hour before running the battery low. The phone battery is an impressive 3.6V with 1600mAh capacity, though clearly not enough for extended use. I needed a geo-battery-pack.

So I made this. It's a 4.8V, 2600mAH cell made from old cordless drill batteries.

Construction images below:

An old cordless drill battery pack disassembled with the dud "sub-C" cells removed.
Each cell is 1.2V, 1300mAh. I wired up x2 banks of 4 cells, creating a 4.8 volt, 2600 mAH battery bank.
Sizing up a block to mount them in. I carelessly oriented the grain 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Notice the end-caps have grain across their width, not their length. These are ULTRA flimsy, hence the bazillion screws holding them on in the final-block.

Trial fit. Space not yet hogged out for the plugs.


Trial fit with the USB plugs in place.

Filing out the USB plug gaps in the caps.

Moar meat, less fat...

I got rather fat in 2010 and again in 2011 in order to undo some excessive weight loss during 2009. The extreme swings were pretty sloppy, I've managed to yoyo back and forth between 67kg and 94kg. Most literature is designed for "college" age kids, not skinny 40yr olds. I don't have any of my ultra-skinny pics, but I do have some FATTY-FAT-FAT pics. Here look.

Yuck.

But I think I've got it mostly under control now. Lots of hard work. Here's a couple shots from today.


Still got a long way to go...but getting there. :)

- Jas.

ps: fatty shots are from 2011, at about 86kg's. I got fatter in 2012, reaching ~94kg by October. No I don't have photos of that. The effort to reach the current photos from ~94kg is about 6months of moderate effort and eating like a horse on lean food...