Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Friday, September 26, 2014
Make Your Iphone Battery Last Longer
I’ve owned a Iphone for a while now, it’s an amazing phone, the best I have ever used so far. But when I first started using it, my only concern was that the battery didn’t last as much as I expected. After two days, it was gone, and when I needed it, the phone just didn’t turn ON. I used to let the wireless on almost all the time and downloading many new apps. Now that I have some more experience on how my little gadget works, I will try to share some ideas on how you can optimize your iphone’s battery life and have a better iExperience.
Wireless connectivity will drawn your battery even if you are not using it. Keeping it on, it will always try to connect to some open hot spot, try to check your emails and much more. So a good idea is to turn it on when using, and after, turn it off. Bluetooth have a similar battery usage as Wi-Fi, so there’s not much reason to leave it on if you are not using it (I believe that the most common usage for bluetooth today is the headsets and car kits). Auto-Brightness is a interesting thing apple made to make the battery last longer. It uses iphone’s camera to adjust brightness based on the lighting conditions outside, so it will automatically set, for example, to make it less bright when you are on a dark place. Great feature! Music EQ will have a significant battery usage if you listen to your songs for many hours everyday, as it uses more processing power. So if you want to charge less your iphone, it is another thing you may consider turning it off. Heat can be a problem to your iphone, as it is a very bad thing to lithium-ion batteries, making them harder to charge and destroying it due the intense ionization. So remember to never let your phone in a hot place such as inside a car or in direct sunlight. If you are using some kind of carrying case, you need to be even more careful about this, and remember to take it off when charging your mobile, as it gets warm when charging. Keep it charging! After putting your phone to charge, leave it there for some hours more after it says it’s full. It will make your phone battery last much more, you will be surprised! After done that, my iphone battery lasted more then a week, way more if you compare to the 2-3 days when I was disconnecting if from the dock just after it says its full. Background Programs! This is important, new iphones, such as Iphone4 allows you to run multiple apps on the background, but this will drain your battery fast if you forget to close them. To do this, double click on the round button and it will show all the apps currently running, keep clicking in one of the apps and a red “X” will apear, then you can close all apps. What else do you do to make your iphone battery last longer?
Source by : link
Source by : link
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Solar Energy Powered an iPhone Battery Charger
The project was termed as Mighty Minty Boost as it was developed to function as iPod/iPhone charger with solar power. Aside from being small, it has a large battery capacity of 3.7V at 2000mAh and it accepts input power from 3.7V to 7V. As shown in the images below, it can become a compact USB power supply when the solar cell is removed after charging. The Velcro is used to secure the Mighty Minty Boost inside a backpack or messenger bag after unplugging the solar cell.
For faster charging, a larger solar cell can be attached to the bag. Enough power can be generated to fully charge an iPhone in about 5.5 hours and an iPod Touch in 4 hours using a slightly larger solar cell with 6V at 250mAh. The charger will automatically switch to trickle charging when the cell reaches full charge. The charging current is limited to 100mA when charging using the mini USB port and the charging is limited to 280mA when charging using the barrel plug jack
For faster charging, a larger solar cell can be attached to the bag. Enough power can be generated to fully charge an iPhone in about 5.5 hours and an iPod Touch in 4 hours using a slightly larger solar cell with 6V at 250mAh. The charger will automatically switch to trickle charging when the cell reaches full charge. The charging current is limited to 100mA when charging using the mini USB port and the charging is limited to 280mA when charging using the barrel plug jack
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The materials needed to build the charger include a small solar cell, Lithium Polymer battery charger, minty boost kit, adhesive backed Velcro, Altoids tin, connector/wire, and small double adhesive squares as shown in the images below. An input power that ranges from 3.7V to 7V maximum can be accepted by the single cell Lithium Polymer. In bright sunlight, the solar cell maxes out at approximately 5V at 100mA. A larger solar cell with 6V at 250mA can be used for faster charging.
The images below show the assembly of minty boost kit where a JST connector is soldered to the minty boost PCB instead of connecting the battery holder in the kit. The minty boost schema is allowed to connect to the Lithium Polymer battery charger schema with this tiny connector. The minty boost is tested by connecting the battery pack and the charger schema, the Lithium Polymer battery connects to the connector marked GND on the charger board and the minty boost connects to the connector marked SYS.
To fit the charger, a notch is cut out of the other side of the Altoids tin and used double sided adhesive to secure the charging schema to the bottom of the Altoids as shown below. The bottom of either one of the schema boards should not touch the bottom of the Altoids tin while reconnecting the minty boost PCB and the battery to the charging schema.
Connecting or adding the solar cell can be done in different ways. Shortening the connector leads and plugging the barrel plug into the barrel jack on the charging schema is one way. The other method is using another JST connector to replace the connector and plugging it into the third connector marked 5V on the charging schema. Since there is no bog barrel plug sticking out of the side of the tin, using the second method is cleaner.
As shown in the photos below, some 2” Velcro was used to attach the solar cell to the top of the Altoids. To help protect the battery, a layer of clear packing tape was used for wrapping. N top of the two schema boards, the battery pack is then set down. A red LED on the charger board will light up when the Mighty Minty Boost is set out in the bright sun. The iPod/iPhone/USB powered device can be connected once it is fully charged.
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