MintyBoost! - Small battery-powered USB charger

This project details a small & simple, but very powerful USB charger for your 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 numbers...
iPod video (tested, using alkaline batteries): 3hrs more video (1 full recharge)
iPod mini (tested w/rechargeables): 25 hours more (1.5 full recharges)
iPod shuffle (unverified): 60 hours more (5 full recharges)
Weight (with 2xAA): 3.5oz

This project is suitable for beginners, some soldering tools are necessary but even if you've never soldered before it should be pretty easy. You can etch a circuitboard and/or breadboard this up, or simply buy the kit from the adafruit webshop.

I've also documented the process of designing this kit, in case other people interested in designing and making kits are interested in learning how to start selling their own kits!

This project was developed under support from EYEBEAM, thanks!

• NOTICE!!!
• This instructions are outdated, some
• minor changes have been made to
• the kit to make it better. If you're building
• a purchased kit please read the docs at:
• http://www.adafruit.com/make/mintyboost
• THANKS!!!! - ladyada

Step 1The Process (Meta documentation)

This next 10 steps detail how I went through the process of coming up with the idea, hardware, design, etc. for this project. It's not 100% correct but it's pretty close. Since this project only took 2 days (on & off) to design/test/release, it's a lot easier to keep track of than something enormous like the x0xb0x.

I also include the schematic/layout files in Eagle format. The prototype one is best for etching at home (its single sided)