iPod Altoids Tin Charger

[Conor Ryan]

I built my charger already, its not all that helpful but still pretty cool. Very limited radioshacks carry some of the Small Electronics parts, you might get lucky but they are getting harder to find.

Check out what could be my Dad's Birthday Present he's addicted to Altoids so I'm building him one in an Mp3 Player, yes its a Mp3 player in an Altoids Tin! No it doesn't have an LCD, but it does have a built in FM Transmitter! and a pretty good battery life.

[Pat McCarthy]

I took a shot at building this.
My first attempt did not work, and thankfully did not fry my iPod.
It turns out that I connected the negative to the positive and visa versa.
That's what happens when a ME tries to do something electrical.
So, when I plugged it in to the iPod, nothing happened, I suppose that was good.

I'm going to swap the wires around soon and try it again.

And if I get it to work with no problems, I may start selling a few of them. Maybe even one will show up on CD Swap.

[mechanicalbrain]

Originally Posted by Pat McCarthy

I took a shot at building this.
My first attempt did not work, and thankfully did not fry my iPod.
It turns out that I connected the negative to the positive and visa versa.
That's what happens when a ME tries to do something electrical.
So, when I plugged it in to the iPod, nothing happened, I suppose that was good.

I'm going to swap the wires around soon and try it again.

And if I get it to work with no problems, I may start selling a few of them. Maybe even one will show up on CD Swap.

if you start selling them make sure the polarity is right! also i know exactly what you mean i blew two AC to DC converters and a $60 camera that way!

[Pat McCarthy]

Arg. It appeared that nothing had happened to my iPod, but actually something fried in the charging circuit with the firewire cable.
I'm going to radio shack today to see if they can help me with it.
I'm thinking that the firewire cable's charging part is broken because it will sync with firewire, and it will also sync and charge with the usb cable. I'll try a new firewire cable and hopefully that will work. Mine has been through the wash a few times anyway and had bare wire exposed in some places.