Question Best battery?

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So I have 100% decided that I will be making a Wii Laptop as my first portable. I have little to no experience with electronics, but i know the things I need to know, and all thanks to you!

So, I will NOT be making a laptop case for this, instead, I am mounting a screen in a wii. Even though i have some problems deciding, i will probably remove the disc drive and put there the motherboard of a 7" insignia portable dvd. I would prefer not removing the disc drive, but if it needs to be done, it will be done. But, since I am doing that, there will be no free space inside the wii, so ill just use an external battery. Any reccomendations? Weight isn't a big problem for me, what i want is battery life. Size isnt a big problem either.

If there are any better screens that do NOT make me remove the disc drive, you can reccomend me one, however, money is my problem, just keep that in mind

BTW: Some people I know say I always go off-topic too much. Why is that?......Yeah
 

Shank

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If you are using stock regulators:
Any 14.8v lithium ion battery pack from batteryspace.com should be perfect. Power consumption varies drastically from portable to portable. But for a rough estimate of battery life you can assume that a portable with a 40 or newer board will use 1 amp, and 01, 20, or 30 will use about 1.5 amps. Thats not exact, but it should put you in the ballpark of how big a battery you want if you are using stock regulators.

If you are using custom regulators:
You can build your own batteries. My cell of choice is the Panasonic NCR18650B. They are the highest capacity consumer 18650 currently on the market, and the cells they use in teslas. 18650 is a standard size of lithium ion battery, with a diameter of 18mm and a length of 65.0mm, hence the name. You will also need to purchase and wire a protection circuit as well. Alternatively, you can purchase a 7.4v battery pack from batteryspace, but only if you are using custom regulators.

A lot of manufacturers lie about their cell capacity, and sell fake cells, but battery space and the eBay user I linked do not. Finding legitimate ones is a task. Most people use batteryspace. Don't forget to buy a lithium ion charger of the correct voltage.

As for the disc drive, I say kill it with fire. USB/SD loaders are the way to go.
 
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Amazon also is reliable because sellers like Panasonic and other brands have official pages/accounts for their genuine parts.
 

ByteMe

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Sorry to go off topic, what method do you guys use to wire up those Panasonic 18650's. I know soldering directly to them is not recommended, and dangerous, but all holders I've seen are so bulky.
 

cheese

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Sorry to go off topic, what method do you guys use to wire up those Panasonic 18650's. I know soldering directly to them is not recommended, and dangerous, but all holders I've seen are so bulky.
These particular cells you can technically solder directly to em because they have some plastic between the actual battery and the outer terminals, however it would be better to use something like these to solder to em.
 

Aurelio

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These particular cells you can technically solder directly to em because they have some plastic between the actual battery and the outer terminals, however it would be better to use something like these to solder to em.
You still shouldn't solder directly on cells. The recommended way is to use a spot welder to apply tabson the cells terminals and then solder to the pads (or find batteries with tabs already welded on them).
 
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ShockSlayer

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Sand it/scratch it good first, then add some flux to it if you want. Then get a blob of solder on the tip of your iron and act like you're trying to scratch the pad with the tip of the iron through the solder. You want to get some solder sticking to it, and then you can add as much as you need to attach your wire.

18650 cells aren't scary. Rule of thumb is to try not to heat the battery any longer than you have to. I've been doing this for years, and I've never had a problem.
 
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So I have these 7aH 12 volt Sealed Lead-Acid batteries which were previously used for large RC trucks.
What factors would determine how dangerous it would be to directly plug this source into the Wii?
 

bentomo

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So I have these 7aH 12 volt Sealed Lead-Acid batteries which were previously used for large RC trucks.
What factors would determine how dangerous it would be to directly plug this source into the Wii?
No, just don't use them, they're a lot more volotile than lithium ions and not really designed for deep discharge. Get yourself some lithium ions/polymers and call it a day.
 
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Alright. I'll look into those lithium ion packs. However I'm confused about the term "stock regulators." Is the regulator circuitry located inside the Wii itself or inside the AV power cord? is this a completely separate unit from the Wii that would need to be attached to the 14.4v battery in order to make it safe for the Wii?
 

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Stock regulators are the voltage regulators on the motherboard inside the wii that regulate the voltage from the power cord (not the av cord, av stands for audio/video) to power various onboard components at their required stepped down voltages - 1v, 1.15v, 3.3v, etc. If you aren't planning on trimming the board, then you can just put 14.8v at the same place that the power cord plugs into the wii, no problem.

However if you want to trim those parts of the board, you need to replace the regulators you removed with your own custom regulators (not a big deal), which can be powered by only two cells, 7.4v.
 
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Well I don't really want to trim my Wii aside from gutting out the disc drive, so I think the 14.4v batteries will work fine. Thanks Luke for the clarification~
 
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I also have a question, i bought a mycharge hubmini portable charger for $20 was $70, its a 3000mAh it outputs 2.1A would this work as a battery and if so how long would it last?
 

cheese

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I also have a question, i bought a mycharge hubmini portable charger for $20 was $70, its a 3000mAh it outputs 2.1A would this work as a battery and if so how long would it last?
Capacity is measured in mAh, in your case 3000, but to figure out how long it would last you'd need the voltage as well (something like 7.4v or 11.1v), and you'd also need the power draw of whatever you are trying to run on the batteries (such as a console, screen, speakers, etc).
 

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If you are using stock regulators:
Any 14.8v lithium ion battery pack from batteryspace.com should be perfect. Power consumption varies drastically from portable to portable. But for a rough estimate of battery life you can assume that a portable with a 40 or newer board will use 1 amp, and 01, 20, or 30 will use about 1.5 amps. Thats not exact, but it should put you in the ballpark of how big a battery you want if you are using stock regulators.

If you are using custom regulators:
You can build your own batteries. My cell of choice is the Panasonic NCR18650B. They are the highest capacity consumer 18650 currently on the market, and the cells they use in teslas. 18650 is a standard size of lithium ion battery, with a diameter of 18mm and a length of 65.0mm, hence the name. You will also need to purchase and wire a protection circuit as well. Alternatively, you can purchase a 7.4v battery pack from batteryspace, but only if you are using custom regulators.

A lot of manufacturers lie about their cell capacity, and sell fake cells, but battery space and the eBay user I linked do not. Finding legitimate ones is a task. Most people use batteryspace. Don't forget to buy a lithium ion charger of the correct voltage.

As for the disc drive, I say kill it with fire. USB/SD loaders are the way to go.
How do you charge one of those 14.8v battery packs? I want to connect a charging port to my wii portable.
 
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