Question My 8 year old n64 portable charge and play

Stitches

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I first want to thank you for this great forum and inspiring posts.

Some updates...
And some questions ofcourse...

I have a fully oparational working n64 running off a 5v battery pack with 7inch screen/ speakers/ amp/ controller with rumble pack/ extended game cardrige slot/View attachment 4326 View attachment 4328 View attachment 4330 View attachment 4331 View attachment 4332



So there is 1 problem with this setup and that is that when the powerbank gets charged while being used the power is cut off for a millisecond so the n64 is rebooted.
Charging and playing works but as soon as the power is cut from the powerbank the n64 reboots.
I still would like to use a common charger so my new plan is to use the so Called Red Board
with the 18650 cells that are inside the powerbank.
I would like to charge and use this with qualcomm quick charge that supports multiple voltages ranging from 5v to 12v.
You can force quick charge with this device





So do you guys think this will work if not why?
Just be aware that the quick charge USB might not be able to supply enough current to run the console AND charge the batteries at any decent speed. The best thing to charge it would be a 12v 3 amp DC power supply. As Cheese said, you can put a capacitor on your existing setup to mitigate the issue. 100uf might be enough, but 1000-2000uf would be the safest bet.
 

riess

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I tested with a 100uf and a 1000uf but they don't seem to be enough.

So i did some calculations...
And if I'm correct 1Farad is approximately the same as 0,99951 ampere second/volt
So i need 5Farad for 1sec of 5v 1a

To bridge this small gap i need at least a 2 Farad Capacitor...

There a super Capacitors that are small and have 2Farad or higher.

The other option is to go for the quickcharge option that supports 12v 1.5a 18Watt for the Red Board solution.
 

Miceeno

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Here's an idea, use the Red Board because it can safely play and charge right out of the box. To get around the 1 amp of charge current limitation, build your battery removable. (They make very nice 18650 battery holders for this.) With removable cells you can fully "charge" your portable in seconds. When you connect external power to the Red Board it disconnects the battery from the portable. So you can swap the cells without even needing to power the portable down. And for the times you don't need a quick charge, the 1 amp charge rate is safe and sufficient.
 

cheese

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the power is cut off for a millisecond so the n64 is rebooted.
To bridge this small gap i need at least a 2 Farad Capacitor...
Well, if it was as short as you originally said, those caps would be plenty, but 0.5s is 500x that... Had you said it was that long, I would've told you to look elsewhere to begin with, supercaps are not a good idea in a portable...

@Miceeno has a good idea there, that should work for your purposes.
 

riess

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Late Update.

2x Rev4 boards died on me after minimal trim don't know what the problem is so I used an older model with 2 ram chips=more heat :(
Sanded them smooth and checked everything before turning them on.

They worked but stopped after some days.

O I found a solution to the charge and play problem: Found a RAVPower powerbank that they stated has built-in pass-through power for some specific models. ( IT WORKS GREAT )
http://blog.ravpower.com/2017/10/danger-and-damage-of-pass-through-technology-for-batteries/

So I worked on the case a bit while waiting for the older n64.

 
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