NeoPad Battery Mod - DOES NOT WORK

[MicroNut]

Please know that at this time this does not work.
I will update the thread when I find a safe way to recharge the batteries used

I know that the Neo Pad isn't popular with a lot of folks.
I have heard most of the complaints already.

I love it
I made a "kickstand" for mine that I have been using for close to 2 years now.
Works great when I am sitting at a table or laying in bed.
With the kickstand as a brace the PSP is almost weightless in my hands.
(but thats another mod)


My NeoPad Battery Mod:
I wanted to get some extra battery life out of my NeoPad.
The 4 AAA batteries that are built in do give it about 2 hours of extra life.
But I wanted a little more.

Please if you don't know what you are doing please don't try this at home.
I am not responsible for your actions.
If you burn the house down, catch the cat on fire, or worse yet ruin your PSP
I am not to blame.


On to the Mod:

I wanted to know if the PSP battery could charge directly from the PSP battery pack.
I couldn't find much out about this on the net so I set up an experiment.

My original Pandora battery.
It sits and rarely gets charged.
Even though the battery charged fine in just a few hours, I left it plugged in for another hour or so.
it stayed cold to the touch the entire time.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/00 Battery Charge Test_resize.JPG

Take the neo pad apart and remove the first set of AAA's
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/01 Neo Case With NiCad_resize.JPG

Get two matching batteries
In this case 2 Sony 22mAh Batteries
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/02 Sony 22mAh Batteries_resize.JPG

Free one of them and put the other back into the PSP
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/03 Sony 22mAh Battery Freed_resize.JPG

Note the pin header and delicate circuit board.
I really didn’t want to do any cutting or soldering that would damage any of this.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/04 Battery Pin Header_resize.JPG

After removing a very small piece of plastic bracing on the right side of the battery it fit snuggly into the handle.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/05 Neo Case With Sony 22mAh Battery_resize.JPG

Line up the power and the ground wires.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/06 Neo Case With Sony 22mAh Battery Pin Alignment_resize.JPG

The wires are too thin to catch the tiny pins in the battery header
I make a couple of horse show shaped pins using header pins from an old project.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/07 Neo Case With Sony 22mAh Battery WireClips_resize.JPG

The wires now snap firmly into place
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/08 Neo Case With Sony 22mAh Battery WireClips Seated_resize.JPG

Button everything back up and Remove the second set AAA's from the other handle.
Looks lonely in there... waiting for PVP's usbhostfs SDD hack... or maybe another battery with a switch...
At least its got the power and wiring to make it all happen fairly easily
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/09NiCadsRemoved_resize.JPG


Results:

The NeoPad is a little lighter.
And probably most importantly: my PSP didn’t catch on fire...

Here are the PSP Battery numbers:

About 8.5 hours 22mAh Battery plus NiCads
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/01 Sony 22mAh Plus NiCads.jpg

About 6.5 hours 22mAh Battery minus Nicads (Before Mod)
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/02 Sony 22mAh Only_Before Mod.jpg

About 10.5 hours 22mAh Battery plus another 22mAh Battery (After Mod)
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/04 Sony 22mAh Plus_Sony 22mAh.jpg


Final thoughts:
Not bad I guess.
I don’t know what kind of battery life a pair of higher mAh batteries would give.
I don’t know if the DC power pack could handle it or not.
It looks like with a pair of higher mAh batteries the charge life could be as high as 15 hours... maybe more.

[MicroNut]

I was disappointed with the results of the previous mod.
Seems like a waste to only get 20% out of a whole other lithium battery by feeding back through the 5v

So I decided to try and figure out if there was a way to send the juice to the Battery input instead.

I also wanted to add another Battery.
This would give me 3 x 2200mAh batteries.
Hook them up in parallel and we get a 6600mAh 3.6v Lithium Battery.
In theory it should last between 24-27 hours.
They should recharge as normal from the PSP's 5v DC trickle charge.

I did run into a snag that I wasn't expecting.

I am not sure exactly why but i think it has something to do with the way the PSP boots.

The PSP will not turn on if it does not receive a valid serial number.
Or more basically if the middle pin, 2, is not connected at the same time the initial 3.6v is applied to pins 1 and 3.
So it is impossible to power the PSP on pins 1 and 3 using battery input power alone.

The solution is to power up the PSP on a single standard battery and then turn on the extra power with a switch.

Once the PSP is on the switch can be turned on or off and the PSP can be shutdown and restarted normally.

The only time the switch to the external batteries ever needs to be used again is if the PSP is ever completely run down on battery power or if the batteries are disconnected.

Here are some pics from the MOD minus the switch I need to finalize the mod.
I will post that as soon as I find the perfect one.


NeoPad external battery mod.
24+ Hours Battery Life
3 x 2200mAh = 6600mAh


Get the wire I want to use from an 80pin IDE cable.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/00WireNeeded_resize.JPG

Make little loops on one end of the cable.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/01Loops_resize.JPG

Align the Loops around the battery header.
Not shown here are some small strips of masking tape that I used to help hold the wires in place.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/02LoopPlacement01_resize.JPG

Usually Red is for positive but I Reversed the loops here by accident. (Yikes!)
Please know that:
Pin 1 is Negative
Pin 3 is Positive
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/02LoopPlacement02_resize.JPG

Snap the battery in place and it holds everything snuggly into place:
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/03LoopPlacement03_resize.JPG

The battery cover still slips cleanly into place:
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/04BatteryCover_resize.JPG

Remove the 5v DC wiring harness from the NeoPad
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/06Remove5vDCHarness_resize.JPG

Wire up the second battery in parallel with the first.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/07WireUpSecondBattery_resize.JPG

At this point I decided to replace my two wire power connector with a strip of 5 wires from the 80wire IDE cable.
It just seemed a whole lot stronger and I did want to risk a short.
So I used the 3 extra wires to simply separate the positive and negative wires from each other a little more.

Turn on the PSP with a single internal battery.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/08NotConnected_resize.JPG

Connect the NeoPad Battery pack to the PSP.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/09Connected_resize.JPG

Check the battery PSP meter
24 hours... Much Better!
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/12_24HoursMaybeMore.jpg

No switch no reset the battery pack for now
Looks Ugly as hell.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/10NoSwtichForNow_resize.JPG

But its time to take a break and recharge my batteries.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/11TakingABreak_resize.JPG

I will post a pic with the final switch in place.
It should look a lot better... not to mention safer.

[bah]

Thats pretty cool, good for long plane trips.
Although I think my eyes would have had enough of looking at the screen before the battery runs out.

[MicroNut]

Thats pretty cool, good for long plane trips.
Although I think my eyes would have had enough of looking at the screen before the battery runs out.

Thanks!

[MicroNut]

Turns out that I really don't need a switch to turn on/off the battery pack.
The PSP will start with 5v and then it will run on the battery pack without problems.

The 5wire ribbon running from the PSP to the NeoPad Battery pack
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/13CleanRibbon_resize.JPG

The PSP clipped into the NeoPad
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/14LooseRibbon_resize.JPG

The remaining loose ribbon easily tucks into the handle.
http://www.fullburn.com/neopspmod/15TightRibbon_resize.JPG

[cal360]

This an amazing mod great work. With 24 hours of battery I would never have to worry about my battery running out when i'm away from home and you've finished it off quite nicely. The only thing that needs doing is finding a way of tucking in the ribbon more to make it less noticeable.

[MicroNut]

This an amazing mod great work. With 24 hours of battery I will never have to worry about my battery running out when i'm away from home and you've finished it off quite nicely. The only thing that needs doing is finding a way of tucking in the ribbon more to make it less noticeable.

Thank you.
Good idea.
I could use black IDE cable.
Or better yet cut a very small and thin hole in the NeoPad,
right behind the battery bay where the ribbon comes out.
The ribbon would not be visible at all.
hummm....

[MicroNut]

Bad News.
I finished discharging and recharging the pack.
Your suspicion's are correct.
The whole pack "charged completed 100%" through the PSP's 5v DC, But it was only the first battery that charged.
The other two batteries will not charge like this.
I am using the official sony batteries unmodified.
I think the circuit boards will not allow the batteries to be recharged without all three pins.
Before starting the project I charged all 3 batteries individually in a PSP.
I am going to have to go back to the native 5v DC inputs.
Basically using the neo pad as it was designed, except using sony batteries instead of aaa's
I am not brave enough to hardwire the batteries to the positive and negative leads without the charge/discharge circuits.

Looks like I am going to use the 5v DC anyways.
This should make the mod much more simple to implement and use overall.
Or I could stay with what I have an build a switch that allows for external changing and then internal discharge.
Hummm I don't know...

[mike_jmg]

Nice mod, 24 hours sounds great
too bad they wont charge.
If you make the switch wiring the three pins, are you sure they'll charge at the same time. if that works It'll be great

[MicroNut]

Nice mod, 24 hours sounds great
too bad they wont charge.
If you make the switch wiring the three pins, are you sure they'll charge at the same time. if that works It'll be great

Thanks but the project is a failure.
A PSP battery cannot be charged like this.
Much less a pair of batteries.

There is not way for this mod to work unless a way can be found to re -charge the batteries.

I tried all three pins.
Tried ground the second pin.
Tried recharging the lithium without the circuit board.
It looked like it was working at first but it fried the battery and my spare charger
(I thought it would... stupid thing to try.)

Maybe cannibalizing an official recharger somehow.
But I think I would rather just charge a couple of spares and keep them in my pocket when I need too.