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With this you can make your own car-to-usb charger... Scott writes - "Users of our VFD-420 serial display frequently use it in automotive applications. Unfortunately, designing a bullet-proof 5-volt regulated power supply for use in the harsh vehicular power environment can be difficult.
An article in the June 1999 issue of Nuts & Volts magazine tackled this very problem. Here, reprinted with their permission, is the circuit from that article. " - Link.
If you're interested in powering other devices via USB (5V) check out the MintyBoost (another new item in the MAKE store)...
Make your own iPod battery-pack and recharger! Build your own MintyBoost: a small & simple (but very powerful and very MAKE-like) USB charger for your iPod (or other 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 soldering is necessary, but even if you've never soldered before it should be pretty easy. Tested with iPod nano/mini/photo/video/shuffle, Blackberry, iPaq, LuxPro Tangent, Rio Carbon, Samsung T809 and more.
Batteries and tin not included. If you live in an area that doesn't have Altoids gum, you can buy a tin (including the gum) from us. Get one now!
It looks like the main part http://dkc1.digikey.com/Redirect.aspx?url=http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/78st105.pdf is obsolete and end of life ? Can some one suggest a replacement. I'd like to make ones for several different voltages!
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Answered my own question http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/pt78st105.html I think :-) ?
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Yeah, the 78xx linear regulators aren't going anywhere any time soon.
There are better choices though like a low-dropout regulator.
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