Avian’s Blog: Dino charger

Dino charger

24.09.2008 20:06

Last time I took a break from the surgical work and had a peek into the only part of Pleo that can be accessed without using a scalpel.

This is how the green egg charger looks like inside. It's more complicated than I thought. Actually I was expecting to see nothing at all inside the egg shell. It's not unusual for a simple 1/10 C charger to be completely hidden inside the power brick. On the other hand this appears to be a bit more complicated than that.

It's fully analog. J2 looks like a diagnostics connector. In the upper right is an 33340 NiMH fast charge controller which is most likely the central point of this circuit (Pleo uses a 7.2 V 2200 mAh NiMH battery pack). The rest looks like a switching constant current regulator.

The conclusion is that as far as I can see this charger would run fine on any plain 12V power supply and doesn't need the exact power brick that came with it (which is nice, since the original runs on 110 V and requires a bulky transformer to operate on this side of the Atlantic). Be warned though that I haven't tried that yet.

Posted by Tomaž | Categories: Analog

Comments

Hey there.

I've blown my PLEO charger egg trying to convert to british electricity (I have the american charger). I think I was using the wrong converter when I plugged it in.

What would I look for on the circuit board to replace. I can't tell what I've blown.

Thanks.

Posted on 22 December 2009 by haptiK

Check if anything is obviously wrong: charred components or traces on the circuit board, inflated capacitors, etc. These are the first things to look for.

Beyond that it quickly gets complicated to locate a fault - at the very least you need a multimeter and a working knowledge of electronic circuits.

Posted on 22 December 2009 by Tomaž

Just wondered if you had tried this at 12V yet, and if it has had any adverse effects at all?

Lots are having problems with lack of battery life and the batteries not charging properly - i was wondering if the slight increase in input voltage would assist in this...

Thx
Paul

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Paul

No, I haven't tried using any other power supply than the one shipped with the Pleo.

Since this circuit uses a charge controller chip, I doubt that changes in the supply voltage would have any noticeable effect on how the battery is charged.

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Tomaž