Secret Project Revealed: iPod iPod Charger

2008-05-18 00:00:00

Having been inspired first by Iron Man and then Speed Racer, I was eager to sink my teeth into a good geeky project. My iPod iPod charger is what came of the effort.

My wife sometimes wakes up during the night and listens to her iPod Nano to get back to sleep. One night a couple or three weeks ago she found out (in the wee morning hours) that her iPod and been bumped to "play" and had drained its battery. No iPod for her!

iPod iPod charger is my solution. I didn't tell her what I was up to while working on it so as to surprise her (I did). Here's the result:

It's a simple circuit that I found here on Instructables. I stripped out everything I could from the old iPod to make room (but I still need to file the plastic down a little more on one corner -- the 9V battery is still a hair too thick for it to snap closed tightly in that one spot). The on/off switch had to be filed down a bit but fits the slot for the original microswitch, and the LED fits nicely in the old headphone jack hole.

All-in-all a fun little project and makes a nice match to the styling of the iPod Nano. Maybe I'll tackle one of the more advanced versions next since I hear that AA batteries will work better than the 9V (but require stepping up the voltage to work). Then again, this works great!