How Much Current Does The Gp2x Require?

[atomicthumbs]

I was at the Maker Faire ( :lol: ) and I got this 12 volt, 7 ah lead-acid battery. I'm thinking og using that, a charger circuit, a buck converter, and maybe a solar panel or handcrank generator to make a battery pack. I want to figure out how ling it'd run and what kind of parts I'd need. How much current does the GP2X pull out of the batteries/AC adaptor port?

 

[Aryn]

Well, I do not know the exact specs, but my GP2X sucks the life out of popular brands of alkaline batteries in far less than an hour while two 1000 mAh rechargeable batteries last on average close to 3 hours, more or less depending on what I do with the system.

Anyway, if you can make a power supply for this system that uses solar panels to recharge then go for it. Just stay away from using a crank since that would be kind of, well, dumb due to all the work needed just to watch a video.

 

[sam fisher]

Do you have ANY idea how long it would take a solar panel to charge a 7amp battery at 12v?

Many many days!

 

[donny662]

Squidge did some testing a while back and found that it consumed 500mA at idle, and up to 700-800mA while playing video. I'm not too sure about the maximum current, and this was done, I believe, during the 1.x.x firmware versions, so idle may be a little different.

Also, the current consumption depends on the input voltage. You can go anywhere from ~2.2V to ~3.7V, but you should probably regulate it to about 3.3V or 3V, if you have a choice for a DC-DC converter.

 

[nubie]

Squidge did some testing a while back and found that it consumed 500mA at idle, and up to 700-800mA while playing video. I'm not too sure about the maximum current, and this was done, I believe, during the 1.x.x firmware versions, so idle may be a little different.

Also, the current consumption depends on the input voltage. You can go anywhere from ~2.2V to ~3.7V, but you should probably regulate it to about 3.3V or 3V, if you have a choice for a DC-DC converter.

Um, 3.5 to 3.7 is what I would shoot for, as long as you aren't going over 4 volts by much.

I really don't think a 12v battery is any good, especially a Lead and acid one.

It is probably a much better idea to use 2-3 of the industrial NiMH cells and no converter circuit, just straight, they will make 13Ah last I checked in a D size battery.

If you want to charge as you watch I suggest 2 cells so that the voltage doesn't go too high for the GP2X, if you just want to play off the pack and charge seperately, then 3-cells would probably get you a 12-hour to 16-hour run-time (based on 3-cell AA NiMH @2500Mah for 6:15 on 200mhz, and 5:45 on 240mhz)

I could get some links, but I have done it 5-6 times before for this forum and you can hunt down my previous posts or just hit up google for high-capacity NiMH yourself.

Basically for $20 you can get a few of the batteries without any voltage conversions (they just waste a huge amount of your energy, very bad for crank/solar setups), and the battery is less likely to leak acid, it is smaller, high capacity etc.

Save your lead-acid for a project that benefits from 12volts (like lightening your car for autocross or drag racing B) B) )