My Mod - Noma Pocket Power Charger

[grantemsley]

I've made several box mods now, but this is the first one I felt worthy of showing off. It uses 4xAA NiHM batteries, which I love because I can get them in 2700mAH capacity and have tons of them already. It's not the smallest thing in the world - but it vapes good!



I was at Canadian Tire today and found a perfect item to make my next box mod out of - a Noma Pocket Power Charger RX4. Took me under half an hour to mod, and I figured I'd share.

The total cost was about $17.

Parts:
Noma Pocket Power Charger RX4 - $15
http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_detail.jsp?prd_id=845524443299976

Battery connector - $0-$5
I used a dead M401 atty and ripped out the connector (M401 atty = 510 battery)

Momentary switch, NO (normally open), 2A or higher - $10 for 10 of them
10Pcs Momentary Red Push Button Switch 3Pin SPDT on eBay.ca (item 180539612193 end time 26-Nov-10 10:52:47 EST)

220Ohm resistor - pennies
A very wide range of resistors will work. The higher the ohms, the dimmer the LED will be.

LED - pennies
Any kind, preferably not too bright since it will be shining in your face

Heat shrink wrap - optional, but makes it easier

Also, if you don't have them you will need 4 NiHM rechargable batteries and a charger. You can use the batteries that came with the power charger, but we will be ripping out it's charge circuit, so you need a seperate charger. I use Maha PowerEx 2700mAH batteries. Unlike the "3000mAH batteries" you see on ebay and such, these actually live up to that rating. In Canada you can get them from PSS Enterprises - PaulsFinest.com. (I have no relation to that site, but have ordered from it and received excellent service). These batteries last for 1-2 days of nearly constant vaping!

Destroy the charger:

• Remove the battery cover - pull down on the tab above the USB port
• Use a small flat head screw driver to pry the remaining grey and white sections away from each other. Try not to break the tiny invisible clips. But don't worry, you will break them and it's ok.
• Remove the circuit board inside. The top battery contacts will come out with it.
• Remove the two battery contacts with a soldering iron. Heat them up and they will fall right off.
• Drill out the holes where the test button and power jack were, large enough to fit your battery connector and switch. Be careful drilling them since the plastic is thin and there is just barely room to make the holes big enough without cutting the plastic right off. Do not touch the area where the USB port was, as this also functions as the lock for the battery door.

Wire it up:

• Solder wires to the battery connector
• Cut the longer (positive) side of the LED leg down to about 1cm. Cut one side of the resistor down to 1cm and solder them together. Slide heat shrink wrap around the connection and the resistor itself.
• The left (flat) battery terminal goes to one side of your switch. Since they were really close together, I soldered the cut off leg of an old LED to the switch and soldered the other side once the switch was in place.
• The other side of the switch connects to BOTH the other end of the resistor and the positive of the battery connector. Shove both wires through the hole and solder
• The negatives of both the LED and battery connector are soldered to the right side battery terminal.

Final steps:

• Position the LED so it is near or sticking out of where the USB connector was. The wires should hold it in place.
• Put the back on. Wrap a couple small pieces of packing tape around the side and into the battery compartment if you broke so many clips it won't stay on.
• Cut a couple small notches out of the battery cover - the switch and atty connection will get in the way
• Put a couple small dabs of super glue around the battery connector to hold it in place.
• Vape!

With fresh batteries, this puts out around 5-5.2V. This quickly tapers down to around 4.4-4.8V. I'm also going to make a spacer battery out of a nail or something to give me a 3.6V option. Since it uses NiHM batteries, you don't have to worry about protected batteries (unless you really wanna try vaping at like 15v...).

If you are able to, try to find room to put in a sliding switch to turn it off. I would have, but I didn't have any in my parts bins.

 

[peaceoffcake]

I remeber ... my first try in modding is something like your mod. When you have good batteries that's good mod. I try with bad batteries and I have problems. Then I put Sanyo 2700mAh and that resolve all problems. Good work.

 

[grantemsley]

Yep. There's no regulator or anything here. So all that really matters is a good set of batteries and a decent switch.

The Maha PowerEx batteries are the best I've found so far. They are pretty much the same as the Sanyo ones.