Saturday, January 23, 2010

Playing with the Renesas M16C Starter Kit

Recently, while checking some stuffs from my drawer, I saw this Evaluation Kit I had won from an Electronics Forum.



It comes with a CD, MCU Programmer and the kit itself. The compiler uses C language.

In the following weeks, if I will not be busy, I will try to fully utilize this starter kit and see what useful things can I do with it.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Replacement Battery Problem for Kingston K-Pex 100 Media Player

I really love my Kingston K-Pex 100 Media Player. It really suits my needs for playing MP3s and watching movies. However, I recently noticed that the battery is no longer holding charge.



I looked over the net and Kingston is not selling a replacement battery since they had discontinued the product. I also searched on forums and those who have battery problems just throw this Media player away.

Instead of throwing this away, I just created an outside connection for an external battery connection via a female header.




Temporarily, I used 4 x AA 2000mAh Sanyo Eneloop Batteries and they worked fine with it. The original battery is 3.7V 850mAh. Having 4 Eneloop batteries will yield 4.8V (4x1.2V). I added a 1N4001 diode (can be seen on the glued connector at the back) to be able to provide one-way direction (so when USB is connected, there will be no charging) + to have a drop of 0.7V (which gives us 4.8V-0.7V=4.1V; near 3.7V).

It is now working and I am able to watch many movies and listen to MP3s for a longer time due to the Eneloops Superb Performance!



In conclusion, although the device has lost its great portability due to the battery, this is just a temporary solution. I just want to be able to use this and save it from being thrown in the garbage hehe.

My future plan is
1. to use a Nokia Battery (inside the KPex to be able to regain the portability). :)
OR
2. find a way to be able to put this in the car to be able to watch movies and hook it up on my car stereo. :)