Discussion State-of-the-art Charge and Play?

[NLG]

RVL-PMS-2 and PMS-PD 3 are clearly great, seamless options for portabilizing a wii. However, at ~120$ for both, I am ballin on a budget, and was wondering what the current meta is for DIY charge+play.

The charge+play wiki lists this CMB. However, I was wondering if another generic non-custom-wii board out there exists with the "power path" charge and play feature, perhaps one with USBC. Im okay with dealing with the separate voltage regulators + U10 relocation.

Thanks!

 

[Luigid]

that pcb is rubbish tried some time ago,you can simply buy a DIY powerbank circuit with USB C still on aliexpress

 

[NLG]

that pcb is rubbish tried some time ago,you can simply buy a DIY powerbank circuit with USB C still on aliexpress

But that won't do the power path / load sharing no? Or did you see a power bank that is designed to be charged and be used at the same time?

 

[Stitches]

There are many powerbanks that can supply enough current to run the system, the tricky part is finding one that doesn't drop out for a millisecond when a charge cable is plugged in. IIRC Anker makes suitable ones. Then you need your regulators. The tried and true ones are Texas Instruments PTH08080 modules. If you use 5v from the powerbank you'll only need 3 of them, or 4 if you get a USB C PD compliant powerbank and use 9v.

Consult this thread for how to set them up: Custom regulators, an explanation and guide | BitBuilt - Giving Life to Old Consoles
And make sure to use an output filtering capacitor as well.

 

[NLG]

There are many powerbanks that can supply enough current to run the system, the tricky part is finding one that doesn't drop out for a millisecond when a charge cable is plugged in. IIRC Anker makes suitable ones. Then you need your regulators. The tried and true ones are Texas Instruments PTH08080 modules. If you use 5v from the powerbank you'll only need 3 of them, or 4 if you get a USB C PD compliant powerbank and use 9v.

Consult this thread for how to set them up: Custom regulators, an explanation and guide | BitBuilt - Giving Life to Old Consoles
And make sure to use an output filtering capacitor as well.

Interesting, do you have any specific Anker models you wouldn't mind pointing me too? Can't find any that would indicate they can be plugged without dropping out.

If not, I would consider just using a basic lithium charger and doing the MOSFET+schottkey diode circuit even if there's some efficient losses there

 

[Stitches]

Unfortunately no. I haven't done any testing myself, I just remember that Madmorda used Anker powerbank boards in some of her old projects and they had uninterrupted charge and play with no modifications. In theory with modern standards any mid grade or better Anker bank *should* be sufficient, and there's always the option of using a 2000uf buffer cap to make up for a millisecond gap.

Just make sure that if you're going to use the 5v out from the bank to run the system that you have at least 3A of sustained current to work with. If it dips below that you'll have troubles

 

[NLG]

Gotcha, just tried scouring Madmorda's build logs but couldn't find the model. I found this one which explicitly states that it supports "charging while discharging" at 5v/3a input and output. Nothing about if there's an interrupt when plugging in but as you said, a capacitor should resolve that. Gotta say, 20k mAh lipo + pass through charging board with protections makes this a pretty awesome budget option, if someone is willing to test it out!

I probably will try to find a different one since I need some really slim cells but I thought I'd put it in the thread in case anyone stumbles upon this

 

[Luigid]

I have some cheap DIY power bank circuits I can do some tests, but I would only use it as 5v + lithium charging, then with regulators connected directly to the lithium generate the remaining voltages , obviously lithium batteries must have an over-discharge protection circuit.

 

[Xerxes3rd]

That Anker Zolo looks pretty good- internally it is apparently using LiPo pouch batteries. @Luigid Do you remember what the issues were with that cheap CMB were, aside from very slow charging?

 

[Luigid]

That Anker Zolo looks pretty good- internally it is apparently using LiPo pouch batteries. @Luigid Do you remember what the issues were with that cheap CMB were, aside from very slow charging?

I remember for sure that the cell balancing was non-existent (beyond specifications) and it also got too hot if I'm not mistaken

 

[Xerxes3rd]

Oh wow, yeah that's sufficient justification to bin mine then! Lack of cell balancing is a big yikes- maybe NVIDIA made it

 

[Customledmods]

I’ve been using this one along side my regulator board on my ps2’s and it works great the only thing is that no charge and play.

but I’m going to try what @Stitches mentioned and use a 2000uf cap and see if that helps.

the power bank can be charged with 5v =2A, 9v=2A,12v =1.5A PD 3.0.

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[Stitches]

This is the diagram that I'm referencing btw. It was made for the Gamecube, so ignore the resistor values for the regs as well as the second DC port

 

[NLG]

My research lab has some power banks laying around including this Anker one that explicitly advertises having pass-through. All of them make my phone stop charging for a brief second before continuing to charge, when plugged into the wall. It seems like all these power banks with pass-through charging have this issue. I dont really know what the exact amount of interrupt time is though - how much of an interrupt would a 2000uF capacitor allow?

 

[Stitches]

I'm afraid I don't know that. I do know that the delay will be lower than you'd think from the phone's charging notification, since it needs to run a heap of checks before it accepts the incoming current and then displays the notification. The only way to find out if it's sufficient would be to try it