tehsiggi wrote on Today, 07:05:
Alesia wrote on Today, 05:02:
Not retro per-say, but I realised there wasn't really a solution to use coin cell batteries in place of a 4.5v battery brick ala Rayovac 840 ect. So I went around with what little pcb/electronics knowledge I have and whipped something up. I know it's not "proper" by using an SMD LDO but I couldn't find one that was what I needed in any of the Kicad libraries I have setup and SMD stuff would kind of make it hard to assemble so I just went with diodes. I also assembled several normal 4.5v battery packs in the meantime because I was super tired of having to punch in 10 different values every time I turned my Zeos 486 on 🤣. Still need to learn blender so I can make a 3d printed case to hold everything, but I'm hoping to get some prototypes in hand so I can see if I misread how I was supposed to do things electrically.
The attachment Screenshot from 2026-07-31 21-50-08.png is no longer available
Which LDO did you want to consider? I suspect you're taking 6V from the coin-cells and want to go down to 4.5V as needed by the system?
A friend recommended the XC6702D451PR-G which is a 4.5v output LDO but all the SOT-89-5 package footprints/whatever I have in kicad have different pinouts to it became very difficult to ensure my traces were connected to the right pads because I was essentially wiring for the "wrong" thing using another as a stand-in. So I finished up the "dumb" 6v - .7v -.7v = 4.5v diode version because it was just easier to do short term and easier to assemble. My confidence with all this is very low, I'm just trying to solve some low hanging fruit problems for the community and owners of things like my Zeos 486 that only support these off-board battery brick type 4.5v things for CMOS power. Especially just avoiding AA batteries in general because of leakage.
Planning to re-attempt my powerbook 150 battery board soon too, but I have to block the charge current and work within some extreme space constraints, plus give up on my dream of using a rechargeable battery for it because non of the types in current production are usable (too big, ironically.) So I have a lot to learn.
