mattinx wrote:

If there's anyone else out there with a Victor V86P that has a dead (or missing) PSU and wants to use an existing 8.5V PSU (like the one for the Playstation2 suggested earlier), I've reverse engineered the battery charging circuitry that's in the original PSU, and made a little board to implement it:
http://pkl.net/~matt/charger-board4.png
I'm still waiting on getting the board back, and I need to rebuild the battery pack (it's a stack of Sub-C NiCd cells in a cardboard tube with a couple of thermal cutouts) - so I don't actually know if the board works yet, but the idea is that you have a barrel jack input that'll take the output from a generic 8.5V brick, and it'll give you the necessary power and signalling for the V86P's charge circuitry.

Hi,

I just got a Victor V86P in a fairly good condition from a dumpster yesterday. Sadly it came without any PSU nor battery so I cannot test it atm. I'll be interested into your circuit but I don't get why it's using a non standard/harder to find 8.5V charger for input and not a regular and widely available 9V or even 12V one, could you elaborate on this choice ?

Jonas-fr wrote on 2019-02-17, 13:18:

mattinx wrote:

If there's anyone else out there with a Victor V86P that has a dead (or missing) PSU and wants to use an existing 8.5V PSU (like the one for the Playstation2 suggested earlier), I've reverse engineered the battery charging circuitry that's in the original PSU, and made a little board to implement it:
http://pkl.net/~matt/charger-board4.png
I'm still waiting on getting the board back, and I need to rebuild the battery pack (it's a stack of Sub-C NiCd cells in a cardboard tube with a couple of thermal cutouts) - so I don't actually know if the board works yet, but the idea is that you have a barrel jack input that'll take the output from a generic 8.5V brick, and it'll give you the necessary power and signalling for the V86P's charge circuitry.

Hi,

I just got a Victor V86P in a fairly good condition from a dumpster yesterday. Sadly it came without any PSU nor battery so I cannot test it atm. I'll be interested into your circuit but I don't get why it's using a non standard/harder to find 8.5V charger for input and not a regular and widely available 9V or even 12V one, could you elaborate on this choice ?

I have the original schematics for Victor V86p clone. The machine was relicensed to another Chinese company and was made into a portable word processor.

Link: https://software-archive.tifan.la/Stone-Chine … 86%E5%9B%BE.pdf start from page (PDF page number) 233

Jonas-fr wrote on 2019-02-17, 13:18:

I just got a Victor V86P in a fairly good condition from a dumpster yesterday. Sadly it came without any PSU nor battery so I cannot test it atm. I'll be interested into your circuit but I don't get why it's using a non standard/harder to find 8.5V charger for input and not a regular and widely available 9V or even 12V one, could you elaborate on this choice ?

Totally forgot this thread existed, and in case you're still wondering - 8.5V is what the original PSU generated, and my board is literally just the NiCd charge circuitry - I'm not adding any additional regulation, which is why it needs an 8.5V input.

On a related note, I'm actually most of the way through overhauling the power system to allow the system to run from a pair of Li-Ion 18650 cells - they fit neatly in the existing battery compartment with enough space for an off the shelf battery protection board. I've got a new spin of the charger board with a Li-Ion charge control IC on board, and I just need to look at replacing the power input board in the system itself so it's possible to properly charge when the system is powered on. If I remember correctly (project's been on the back-burner for a year or two now) I got about two hours runtime from a pair of 18650s.

There's also https://github.com/hennichodernich/v86p-ide which was developed by https://radiosocial.de/@hennichodernich on top of some of the reverse engineering work I did on the system. I've put one of those boards in my system along with a CF reader, and it works incredibly well.

I need to write up all the work I've done on this thing to date and get it up online.

Finally picked back up with documenting some of the work I've been doing with my V86P. Here's the write-up for the ISA backplane I put together: https://knm.org.uk/blog/2024/03/working-on-th … -expansion-bus/

I've got a few more drafts written, and a folder full of photos - I just need to do a little editing and there'll be more coming up soon.

mattinx wrote on 2024-03-11, 14:13:

Finally picked back up with documenting some of the work I've been doing with my V86P. Here's the write-up for the ISA backplane I put together: https://knm.org.uk/blog/2024/03/working-on-th … -expansion-bus/

I've got a few more drafts written, and a folder full of photos - I just need to do a little editing and there'll be more coming up soon.

Thanks for the writeup! Huge backlog here, I really should get back to this unit someday

Jonas-fr wrote on 2026-01-01, 19:06:

Thanks for the writeup! Huge backlog here, I really should get back to this unit someday

I need to get the drafts finished up and posted - I've got a whole thing about converting it to Li-Ion and USB-PD power

Awesome! Do not hesitate to make a post here whenever this article will be published

I just picked up a V86P for a few euros, minus power supply and in unknown condition... first steps will be trying to get it running. End goal will be the XT-IDE board and a Gotek. I'm now reading through your blog, what great information... really looking forward to the package arriving now!

I have a bunch more to post - I ended up converting the system to run from a pair of 18650s, and use USB-C for power input (requires a USB PSU that'll do QC or USB-PD to get 9V) - works really well, even got the low battery beep at the right point

mattinx wrote on 2026-10-17, 23:59:

I have a bunch more to post - I ended up converting the system to run from a pair of 18650s, and use USB-C for power input (requires a USB PSU that'll do QC or USB-PD to get 9V) - works really well, even got the low battery beep at the right point

Eagerly awaiting this! Received mine today and it looks in fairly good condition, besides a missing battery cover. No PSU though, so I'll do some reading and see what I can work out just to get it powered up without battery connected. Is it safe to push 9V through the onboard regulation instead of 8.5V? That way I can use a PSU I already have (with the battery disconnected). Hopefully I'll order the drive controller PCBs tonight.

Yes, it's quite happy with 9V going in on the power connector. I have *most* of the schematics, courtesy of someone else who saw the blog and realized the system was sold as a Chinese system with an add-on font unit connected to the expansion port

I've got it open and tried firing it up via 6V to the battery terminal and the only power supply I have right now -- an adjustable wall wart. Not ideal, but I see some signs of life, but only some. The LEDs all light up and flicker, the LCD kind of half initialises, and a rough grinding whirring noise emits from somewhere. My guess is the DC/DC circuitry is struggling, and hopefully it's capacitors. Time to get the whole board out and dig in, I can't really see where the power circuitry is going right now. Measured 1.8V on what I think is the 5V rail of the 74HCs, there's a "VREF" pad giving me 2.8V, and a "VEE" pad giving me -21V. I guess that's for the LCD... well, I sure hope so.

As an aside, while I'm getting this going I'll be trying to take a look at slightly modifying the PicoGUS Femto to the 60 pin ISA bus header on the back of this machine: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Getting … S-Femto-Edition

Shouldn't be too challenging, the biggest issue will be where to get 5V from, since this device doesn't supply it directly from the header. One idea would be to slightly modify the machine: lift a pin and bodge 5V supply to it from somewhere appropriate. An external feed with the right protection might also work.

Mine isn't happy until it's got slightly more than 6V on the battery header IIRC, despite that being the nominal pack voltage. You are actually good to connect a 7.2V LiIon pack directly to the battery terminal - the power circuitry is quite happy with that. It's just the charge circuitry that needs modifying.

With regards to the PicoGUS - I have a PicoMEM attached to mine, I currently pull 5V from the PS2 header on the side (PS2 to USB dongle then a usb power cable), but I do also plan to put 5V on the header - there's a Power_On pin that's +5 via a (IIRC) 4k7 resistor. My plan was just to bridge out that resistor.