Gaming Charging GBA SP/DS Battery

[SUCCESSOR]

My GBA SP that I have had for just shy of 8 years (having found it on the side of the road looking like it jumped out the window) has a problem with the power connector where the cord plugs in. Everything works wonderful as it did in 2004 except I can't charge the battery without propping it in my DS Lite which is obviously not Ideal.

I wanna know if I can connect the battery directly to the power cord, as in Positive wire to (+) contact and Negative wire to (-) contact. I am thinking of making a makeshift battery charging dock until I can get a soldering iron and try and fix the power connector.

Thx

 

[FAST6191]

I believe the GBA does have some charging regulation onboard (rechargeable battery chemistry is fun and requires certain things to happen when charging- http://www.eevblog.com/2011/06/09/eevblog-176-lithium-ionpolymer-battery-charging-tutorial/ and that is just a small subset of one of the types) so I would not advise simply wiring up a basic charger if for no other reason than I believe most are just dumb unregulated chargers (concept- http://www.ladyada.net/wiki/tutorials/learn/powersupply/transformeracdc.html ).

Do take some pics of the end result- we have seen a couple of people retrofit miniUSB plugs to the ends over the years (granted to do this on a GBA would trouble link cable stuff) but more pictures are always nice. Also if you needed pinouts http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#auxlinkport

 

[SUCCESSOR]

Ok so I have changed plans somewhat. Since charging the battery directly seems like a terrible Idea(I watch videos of liIons exploding) I decided try and resolder the connection but to also add something for wireless charging. I need to know then pins one the motherboard. I found the pins on the connector and I could try to trace them but they seem to bend around in weird ways. Anyone know where I can find a layout for the pins on the motherboard?

 

[FAST6191]

Explosions are pretty hard to do but trying to find a decent SP battery is rather hard so caution is good.
Wireless charging then... nice. Alas I do not have my SP with me and I can not find any motherboard pinouts but I did drag up a picture or two (nothing . It looks like it could be wired into a regulator or inductor that you should be able to tap into with the output of your wireless circuitry if you do not fancy hooking into pins or traces and that way you get to leave all the messy stuff to the SP to sort out.

 

[SUCCESSOR]

i picked up a cheap NDS Battery that came with a charger. Even if the battery is shit it it still worth the 5 bucks. Plus if i blow something up I won't be wasting a 20$ battery. Just hope I don't melt my SP. I doubt it will. I'll Just have to look at the pin on the connector and follow it to the motherboard pin. Or if i get the money for a multimeter soon I can just plug in the power and find the pin with power.

If the pin is a problem with the solders would melting the solder and letting it set again be a possible solution?

 

[FAST6191]

What you just described is a technique known as reflowing and it (granted in various flavours) is probably about 50% of all electrical repairs I do. Sometimes it is better to remove the solder (either with a solder sucker or some solder wick/braid) and add new but a simple reflow (maybe adding a bit of new stuff/using some flux) cures many problems.

Have a look at "cold joins" in soldering guides as that will probably do well.

 

[SUCCESSOR]

Cool thanks. if i re-solder the connections should I add the new wire to the same solder or on top of it? As in re-solder the connector pin, let set, put wire for alternative charging method and solder that on top. or just remove old solder and solder wire and connector pin to the mother board at the same time?

Also sorry if i am not calling things by their correct name, I am new to this.

 

[FAST6191]

You have nothing to apologise for- if you had claimed to be a master of soldering and then messed such things up something might have been said but we prefer to direct people around here rather than laugh at them for not knowing a term.

Back on topic it varies depending on what you want to do- generally I will tin the wire (apply a bit of solder to a wire) melt the solder on the pin and stick the wire in so it all melts together.
Where it gets tricky is most modern devices (probably including the GBA) will use lead free solder and you I imagine will be using leaded solder (it is nicer if you are not used to soldering and generally speaking leaded solder is far superior to normal solder but a materials science lecture is not going to happen right now) and strictly speaking they do not mix so for that I would remove the solder from the pin, redo it with leaded stuff and then add whatever wires you plan to add to the pin.