Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Abusing Cheap USB Chrgers

A while back I found this nice looking LED clock in a local store. Of course in this part of the world everything comes with a great big 3-prong plug for 220 volts. But this time the plug was a standard wall wort outputting 5 volts.


No problem. Also around here these car-chargers are from $1 to $5 US and are sold everywhere. Since the boat is wired for 12 volts, it is the easiest power source to use.
A seventy-five cent USB charger to the rescue
So a small screw driver and here is a step-down converter from 12 to 5 volts. Just cut the wire  and clock plug off the wall wort and wire it to the USB connector. Solder on pigtails to connect to the boat wiring. Cover it with shrink wrap and finished.

Cheaper than an LM7805 and parts and much cheaper than an 220 to 110 volt step down transformer. Also it is very efficient compared to the alternatives.

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