LOL! Sorry, I have nothing productive to contribute to this... tho I *love* the idea of a diaper, for a battery!! I'm a hardware person, and ahve been brainstorming about how to do a battery in a way that is elegant and en-theme with Chumby's cuteness. The diaper seems like an adorable starting-point as a concept for the form factor.

I had been thinking about cannibalizing a Treo, as a starting-point... tho mostly, only, because I have a few of them lying around un-used. What to cannibalize, does seem like the rational starting point.

Yeah- the necessity of a power-cord has proven very restrictive, for many uses I've had in mind, for my 'lil guy.

As a former Army Infantryman, I would call it an assault pack

I'm happy with the cord.  at first I thought that the cord would be a major drawback, but then I realized that the chumby didn't need to be moved around very much.

Buy two

Assuming I had the money, a discounted multi-pack of Chumbys would be attractive.

I could see someone buying several of these for family members, and using them as a a sort of message center system.

that would be cool... do it as a buy 5 get 1 free deal!

I wanted to buy a second chumby but my parents didn't like the idea and didn't allow me (even though it is my money).  so, I started thinking about other ways to power the chumby and move it around the house or take it to cafe's with internet connection.

My idea of how to power a chumby without the cord would be to buy a rechargeable 9V battery.
would this one work?
http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?Pa … ProdID=880

if each battery lasted an hour, then I would have an hour of backup, an hour of mobile use, and two more hours charging at any time, right?

Just unboxed my beloved chumby last night and tried the 9volt to see how long it lasted. Got about a half hour... which is a LOT longer than I expected. Sort of a neat idea to keep one in there so you can unplug the chumby to move it without powering down.

I happen to work for a battery company type place and brought it in to see which rechargeable battery pack would work best with the little guy... hopefully fit right in the slot where the 9 volt goes. I'll let you know what I find out. 8)

Yeah... you're going to need to do that this weekend and take a picture. Incredible idea.

I was thinking of taking an old walkman shell and building a Walkchum.

Don't forget to also post any info on power ideas to the wiki under Hardware Hacks!  I posted info on the DC supply connector tere recently.  Since I have 12 volts available in my "ham shack," I have the Chumby running off my shack supply, and leave the wall wart in the living room for quick checks during TV slow times.

- Rich

I have just about completed a relatively simple Chumby modificatio using LiPO cells commonly used in RC cars and airplanes.   The charging circuit is %80 complete, and it connects right into the 9V clip.   The current version requires two wires to be soldered into the chumby power connector, however I now have a workaround for this issue as well.

Currently, I can put 1800mAh @ 11.4V (stepped down to 9V by a DC/DC converter).     Pictures to come, as well as schematics.

-Martin Bogomolni  (Chumby - Black Sun)

Beastlykings,

The power supply is rated to deliver 1 Amp of current (not Amp-hour) at 12 Volts. This does not mean that the Chumby will actually require this much power to run, only that it could supply that much if needed.  I am sure the power consumption of the chumby depends on what you are doing. For example if the screen is on full brightness and you are pumping out max volume on some music from an attached USB drive or IPOD the current draw will be much higher than if it is sitting there in night mode.

With regards to batteries, they are rated in amp-hours. So your numbers for a typical 9V battery mean that it can supply about 500 milliamps for one hour. If your device is only drawing 100 milliamps, it will last 5 hours or only one hour if you did draw 500 miliamps. Keep in mind that by the time you are at the hour mark, the battery is going to be completely dead. So your chumby or other device is most likely going to shut off well before you hit the hour mark due to the fact that the voltage level will have dipped below the required level.

Now for your six AA rechargeable batteries. Since you are using them in series to get up to 7.2 V (6 x 1.2) you will only get 2500mAh total capacity as each battery is only supplying 1.2V at that capacity. You do not need to be concerned about having too much capacity, the more the better. The higher capacity just means that it can supply the same ammount of current for a longer time. The only thing here is that I would recommend to anyone making up a battery pack is to put an inline fuse in the power cord. This way if something goes wrong you will not have a fire or other similiar problem. As you get to higher and higher capacities, these batteries can supply a large ammount of current in a short circuit condition. A fuse is an easy safety measure that will help prevent a hazardous condition.

I hope I have answered some of your questions, if you need more info you can pm me.