After almost a year on the shelf I finally got around to getting the final parts I needed to finish off the portable router/charger project.

 

First to arrive was the case from eBay which includes a basic case, charging circuit, small solar panel as well as a rather bright LED panel.  These can be had for roughly AUD$6 delivered making them a bargain case for this sort of project or any other that requires on the go 5V power really.

Next was to decide on which battery’s to use, knowing I only really had space to fit two cells after some research I went for a pair of LG-HG2 3000mAH  mostly after reading this in depth review and test.

As the case does not come with battery holders I turned to Thingiverse and found a design that was roughly the correct size and using Tinkercad adjusted it to fit the cells and (roughly) the case and printed it on my Anet A8.

 

  I then wired the cells, solar panel and LED panel to the charge board and did several charge/discharge cycles charging phones, etc to make sure all was well.

After I was satisfied that all was working well it was time to move the router into it’s new home which proved to be quite a bit more of a tight fit than my first measurements had suggested.

A switch was cut into one end to power the router while still maintaining the ability to use the device as a charger and light.

Some “butchery” had to be done in order to get the network jack to just fit in the height of the case.

An overall view showing the tight fit (and my awful soldering skills)

 

And some (mostly) final shots.

As you can see everything doesn’t quite fit in the case as well as I’d hoped. I indeed to do a second version however I will design and 3D print a case so that everything fits together neatly.