adding USB power port on Pocket operators

I sometimes use the PO in front of a PC, so I was thinking adding a female micro USB port to it ( on the break away
hanger):
"MICRO USB to DIP Adapter 5pin Female Connector B Type PCB Converter"

I’m guessing the batteries are in series parallel, so it’s only 1.3v 3v, so just following this post
"LM317-DC-DC-Converters-Circuit-Boards-Module-Adjustable-Linear-Regulator-1-2-37V"


Any thoughts?

A fake 2xAAA battery pack with a trailing USB? Wonder if such a thing already exists?

Might mean less butchery.
Just a thought.

CB

Yeah, less butchery… good idea!
I’m now thinking just a normal USB male cable with the regulator and alligator clips!

the batteries are in series so it is looking for 3V (not 1.3V) cheers Paul

haaa… thanks for that… I was just about to order parts to :slight_smile:

I’m preparing a hacking kit to do this, it will consist of DC jack for the PO, small power supply powered thru micro USB and a daisy chained cable(like the ones used for guitar pedals). With this you can get power from a USB wall wary, USB portable battery or batteries. Pic-> https://instagram.com/p/BNKL9s0A3FB/

Not USB directly on the PO but on an small outboard power supply. So kind of similar :smiley:
I’ll be offering this kit thru reverb.com
I’m putting kits together at the moment.

@jn7 any chance a USB C or USB mini jack option will become available after launch? I’d like to share cables with op-1 or phone/tablet which share USB C. Great work!

@PLNB hi!

My apologies on the late reply, and thanks for the suggestions, I was not aware of the OP-1 used mini USB, I can start working on a version sporting this mini USB jack, USB C would be more expensive starting with the jack and then the cables, not that is not doable but I see less people having USB-C at the moment including me.
I’m still waiting on daisy chain cables to arrive, I have a couple of power supplies already built but sporting micro USB jack at the moment.
Awesome news jn7! Would there be enough power from a single USB cable to power multiple PO's or would this concept only cover single units? At some point id like to join three POs together, sum their output through a passive trim mixer, and have a single USB powering the block. I'm guessing a USB splitter box could do the same thing, but figured id might ask.

@PLNB a single power supply can give up to 800mA @ 3V assuming your USB power source being a a portable battery or wall wart can provide at least 1A. This should easily power 3 or more POs at the time using a daisy chained cable.

This weekend I’ll post pictures and video desmostrating the system and how it works.

Thx for the update jn7. Excited to see what you come up with.

@PLNB Hi, the kit for 3 is up in reverb.com along with a video showing how it works.

https://reverb.com/mx/item/3592663-pocket-operator-power-supply-kit-3-by-jnfx-po-pws

If you have any comments please let me know.


Regards
-Jose

Nice bit of kit José. I’m not committed to soldering my POs until I have a 3PO case solution, but may prefer a clamp on power source to allow switching out POs or make use of the TE silicone case with minimal cutting.

Hi,
So I finally got the LM317 converter as mentioned and alligator clips and I put it on a long USB cable.
I’ve had the PO-20 playing back for 1hour or so, it works good, the heatsink doesn’t get hot.
The clips are okay, if not moving the device.

– Instructions –
It was pretty easy to do, no soldiering required :smiley:
Cut the head of a USB cable (the non USB male plug).
With a multimeter, find the power and negative lines, better to use a power plug witch doesn’t output data signals.
With a small flat head screw driver (called precision screw drivers):
a: wire up the positive into the in port marked Vin and neg into Gnd
b: wire up the alligator positive Red clip into the out port market Vout and the negative black clip into Gnd
Connect the alligator clips to a multimeter and turn the blue pot screw (from memory I think it was clock wise), until it drops to 3v, I have mine at 2.97-9v
Connect to PO’s battery, for me the Top negative and bottom Positive worked.
As shown on my quick video:
Adding USB ot my Pocket operator PO-20 Arcade - YouTube


looks interesting…

I’d love to have a powered hub to plug multiple po’s into
ive got a guitar pedal multi split lead thing, sockets to soldier onto the po’s , and a psu , just havent tried anything yet.
i dont want to blow anything up

We’re (ThinkMakeRepeat) & (<a href=“https://www.operator-1.com/index.php?p=/profile/2541/jn7” class=“Username” style=“margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 15px; font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(1, 115, 198);”>jn7<span style=“font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;”> JNFX Pedals) are working on a batch of new power supply kits for the Pocket Operators series. They come with a cable for 3, but a kit of 4 with chain-able plugs is definitely possible.<div style=“margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(37, 38, 30); background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>You plug a USB micro cable into one end and the other end has a 2.1mm power jack. The POs get a solder and glue on connector with another 2.1mm jack to plug into the USB power supply.

Here’s a link to JNFX’s kit on Reverb.com to check out, it’s out of stock but we’re working on a new batch now…
We’ll be fulfilling from Los Angeles now, so the shipping cost should be much cheaper going forward.
Also, for larger strings of POs we’re working on a tiny version of the kit that uses a micro-jst connector instead of the 2.1mm jack on the PO side.

Here is the updated Reverb link.

https://reverb.com/item/4277336-jnfx-think-make-repeat-pocket-operator-power-supply-kit-for-3-pos-po-pws-2017-black-purple

Hi,

Just to give you some idea… Sorry for the crappy pics.

I’ve made a stand for 3 POs using a material called ImageBond. It’s made from aluminium with some kind of composite core. It can be cut, drilled, bent, folded, routed etc and you can even print on it should you want to. These have 3V power in plus a power switch, sound out (mono jacks) and sync in/out so the whole thing can be daisy chained.

It’s still very much a work in progress and when finished it will have stuff like wooden side panels (i think…). It already works great however and I haven’t had to modify the POs in any way! Everything can easily be disconnected when necessary.