DIY iPod battery packs!

One of the biggest complaints… well, the only complaint about the iPods is their battery life. Sure we all want the battery to last 100+ hours between recharges, but that’s not going to happen.

However, there are battery packs on the market. I was in Walmart the other day and they had the Belkin 4AA battery pack on clearance for like 20 bucks. It claims to give you 8-16 extra hours. I went with one from Staples, a 9v model which claims 4-8.

But you can also just make your own for under 10 bucks.

I found this website My Homemade iPod Battery Pack which tells you how to do it. He’s also got a ton of references to other diy projects. I really like his Band-Aid battery pack. Very nice.

But got to say my favorite is the Atari battery pack.

Depending on the design, you can get away with spending as little as say 10 bucks (price of a firewire connector, two 9v and two AA’s), or you could get really crazy with regulators and various other things.

The hidden cost is the price of an iPod… say if you end up doing a poor soldering job and have to purchase a new one. But it seems pretty straightforward.

So do-it-yourself battery packs, starting at bucks to a few hundred.

Update from someone in Israel

Ronny Simon was our tour guide when we went to visit Israel this last March. The dude knows a LOT of stuff. He occasionally sends out emails with insights, from an Israeli perspective, on current happenings in Israel.

Check this one out regarding the latest stuff with Lebanon.

From: roni simon
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 4:49 AM
Subject: Ronny Simon – up date about Lebanon
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:48:59 +0000

Shalom from Jerusalem.

Thank you all for your concern and e-mails of support.

These are hard times in Israel. It is not the first time and unfortunately might not be the last time. While the majority of the people carry on with their daily lives, a million people on the northern part of the country, Galilee, Haifa and the Golan heights are spending most of their time in bomb shelters.

Some short history to explain how we got to the present situation.

In May 24, 2000, the Israeli forces that were deployed in Southern Lebanon had pulled back to Israel. That was to comply with a Security Council resolution calling on all foreign forces to evacuate Lebanese territory. The Syrian army and its thousands of soldiers did not remove its forces from Lebanon and the country was held captive by the Syrian dictatorship. Lebanon was only independent by name. The decisions for Lebanon’s future were taken in Damascus.

When the Israeli withdrawal was completed, the U.N. with Israel’s approval had sent over a party to make sure that Israel had pulled back to the international border and that there are no territorial issues between the two countries.

Israel’s hope that the Lebanese army will deploy its forces along the border as the resolution dictated, were in vain. The Lebanese army never stood to the mission because Syria would not allow that. Instead, the Hezbollah, with Lebanese consent and over a $100 million annual support from Iran started to build a terror infrastructure on Israel’s northern border. More than 12 thousand rockets were hidden in bonkers all over south Lebanon. In the same time the Iranian government was building Hezbollah a fortified quarter in the southern part of Beirut, the Lebanese capital. That’s where the headquarters and the logistical center were. Israel was watching frustrated how the world was ignoring what was going on and doing nothing to stop Iran and its armed militia Hezbollah.