Minty Boost

I ran into a bit of an issue at Dragon*Con; my phone refused to survive long enough for any useful activity.

I have an HTC Evo 4G, with a notoriously short battery life. I purchased it a little over a year before Dragon*Con. In other words, I had it with me at the Con in 2010 and noticed no significant problem. In 2011, however, I was lucky if it survived two hours from full charge to death knell. This was a problem because I was the coordinator for a group of people at the Con and texting is almost the only real way to keep up with what’s going on with a set of friends at Dragon*Con (it’s huge). So, I spent a lot of time worrying about charge, or letting people know who I was going to be with so they could text that person, instead of me.

I resolved not to deal with this situation again, and I’m fixing it in two ways!

One: Buy a new battery. I have done that and it’s amazing what happens when your phone lasts for 8 whole hours, not 3.

Two: Build a Minty Boost!

The Minty Boost is an electronics kit that you assemble by soldering according to the directions and then you have the ability to charge pretty much anything that takes power from a USB jack. Things like phones or iPods or whatever.

I have all the pieces, now I just need to put it together. When I get to soldering time, I’ll take some project pictures and post them here.