WiFi Coconut

So, I've decided to abandon this project. My life has become to busy to be able to work on this, and sourcing LiFePO4 battery charger ICs in a hand-solder-able package seems impossible. If anyone wants to pick up the concept, and/or the name, that's fine with me. Sorry to everyone who wanted to see this finished.

First, I'd like to extend the standard apology for not updating the project very often. I'd also like to thank everyone who is following and skulling the project, I'm glad you find this interesting. 

Now to the actual project:

On the hardware side, the router has arrived, in all its tiny glory. I would put a picture inline, but the button seems to disagree with the computer. I also built a proof of concept circuit for the power system, and the batteries I have power the router through a 7405 well, although I should add a current-limiting resistor.

On the software side, I flashed OpenWRT. It works well, although I have no idea how to use it, and there are absolutely no guides that attempt to explain it from the beginning anywhere that I can find. However, I do have both WiFi interfaces working, and a very thorough understanding of the fail-safe function.

In the mean time, happy hacking

The external charge power circuit schematic is now here, in the links section. You may now resume your normal activities.

I've figured out more about how the power and charging circuits are going to work. After hours of Googling, I've determined that I don't particularly like any of the charging options. What I would really like is the ability to charge with a micro USB cable, but that obviously won't work unless I break the batteries into eight 1-cell packs and charge them in parallel. This is feasible, but I already ordered the 2-cell packs, so I'm going to build with that for now. I'll draw up schematics for both designs, though. In the 2-cell pack design, there will be a power bus and a charge bus, with all the batteries independently switchable, mostly because that will look cool. The power bus will also have a micro USB port on it for powering from the wall. The last thing I'll include in the power circuit is a USB port for charging your phone from the internal batteries, with a 2 A current limiting circuit. Maybe I'll make that switchable, because the more the cooler looking, right?

The timeline for this project is unfortunate. As it stands right now, I have a) a tricopter build I'm finishing up, b) a bunch of other things I want to start, and c) AP tests to finish. Therefore, I probably won't be able to truly start hacking for about two weeks, and then it will be sparse until school lets out.

Until then, happy hacking.