Small penguin, small battery

This post was written around Christmas on a test WordPress site, and I really wanted it here. So here it is! It worked extremely well, and is now resting with all the other decorations in storage. I am very curious of if it will still work in 11 months 😀

It was time to break out the Christmas decorations, put up the tree and all the lights. While we were decorating, I found a couple decorations that ran off small thumb cell batteries. The batteries were left in them, acid leaked out, and the penguins had no life left… so they thought! This post will cover the battery powered one, as I am most proud of it. I will take pictures of the other fixed penguin and write a post about him soon. Update, I lied. The other penguin was sealed up, and packed away. It was even simpler than this, I promise nothing will be missed.

This penguin was pretty simple, had a real on/off switch, going to a resistor then an LED. I happened to have an old Fitbit Versa that met its demise in a lake, water resistant not waterproof. I ordered a pack of 4056 battery boards, and whipped out the soldering iron. I just wanted to see if the battery would still work (it had something like 2.6v left in it) and if I could avoid the thumb cell replacements.

So everything was soldered, the 4056 board lit up red when charging, turned blue shortly after, indicating it was fully charged. Had good voltage at the battery and on the output of the board. Turned the switch on and…

All that was left was to glue everything together. You can see my initial mark for which side had the positive leg, and the USB C port with a switch.

Overall this was a satisfying learning experience, as well as use for things that would otherwise be e-waste. So far Mr Penguin has blinked for about 20 hours without a recharge 🙂