Hi All
I have a Motorola baby monitor, and after lots of wear and tear on the portable monitor (let's you view the camera), the micro USB port (used to charge and power the device) seems to have lifted from the board or become damaged in some other way, and the monitor stopped working unless you hold the USB cable at the correct angle.
I ordered a new micro USB port to replace the one on the board, but unfortunately my surface mount soldering skills aren't great, and I lifted the pads and made a big mess of the USB input - it's totally disconnected from the device now.
The monitor also has a rechargeable battery (3x Ni MH cells) which allowed it to be portable. Since the battery connector is nice and big, I thought I could just remove the battery and provide approx 3.8V - 3.9V into the battery connector on the circuit board. I tried using a bench power supply and the monitor worked fine - if I lowered the voltage to about 3.6V, its starts warning about low battery.
My plan is to get a simple buck converter to provide 3.8V from a 5V USB wall power plug.
I don't need it to be portable, so removing the battery isn't a concern for me.
Am I missing something that could cause problems by powering the device through the battery input? The micro USB port is disconnected from the circuit board, so there isn't a concern of someone plugging in a USB cable and the monitor trying to charge the battery (which is actually my new power source [buck converter]).
Thanks in advance
Ajk