lithium battery solar usb/ iphone/ arduino charger
by:CTECHi
2020-02-24
One of the most interesting and useful projects on instructures is to create your own solar USB/iPhone charger.
They are not too hard to make, nor are they parts that are too expensive or difficult to find.
To a large extent, they did a pretty good job of charging gadgets. Mostly.
The biggest flaw in the world of DIY solar chargers is the battery.
Almost all designs are in structures (
Including all my designs)
Use a standard NiMh rechargeable battery.
Cheap, easy to find, very safe to use.
The problem is that they are low in capacity and voltage, and the gadget battery that we \'ve been trying to charge is getting bigger and better.
For example, there is a 2,000 battery inside the iPhone 4.
Now, with 2 or 4 AA batteries, it\'s not hard to charge decently with a well-made solar charger.
On the other hand, there is a 6,000 battery pack on the iPad 2.
Charging is not so easy.
The solution to these problems is to abandon the NiMh battery and switch to the lithium battery.
In this guide I will show you how to make your own lithium battery charger.
Low cost of manufacturing, easy to build, the most important thing is to use safety. (
Oh, support this project by voting and help me win the instructures green tech contest!
The IPad is awesome for my classroom!
Even better, I\'m going to make a huge lithium power charger to run the iPad.
My classroom will be 100% green. )
Electronic parts: 5 v (or greater)Solar Cell 3.
7 V lithium ion battery: 2,600 MAH, 4,400 MAH, 6,600 mah lithium battery charging controller
Dc usb boost circuit 2.
Plug 2 is installed on the 5mm parent panel.
5mm male jacks with wire 1n4001 diodes are provided: Electrical tape shrink tube double sided foam tape welded aluminum tin (
Or other enclosure)
Tool: drill Dremel with welding ion hot glue gun (
No need, but there are)
This guide will show you how to make a solar version of this charger.
You can also easily completely discard the solar part and rely on USB to charge the lithium battery.
While many parts of this project are easy to find in most online electronics stores, some projects like \"DC to DC boost circuit\" and \"lithium charge controller board\" are harder to find.
As this guide continues, I will provide you with several options on where to get most of the parts and detail the functionality of each part.
Then you can make an informed decision on which one will best meet your individual project needs.
As a disclaimer, I would say that I did sell two finished versions of this charger on my website brondoggadgets, the parts that made this charger, and the complete kit. com.
We currently have two kits, one is the basic solar USB kit and the other is the newer lithium heavy kit.
Whether you know it or not, you may have one in your pocket now.
There\'s one on your desk.
There is also one in the wallet/backpack.
The most modern electronic products are lithium-ion batteries.
They provide high-capacity power, high-pressure water, and a lot of charging for their size.
This is contrary to rechargeable AAs, which is most common in composition.
If you have been in high school chemistry for a while, the difference between your standard rechargeable AA battery and lithium ion battery is the chemicals inside.
Look at the periodic table and you will find that on the far left of the first column, all the most active elements are there.
Compared to nickel, nickel has a lot of random non-reactive substances in the middle of the table. (
If you want to know why it is so reactive, it is because it has only one lone valence electron.
I\'m sure at least one of my eighth graders might remember. Sigh. . . teenagers. )
This is why lithium is often negatively affected.
Because it is highly reactive, it can sometimes get out of control.
A few years ago, Sony made a bad batch of laptop batteries, some of which were on fire at random. (
Do you know that Sony has produced a large part of the laptop battery in the world for most major brands? )
That\'s why we have to take certain precautions when dealing with lithium-ion batteries.
In order to maintain a very precise voltage when charging. The 3.
The 7 v battery we use in this guide requires a charging voltage of 4. 2V.
High voltage or low voltage can mean a chemical reaction that is out of control, which can lead to danger.
So be careful when dealing with lithium batteries!
While it\'s very safe to be careful with them, if you start doing something you shouldn\'t do, you end up having big problems.
Treat them with the respect they deserve.
Like a lithium battery, what you really need to be safe is to have a circuit that controls the voltage of the battery.
While you can make your own charging control circuit, it\'s much easier to buy one that you know works.
You have a few options for this.
Adafruit now has several power input options on its second generation lithium charging controller.
They are beautiful but a little big.
The shell size of our Altoids tin is not small enough at all.
I sold some small lithium charge controller modules on my website.
These are the ones I use in the toolkit and in this guide.
I like them because they are small, simple, and have a status indicator when the battery is fully charged.
Like the Adafruit charger, if you don\'t have the sun, you can also use the USB port on it to charge the lithium battery. (
This is very convenient for any solar charger. )
Whatever you use, make sure you know how to use it and where to go.
Most modern devices can be charged via USB.
It has become the standard of the world.
So why do we need a special circuit?
Can\'t I connect the universal USB port directly to the battery?
The problem is that USB works under 5 v power supply.
There are only 3 lithium batteries you want to use in this project. 7V of power.
My USB circuit in this project is a DC to DC boost circuit.
This means it will increase the voltage so that our gadgets can be charged. (
This is different from many USB chargers that use 9 v or 6 v batteries on the instructions and then reduce the voltage, which makes it very difficult to use solar energy. )
The circuit I am using, sold on my website, is the remaining circuit for some random chargers I found after a lot of testing.
It is more or less a clone of the Adafruit Minityboost circuit.
Apart from being cheaper and already done for you.
So yes, you can find a cheap USB charger online and take it apart, but listen.
What you\'re looking for is from 3 v (
AKA 2 AA batteries)up to 5V (AKA USB).
What you don\'t want to do is take apart the USB charger or the car USB charger on the wall.
They convert higher voltage to lower voltage, which is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do.
Also, keep in mind that while both my USB circuit and Mintyboost work with Apple products, many USB chargers don\'t work.
Apple products check the data labels on the USB to see what they are plugged in.
If they don\'t see any trends on the data tab and other gadgets don\'t, then they won\'t charge.
Believe me, I tried a lot of cheap circuits on eBay and found out that my iPhone 4 rejected them.
You don\'t want this to happen.
Do a quick Google search and you will find batteries of various sizes, capacities, voltages and prices.
It could be a bit confusing at first.
We will use 3 for this charger.
7 v Lithium Polymer (Li-po)Battery.
It may be very similar to the iPod or phone.
You really want to use 3 for this project.
7 V battery, this is how our charging circuit is designed.
While this should be a no problem, you need a battery with built-in overcharge/undercharge protection.
This is called \"PCB protection\" by many sites \". \" (
Watch you on eBay)
It just means that there is a small circuit board and chip that ensures that the battery stops charging or stops discharging at the right time.
Because you can easily find many different batteries outside, the physical size and capacity of the battery should be the one you care most about.
The size really depends on your shell.
In this guide I will use Altoids tin in one box, so my size is quite limited.
Although I would love to have a 4,400 battery installed in the Altoids tin, I switched to a 2,000 battery.
If you have not made the solar version of this kit, please skip.
In this guide I am using 5.
5 V 320 mA solar cells packaged in hard plastic.
Any large solar cell is OK, but ideally for the charging controller you would like your solar cell to be at 5-6V in power.
Split the end of the male Jack wire into two halves.
Then remove the end slightly.
The Wire with white stripes is negative, and the wire with full black is positive.
Weld the wire to the proper label on the back of the solar cell.
Cover the welding point with adhesive tape or hot glue.
This will protect them and relieve stress.
Since I am using the Altoids style tin, I need to do some drilling work.
I will use walkthrough and Dremel for this.
Before you do any work with tin, you should put everything in tin to see if it\'s all right.
Figure out where everything is before drilling.
Use markers to indicate where everything should go.
Once you have chosen the location, you can start working.
For the USB port, you can do one of two things.
You can cut directly down from the top of the tin with a large tin cut, or you can drill a USB-sized hole on the side of the tin.
I\'m going to drill a hole.
First, put the USB port on the side of the tin.
Mark along the outside.
Drill two or more holes in that circle with a drill bit.
Archive and cut out the remaining space using Dremel.
Recommendations \"with the big clip hold down tin.
Holding it with your hand can make you lose one or two fingers.
Once the check is completed, make sure the USB port goes through your hole.
Make a hole for number 2
5mm female panel mount, just drill a hole.
You need to use Dremel to make it bigger. (
If you don\'t do something about solar, ignore 2.
Section 5mm is all together. )
One of the reasons I like to use this small charging controller is that it\'s hard to screw up.
There are 4 welding points on it.
In front of the Mini
The USB port is where we connect the DC power supply, in the solar field, the two points behind are the battery.
Let\'s connect 2 first.
5mm female plug for charging controller.
All we have to do is run two wires and a diode from the plug to the controller. (
You can also use your shrink tube in this section if you wish. )
Grab your 1N4001 diode, 2.
5mm plug and charge controller.
Put the plug in front of you.
From left to right, these three spires are like this.
The left side is negative, the middle is positive, and the right side is not used.
Take a wire, wrap it around the negative leg of the plug, and the other end is in the negative \"in\" position on the board.
Welding and happy. (
You can cover the legs of the plug with some Shrink tube if you want. )
Now take a little more wire and wrap it around the leg of the diode with a strip on it.
Wrap around the bottom of the diode to make sure we can save as much space as possible.
The other end of the diode (
No side of the bar)
To the middle part of the plug.
Again, as close as possible to the bottom of the diode.
Finally, connect the wire to the positive \"in\" welding point on the board.
Welding and cheering. (
Again, you can use the Shrink tube to ensure the connection to the plug. )
From this point you only need to weld four extra points.
What we have to do is connect the battery and USB circuit to the charging controller board.
For this you need to cut off some wires.
Weld some wires to the positive and negative poles on the USB circuit.
They are on the lower side of the board.
Once completed, twist these wires together with the wires that fall off the lithium battery.
Make sure you connect positive wires with negative ones. (
Red is positive and black is negative in case you forget. )
Once the twist is complete, simply weld to the Battery Point on the back of the charging controller board.
I like to pass the wire through the hole before welding.
In fact, the electrical aspect of this project has been completed by 100%.
Take a deep breath and relax.
It\'s also a good idea to test your circuit at this point.
Everything is connected and should work.
Pick up the iPod or any USB device to see if it works (
Your gadget may not charge if the battery is low or dead).
You can also take it out in the sun to see if your solar battery is starting to charge the battery.
You should see the little red LED on the charging board turned on.
You can also charge the battery using the mini USB cable.
Before we cram everything into the jar, it might be a good idea to make sure our jar doesn\'t cause a short circuit.
Please ignore this if you are using a wooden or plastic case.
Tape down a few strips along the bottom of the tin and the side of the tin.
Where the USB circuit will be and where the charging controller will be. (
In my photo, you can see that I let the charging controller float freely. )
You really don\'t want it short.
To make sure our welding points are safe, you can apply tape on them or a little hot glue.
When putting everything in the jar, start with 2 first. 5mm Plug.
Since you need to screw it to the right place, it\'s a bit important to put it first.
Once in and secure, try installing the USB circuit in place.
If everything is right, first put a small piece of hot glue down and put your circuit in place.
Once in place, cover it with hot glue. (
There is a switch on the side of the USB circuit I am using.
If you are using my circuit, please make sure the switch is put back all the way.
Set the circuit to \"charge\" mode. \")
Finally, you have your battery.
You may not want to use hot glue on it.
Some double sided tape or a lap of electronic tape will hold it down.
This is, in fact, it.
Now you can charge the battery via the mini USB port on the charging circuit or solar energy.
The red status LED on the charging controller board indicates that the battery is charging and the blue lights up when the battery is full.
I was able to charge my iPhone 4 more than 80% on a recent airplane flight (
Listen to music in airplane mode).
The battery is 2,000 mAh.
The battery of 4,400 mAh or 6,600 mAh can do more.
IPad or other tablets in particular.
This is a great little project to get yourself started with lithium batteries and I know a lot of people are hesitant.
It is foolish not to take this path because of the falling price of lithium and controllers, especially in the area of the micro-controller power supply project.
Lithium batteries are especially good for very small items because they are very small in size.
This is a great power supply when you try to narrow down the death ray.
So if you want to make a very high performance solar USB charger for your battery, tablet, iPad, iPod, iPhone, GPS or Arduino project, you really can\'t go wrong.
Especially when you can put it in such a lovely jar!
As I said before, you can find these parts online from a variety of sources, or you can find them from my own website, brondoggadgets. com.
The money I make is either spent on a cute brown dog or on funding more projects. (
We have an updated lithium heavy duty 2.
Month Kitavailable now.
More powerful. )
If you are looking for direct Battalion gear without a building, you can pick up a folded USB solar battery.
It\'s much easier and cheaper than making these.
They are not too hard to make, nor are they parts that are too expensive or difficult to find.
To a large extent, they did a pretty good job of charging gadgets. Mostly.
The biggest flaw in the world of DIY solar chargers is the battery.
Almost all designs are in structures (
Including all my designs)
Use a standard NiMh rechargeable battery.
Cheap, easy to find, very safe to use.
The problem is that they are low in capacity and voltage, and the gadget battery that we \'ve been trying to charge is getting bigger and better.
For example, there is a 2,000 battery inside the iPhone 4.
Now, with 2 or 4 AA batteries, it\'s not hard to charge decently with a well-made solar charger.
On the other hand, there is a 6,000 battery pack on the iPad 2.
Charging is not so easy.
The solution to these problems is to abandon the NiMh battery and switch to the lithium battery.
In this guide I will show you how to make your own lithium battery charger.
Low cost of manufacturing, easy to build, the most important thing is to use safety. (
Oh, support this project by voting and help me win the instructures green tech contest!
The IPad is awesome for my classroom!
Even better, I\'m going to make a huge lithium power charger to run the iPad.
My classroom will be 100% green. )
Electronic parts: 5 v (or greater)Solar Cell 3.
7 V lithium ion battery: 2,600 MAH, 4,400 MAH, 6,600 mah lithium battery charging controller
Dc usb boost circuit 2.
Plug 2 is installed on the 5mm parent panel.
5mm male jacks with wire 1n4001 diodes are provided: Electrical tape shrink tube double sided foam tape welded aluminum tin (
Or other enclosure)
Tool: drill Dremel with welding ion hot glue gun (
No need, but there are)
This guide will show you how to make a solar version of this charger.
You can also easily completely discard the solar part and rely on USB to charge the lithium battery.
While many parts of this project are easy to find in most online electronics stores, some projects like \"DC to DC boost circuit\" and \"lithium charge controller board\" are harder to find.
As this guide continues, I will provide you with several options on where to get most of the parts and detail the functionality of each part.
Then you can make an informed decision on which one will best meet your individual project needs.
As a disclaimer, I would say that I did sell two finished versions of this charger on my website brondoggadgets, the parts that made this charger, and the complete kit. com.
We currently have two kits, one is the basic solar USB kit and the other is the newer lithium heavy kit.
Whether you know it or not, you may have one in your pocket now.
There\'s one on your desk.
There is also one in the wallet/backpack.
The most modern electronic products are lithium-ion batteries.
They provide high-capacity power, high-pressure water, and a lot of charging for their size.
This is contrary to rechargeable AAs, which is most common in composition.
If you have been in high school chemistry for a while, the difference between your standard rechargeable AA battery and lithium ion battery is the chemicals inside.
Look at the periodic table and you will find that on the far left of the first column, all the most active elements are there.
Compared to nickel, nickel has a lot of random non-reactive substances in the middle of the table. (
If you want to know why it is so reactive, it is because it has only one lone valence electron.
I\'m sure at least one of my eighth graders might remember. Sigh. . . teenagers. )
This is why lithium is often negatively affected.
Because it is highly reactive, it can sometimes get out of control.
A few years ago, Sony made a bad batch of laptop batteries, some of which were on fire at random. (
Do you know that Sony has produced a large part of the laptop battery in the world for most major brands? )
That\'s why we have to take certain precautions when dealing with lithium-ion batteries.
In order to maintain a very precise voltage when charging. The 3.
The 7 v battery we use in this guide requires a charging voltage of 4. 2V.
High voltage or low voltage can mean a chemical reaction that is out of control, which can lead to danger.
So be careful when dealing with lithium batteries!
While it\'s very safe to be careful with them, if you start doing something you shouldn\'t do, you end up having big problems.
Treat them with the respect they deserve.
Like a lithium battery, what you really need to be safe is to have a circuit that controls the voltage of the battery.
While you can make your own charging control circuit, it\'s much easier to buy one that you know works.
You have a few options for this.
Adafruit now has several power input options on its second generation lithium charging controller.
They are beautiful but a little big.
The shell size of our Altoids tin is not small enough at all.
I sold some small lithium charge controller modules on my website.
These are the ones I use in the toolkit and in this guide.
I like them because they are small, simple, and have a status indicator when the battery is fully charged.
Like the Adafruit charger, if you don\'t have the sun, you can also use the USB port on it to charge the lithium battery. (
This is very convenient for any solar charger. )
Whatever you use, make sure you know how to use it and where to go.
Most modern devices can be charged via USB.
It has become the standard of the world.
So why do we need a special circuit?
Can\'t I connect the universal USB port directly to the battery?
The problem is that USB works under 5 v power supply.
There are only 3 lithium batteries you want to use in this project. 7V of power.
My USB circuit in this project is a DC to DC boost circuit.
This means it will increase the voltage so that our gadgets can be charged. (
This is different from many USB chargers that use 9 v or 6 v batteries on the instructions and then reduce the voltage, which makes it very difficult to use solar energy. )
The circuit I am using, sold on my website, is the remaining circuit for some random chargers I found after a lot of testing.
It is more or less a clone of the Adafruit Minityboost circuit.
Apart from being cheaper and already done for you.
So yes, you can find a cheap USB charger online and take it apart, but listen.
What you\'re looking for is from 3 v (
AKA 2 AA batteries)up to 5V (AKA USB).
What you don\'t want to do is take apart the USB charger or the car USB charger on the wall.
They convert higher voltage to lower voltage, which is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do.
Also, keep in mind that while both my USB circuit and Mintyboost work with Apple products, many USB chargers don\'t work.
Apple products check the data labels on the USB to see what they are plugged in.
If they don\'t see any trends on the data tab and other gadgets don\'t, then they won\'t charge.
Believe me, I tried a lot of cheap circuits on eBay and found out that my iPhone 4 rejected them.
You don\'t want this to happen.
Do a quick Google search and you will find batteries of various sizes, capacities, voltages and prices.
It could be a bit confusing at first.
We will use 3 for this charger.
7 v Lithium Polymer (Li-po)Battery.
It may be very similar to the iPod or phone.
You really want to use 3 for this project.
7 V battery, this is how our charging circuit is designed.
While this should be a no problem, you need a battery with built-in overcharge/undercharge protection.
This is called \"PCB protection\" by many sites \". \" (
Watch you on eBay)
It just means that there is a small circuit board and chip that ensures that the battery stops charging or stops discharging at the right time.
Because you can easily find many different batteries outside, the physical size and capacity of the battery should be the one you care most about.
The size really depends on your shell.
In this guide I will use Altoids tin in one box, so my size is quite limited.
Although I would love to have a 4,400 battery installed in the Altoids tin, I switched to a 2,000 battery.
If you have not made the solar version of this kit, please skip.
In this guide I am using 5.
5 V 320 mA solar cells packaged in hard plastic.
Any large solar cell is OK, but ideally for the charging controller you would like your solar cell to be at 5-6V in power.
Split the end of the male Jack wire into two halves.
Then remove the end slightly.
The Wire with white stripes is negative, and the wire with full black is positive.
Weld the wire to the proper label on the back of the solar cell.
Cover the welding point with adhesive tape or hot glue.
This will protect them and relieve stress.
Since I am using the Altoids style tin, I need to do some drilling work.
I will use walkthrough and Dremel for this.
Before you do any work with tin, you should put everything in tin to see if it\'s all right.
Figure out where everything is before drilling.
Use markers to indicate where everything should go.
Once you have chosen the location, you can start working.
For the USB port, you can do one of two things.
You can cut directly down from the top of the tin with a large tin cut, or you can drill a USB-sized hole on the side of the tin.
I\'m going to drill a hole.
First, put the USB port on the side of the tin.
Mark along the outside.
Drill two or more holes in that circle with a drill bit.
Archive and cut out the remaining space using Dremel.
Recommendations \"with the big clip hold down tin.
Holding it with your hand can make you lose one or two fingers.
Once the check is completed, make sure the USB port goes through your hole.
Make a hole for number 2
5mm female panel mount, just drill a hole.
You need to use Dremel to make it bigger. (
If you don\'t do something about solar, ignore 2.
Section 5mm is all together. )
One of the reasons I like to use this small charging controller is that it\'s hard to screw up.
There are 4 welding points on it.
In front of the Mini
The USB port is where we connect the DC power supply, in the solar field, the two points behind are the battery.
Let\'s connect 2 first.
5mm female plug for charging controller.
All we have to do is run two wires and a diode from the plug to the controller. (
You can also use your shrink tube in this section if you wish. )
Grab your 1N4001 diode, 2.
5mm plug and charge controller.
Put the plug in front of you.
From left to right, these three spires are like this.
The left side is negative, the middle is positive, and the right side is not used.
Take a wire, wrap it around the negative leg of the plug, and the other end is in the negative \"in\" position on the board.
Welding and happy. (
You can cover the legs of the plug with some Shrink tube if you want. )
Now take a little more wire and wrap it around the leg of the diode with a strip on it.
Wrap around the bottom of the diode to make sure we can save as much space as possible.
The other end of the diode (
No side of the bar)
To the middle part of the plug.
Again, as close as possible to the bottom of the diode.
Finally, connect the wire to the positive \"in\" welding point on the board.
Welding and cheering. (
Again, you can use the Shrink tube to ensure the connection to the plug. )
From this point you only need to weld four extra points.
What we have to do is connect the battery and USB circuit to the charging controller board.
For this you need to cut off some wires.
Weld some wires to the positive and negative poles on the USB circuit.
They are on the lower side of the board.
Once completed, twist these wires together with the wires that fall off the lithium battery.
Make sure you connect positive wires with negative ones. (
Red is positive and black is negative in case you forget. )
Once the twist is complete, simply weld to the Battery Point on the back of the charging controller board.
I like to pass the wire through the hole before welding.
In fact, the electrical aspect of this project has been completed by 100%.
Take a deep breath and relax.
It\'s also a good idea to test your circuit at this point.
Everything is connected and should work.
Pick up the iPod or any USB device to see if it works (
Your gadget may not charge if the battery is low or dead).
You can also take it out in the sun to see if your solar battery is starting to charge the battery.
You should see the little red LED on the charging board turned on.
You can also charge the battery using the mini USB cable.
Before we cram everything into the jar, it might be a good idea to make sure our jar doesn\'t cause a short circuit.
Please ignore this if you are using a wooden or plastic case.
Tape down a few strips along the bottom of the tin and the side of the tin.
Where the USB circuit will be and where the charging controller will be. (
In my photo, you can see that I let the charging controller float freely. )
You really don\'t want it short.
To make sure our welding points are safe, you can apply tape on them or a little hot glue.
When putting everything in the jar, start with 2 first. 5mm Plug.
Since you need to screw it to the right place, it\'s a bit important to put it first.
Once in and secure, try installing the USB circuit in place.
If everything is right, first put a small piece of hot glue down and put your circuit in place.
Once in place, cover it with hot glue. (
There is a switch on the side of the USB circuit I am using.
If you are using my circuit, please make sure the switch is put back all the way.
Set the circuit to \"charge\" mode. \")
Finally, you have your battery.
You may not want to use hot glue on it.
Some double sided tape or a lap of electronic tape will hold it down.
This is, in fact, it.
Now you can charge the battery via the mini USB port on the charging circuit or solar energy.
The red status LED on the charging controller board indicates that the battery is charging and the blue lights up when the battery is full.
I was able to charge my iPhone 4 more than 80% on a recent airplane flight (
Listen to music in airplane mode).
The battery is 2,000 mAh.
The battery of 4,400 mAh or 6,600 mAh can do more.
IPad or other tablets in particular.
This is a great little project to get yourself started with lithium batteries and I know a lot of people are hesitant.
It is foolish not to take this path because of the falling price of lithium and controllers, especially in the area of the micro-controller power supply project.
Lithium batteries are especially good for very small items because they are very small in size.
This is a great power supply when you try to narrow down the death ray.
So if you want to make a very high performance solar USB charger for your battery, tablet, iPad, iPod, iPhone, GPS or Arduino project, you really can\'t go wrong.
Especially when you can put it in such a lovely jar!
As I said before, you can find these parts online from a variety of sources, or you can find them from my own website, brondoggadgets. com.
The money I make is either spent on a cute brown dog or on funding more projects. (
We have an updated lithium heavy duty 2.
Month Kitavailable now.
More powerful. )
If you are looking for direct Battalion gear without a building, you can pick up a folded USB solar battery.
It\'s much easier and cheaper than making these.
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