Skip to main content

Thought 21 - Battery Pack Wall Wart

Recently got a couple pieces of non-mobile electrics, and they take batteries? why? Couldn't they put a wall wart to go with it. (For those who do not know: wall wort = ugly black two prong ac adapter, it looks like a wart on your wall). I mean really mass produces wall warts are pretty cheap and would only effect the price by a dollar or two. But consuming batteries for something stationary is just wasteful.

Ok rant over. Time for a solution.

Here's what we came up with today for a plausible and quick solution.
First find a power supply close to the battery power needed 2 batteries = ~3 vdc, 3-4 batteries = ~5 vdc.
Then cut the end off of it keeping track of the plus and minus.
Next build a fake battery:
For a quick and dirty solution a PVC tube the same radius as the battery.
Cut into appropriate number of 'batteries'.
Epoxy nails in place for the plus and minus terminals.
Solder the ends of the wall wart to the nails.
Finally fill in the whole thing with epoxy.

Really you'd only need two 'batteries' for any solution just put time so that + and minus match up at per insertion diagram.

Possible problem #1: There are 2^(n-1) possible solution for placement of the 'batteries'. (n = number of batteries required) Each terminal has a + and a -, fortunately there's no circuit until the proper + and - are found.

Possible problem #2: Center tapped power. Basically the electric device has multiple voltage ranges and is using the whole set for one voltage say 5 v and only two to product 3.3 v logic. In this case the simple fake batteries will not work. The proper solution would be to create a wall wart with multiple isolated 1.5v ends. Unfortunately the amount of circuitry will not really fit into a AA.
This would look something like: transform from 120 to say 4 2-3 VAC rectify, filter, and linear regulate back down to 1.5 vdc. Then provide 'batteries' that can tether plug into the new wall wart. Though this might be a bit on the large size.

Anyway need to make a simple one, then we'll work a circuit for solution #2.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought 5 - The Ferengi of New Jersey

Just got back from a wedding in Jersey, and have determined that New Jersey has a lot going for it, and a lot of peculiarities to it as well. First the good: Mandatory recycling. Recycling is curb side and everything goes, this is a great benefit, as there are no third parties involved or hippies to worry about, everyone just recycles. Recycling also requires little effort on the user, plastic, glass, and metals all go in the same container, then paper products in another. Now the strange: Everyone drives everywhere, but there are lots of trees. Like a giant suburbia, where the trees have not yet been killed off by the logging industry. Now, having ridden my bike for most of my life, and having walked the dogs in the morning, I have become more aware of my sense of smell. And oddly New Jersey smells like conflict, the conflict between the cars trying to pollute the world and the trees absorbing that pollution and releasing oxygen. Quite and odd balance when the brain is in a toss...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought 16 - Kid Power

In response "Thought 14 - Perpetual Cat" sugarbumkin said, "The same theory could be applied to balloons tied to kindergarteners at recess. I like it." Well this got me thinking... Clothes with that are laced with MEMS generators. A MEMS generator is a solid state electronic circuit that generates low level of current though passive motion of the environment. Things like temperature change, acceleration, and even Brownian motion are converted to power using a MEMS generator. So, now we have attached them to small free moving bipeds of pure energy. How do we get the energy back. I figure that we isolate the playground into a large battery configuration where the children are running around on a conductive plate that makes contact with the heels of their shoes. They will run around with a super capacitor in addition to the MEMS, when their feet touch the ground the super-cap is discharged into the conductive plate underneath them. I do not think that the childr...
2 comments
Read more

Thought 52: Coaster-less Beer Glass

It occurred to me last night while drinking beer that the coast was both irritating and waste of resources. Irritating that almost no glass actually lives on the coaster, preventing them from performing their original task of preventing damage to the table. And a waste that they get thrown away every night and in some cases every drink. So I dreamed up this: The glass has ridges to direct the condensation down to a reservoir at the bottom of the glass. The reservoir size will be base on the humidity and temperature difference of the beverage and the surrounding air. The reservoir can be drained by a couple of rubber plugs along the sides. The vary bottom of the glass is covered in a bit of rubber to prevent damaging the table from the hard glass. The interesting part is that the water will make the glass more stable as it is drunk by increasing the base weight. Cheers for your thoughts!
2 comments
Read more