Mad-Bassist
Newly Enlightened
Here's something I wanted to share. My hotel uses the cheaper Motorola 2-way radios, and the battery packs died after a year. The best deal I could find on replacements was around $17, and someone from the home office decided to buy us a bunch of Energizer batteries and chargers—the cheap kind. Since these things charge in pairs and the radios take three cells, it was doomed from the start. I came in to work that night to find six chargers with three AAA cells and one AA cooking away. :shrug:
For the next couple months I brought in my Maha C9000 and took things into my own hands, but there had to be a better way. Those radios have slots for taking AAA cells when there's no battery pack, but only the pack can use the contacts on the radio for recharging from the bases.
My mission was to make the radio's battery holder electrically identical to the battery pack. The charging bases are slower dumb battery cookers, but it's the most convenient solution. The packs have a 1N4148 switching diode inside, so I started by harvesting from the dead packs. Later, I ordered a bunch along with choice Panasonic caps from Digi-Key for my Samsung LCD monitor (I was the next victim of the capacitor plague.)
What I created were conversion kits that are simply wires with tinned ends that conveniently fit in the battery clips and the back cover contacts—no soldering needed!
These are the two models used.
The overpriced battery pack.
Tinned wires, diode, and packing tape.
And finally, a warning label with more packing tape to discourage opening.
So far everyone's happy with these. Most have the abused Energizers, two have Tenergy white premium cells, two more have the Tenergy blue cells (85¢ each!), and I found one radio that was never used: the volume/power knob was frozen and just needed a little prying. It's the one in the picture above, and the only one with a working battery pack. It would be interesting to see how Eneloops would compare, but I don't feel like contributing mine.
I can't wait to see the order these fail in the future. Heh heh.
For the next couple months I brought in my Maha C9000 and took things into my own hands, but there had to be a better way. Those radios have slots for taking AAA cells when there's no battery pack, but only the pack can use the contacts on the radio for recharging from the bases.
My mission was to make the radio's battery holder electrically identical to the battery pack. The charging bases are slower dumb battery cookers, but it's the most convenient solution. The packs have a 1N4148 switching diode inside, so I started by harvesting from the dead packs. Later, I ordered a bunch along with choice Panasonic caps from Digi-Key for my Samsung LCD monitor (I was the next victim of the capacitor plague.)
What I created were conversion kits that are simply wires with tinned ends that conveniently fit in the battery clips and the back cover contacts—no soldering needed!
These are the two models used.
The overpriced battery pack.
Tinned wires, diode, and packing tape.
And finally, a warning label with more packing tape to discourage opening.
So far everyone's happy with these. Most have the abused Energizers, two have Tenergy white premium cells, two more have the Tenergy blue cells (85¢ each!), and I found one radio that was never used: the volume/power knob was frozen and just needed a little prying. It's the one in the picture above, and the only one with a working battery pack. It would be interesting to see how Eneloops would compare, but I don't feel like contributing mine.
I can't wait to see the order these fail in the future. Heh heh.
