Spotlights Epiphany

[kestak]

Greetings,

I have 3 different spotlights with their own little black transformers.

I took a look at the 3 transformers and I found out the following:

- They all have the positive inside.
- They all are 120-12v converters.
- Two are 300 mha and one is 250 mha.

I opened the spots and two batteries are 6v and one 12v.

a) Does that mean I can charge 6v battery with 12v voltage?
b) 300 mha and 250mha. Does that mean I do not have to care about the mha and I can use any charger with any spots?
c) I really thought my spots were 6v. Now that means I can use a 12v solar charging system and I can charge all those spots. Yay! Is there any solar charger that I can control the mha or they just charge charge charge?

Thank you

 

[Patriot]

=kestak;3184212]

I opened the spots and two batteries are 6v and one 12v.

a) Does that mean I can charge 6v battery with 12v voltage?
b) 300 mha and 250mha. Does that mean I do not have to care about the mha and I can use any charger with any spots?
c) I really thought my spots were 6v. Now that means I can use a 12v solar charging system and I can charge all those spots. Yay! Is there any solar charger that I can control the mha or they just charge charge charge?

a) No, you shouldn't charge a 6V battery with 12V charger unless you have 2 x 6V batteries wired in series. Then a 12V charger would be fine.

b)The charge rate between 300mAh and 250mAh is close enough that it doesn't matter. Anything between 100 - 500mAh will be fine for all small SLAs.

c)If your spots contain 2 x 6V batteries wired in series then any 12V charger with proper current will work fine, including a solar charger. Just double check the charge rate of your solar charger and don't use it if it charges at 750mAh or higher.

 

[SAcharlie]

6v charger for a 6v system and 12v charger for a 12v system. Thats what I was always told...but as of late IIRC I've seen 2 or more reviews here at CPF stating 6v sla lanterns equipted with 12v chargers. One I believe is the dorcy 41.1035. Maybe the current is so low its almost like a dump charge I dunno.

 

[Patriot]

If they're really supplying some 6V lights with 12V chargers it would be easy to verify. Just measure the output voltage of the charger to see if it's actually 12 or more volts. I suppose they could be doing it that way but I wouldn't think it would be ideal. It's always been my experience that those wall wart chargers actually supply more like 15-16V and I can't imagine doing that to a 6V battery. Perhaps they're more robust than I imagine though.

 

[Fird]

:: puts on purist hat :: there is a difference between mA (milli-amperes) and mAh (milli-amp-hours). mA is a measure of electrical current flowing in a circuit, while mAh is a measure of capacity, i.e. battery capacity. A 2000mAh battery will deliver somewhere near 2 amps of current for an hour, or 2000 hours of current at 1 milli-amp discharge rate. The actual measured energy capacity is a bit lower when discharged at the 2amp rate though.

There's no such thing as a 300mAh charger, but there is a 300mA charger which could charge your 300mAh battery in an hour (theoretically). Depending on capacity and chemistry it may or may not be a good idea to charge said battery that fast.

::takes off purist hat:: lol, sorry.

Back to the question at hand, there could also be internal charging circuitry for the 6v light that either regulates the voltage down, or cuts-off charging at a certain voltage.