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Newly Enlightened
My father was cleaning out his tool cabinet the other day. It's not a typical tool cabinet, it it actually a kitchen cabinet, underneath the oven. He has lived in the same house since 1965, so alot of stuff had accumulated in the cabinet. He came across a cardboard box, opened it up, and found it contained a battery charger. Not just any battery charger, but an
Automatic
CHARGATRON
Home Battery Charger by Dynamic Instrument Corp.
(see pictures below)
My father offered the charger to me, of course I took it.
I found it intriguing. I glanced at the instructions on the back of it, it looks like a dumb 2 cell in series charger with that can charge two or four batteries at once, or a single 9V battery. I decided to see if it worked. I plugged it in, measured the voltage across the terminals ... and measured -.004 V DC??:thinking: Something was there, but huh?:huh: Then I looked at the power cube. Hmm, looks like it was made in December 1967. 120 V 60 Hz 5 W going in, and 3&8 VAC 100 mA going out. AC voltage??:thinking: I switched my multimeter to measure AC volts, and found 3.80 V AC on each pair of terminals, and 9.40 V AC on the 9 V terminals. So, it still produces voltage, and I imagine it would put out around 100 mA on each channel, but what batteries would charge on an AC voltage? If someone could let me know the answer to that, I would appreciate it.
That silver button on the front of it, it looks like a control, or heat sink maybe? Nope, just a decoration, a piece of metal pressed into the plastic.
A least the charger does have cooling vents on the front, with similar vents to let air in on the bottom. Those vents provide cooling for the... nothing. That front end of the charger, with the silver button on it, is just empty space. No circuitry, not even wiring. Well, there is an old dust bunny in it.
All the voltage conversion is done in the power cube. It feeds three wires back to the housing, I'm figuring a 3 V line, a 9 V line, and a ground. The housing just has the terminals and holds the batteries... and tries to look fancy.
The charger does seem to still work, but I can't figure out what to possibly use it for. Let me know if you have any ideas.
EssLight
Automatic
CHARGATRON
Home Battery Charger by Dynamic Instrument Corp.
(see pictures below)
My father offered the charger to me, of course I took it.
I found it intriguing. I glanced at the instructions on the back of it, it looks like a dumb 2 cell in series charger with that can charge two or four batteries at once, or a single 9V battery. I decided to see if it worked. I plugged it in, measured the voltage across the terminals ... and measured -.004 V DC??:thinking: Something was there, but huh?:huh: Then I looked at the power cube. Hmm, looks like it was made in December 1967. 120 V 60 Hz 5 W going in, and 3&8 VAC 100 mA going out. AC voltage??:thinking: I switched my multimeter to measure AC volts, and found 3.80 V AC on each pair of terminals, and 9.40 V AC on the 9 V terminals. So, it still produces voltage, and I imagine it would put out around 100 mA on each channel, but what batteries would charge on an AC voltage? If someone could let me know the answer to that, I would appreciate it.
That silver button on the front of it, it looks like a control, or heat sink maybe? Nope, just a decoration, a piece of metal pressed into the plastic.
A least the charger does have cooling vents on the front, with similar vents to let air in on the bottom. Those vents provide cooling for the... nothing. That front end of the charger, with the silver button on it, is just empty space. No circuitry, not even wiring. Well, there is an old dust bunny in it.
All the voltage conversion is done in the power cube. It feeds three wires back to the housing, I'm figuring a 3 V line, a 9 V line, and a ground. The housing just has the terminals and holds the batteries... and tries to look fancy.
The charger does seem to still work, but I can't figure out what to possibly use it for. Let me know if you have any ideas.
EssLight
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