bad battery holders

[simonbaker]

I made a weeklong project out of nothing because I'm cheap.

When I jog at night I like to carry a "light stick" which is powered by three button alkaline batteries. They are very nice trim designs, but the batteries do run down after a while. At local stores these batteries cost a lot and they don't last too long, so I thought I'd rig up some AAA batteries and strap them on to the light stick. Ok, bulky and clumsy, but like I said I'm cheap.

I bought some "Philmore" AAA battery holders at Fry's. Turns out these are very lousy quality because when you solder wires to the solder lugs, the mechanical connection to the interior battery contact (spring or rivet) heats up and for some reason becomes extremely high resistance -- open circuit.

You have to be careful soldering also because the lugs heat up and melt the plastic case and the contact can fall right out or misalign.

At least one battery holder didn't have a contact at one end. I spent an amazing amount of time messing with it. Conclusion - even easy projects aren't easy.

An interesting note -- the button alkaline batteries are 1.5 volt each, and three are used in the light stick. But when the light is on, the voltage drops to about 3 volts across all the batteries because of the current draw. So I found I had to use only 2 AAA batteries which had less internal resistance, or else the voltage was too much.

Of course I went mad trying to solder little connections here and there.

-SB

[Max]

I made a weeklong project out of nothing because I'm cheap.

When I jog at night I like to carry a "light stick" which is powered by three button alkaline batteries. They are very nice trim designs, but the batteries do run down after a while. At local stores these batteries cost a lot and they don't last too long, so I thought I'd rig up some AAA batteries and strap them on to the light stick. Ok, bulky and clumsy, but like I said I'm cheap.

I bought some "Philmore" AAA battery holders at Fry's. Turns out these are very lousy quality because when you solder wires to the solder lugs, the mechanical connection to the interior battery contact (spring or rivet) heats up and for some reason becomes extremely high resistance -- open circuit.

You have to be careful soldering also because the lugs heat up and melt the plastic case and the contact can fall right out or misalign.

At least one battery holder didn't have a contact at one end. I spent an amazing amount of time messing with it. Conclusion - even easy projects aren't easy.

An interesting note -- the button alkaline batteries are 1.5 volt each, and three are used in the light stick. But when the light is on, the voltage drops to about 3 volts across all the batteries because of the current draw. So I found I had to use only 2 AAA batteries which had less internal resistance, or else the voltage was too much.

Of course I went mad trying to solder little connections here and there.

-SB

yes I know... big troubles with that things, I do not suggest you really solder the battery holders if so, you'd better solder batteries together and then wrap them with tape or some thermo-plastic stuff of just buy battery packs e.g. the same used in model cars etc

that cause battery holders are a top-source of troubles in the field if not very HI quality, and usually they aren't, cause are bad and cheap stuff, bad metallic parts and rivets etc

as an alternative you may consider using sealed-lead-acid small batteries e.g. 12 or 12+12 or 24 volts and then use a small regulator to provide supply to the circuits, you can mount battery and external regulator in some belt mount thing to save from extra weight of lead

[simonbaker]

yes I know... big troubles with that things, I do not suggest you really solder the battery holders if so, you'd better solder batteries together and then wrap them with tape or some thermo-plastic stuff of just buy battery packs e.g. the same used in model cars etc

that cause battery holders are a top-source of troubles in the field if not very HI quality, and usually they aren't, cause are bad and cheap stuff, bad metallic parts and rivets etc

as an alternative you may consider using sealed-lead-acid small batteries e.g. 12 or 12+12 or 24 volts and then use a small regulator to provide supply to the circuits, you can mount battery and external regulator in some belt mount thing to save from extra weight of lead

Thanks Max -- I didn't know battery holders were so unreliable. I guess the ones with factory-soldered wires are mostly OK. I sure had problems when soldering to the contacts with these ones.

I solved it poorly by wrapping my copper wire on the actual contacts that touch the battery.

-SB

[Max]

Thanks Max -- I didn't know battery holders were so unreliable. I guess the ones with factory-soldered wires are mostly OK. I sure had problems when soldering to the contacts with these ones.

I solved it poorly by wrapping my copper wire on the actual contacts that touch the battery.

-SB

belive me, it's much better using a battery pack or a sla battery+regulator

commercial units always use this strategy, good PI very often use sla cause of current consumption; the ideal case would be using Li-ion batteries cause of weight reduction and hi current available , but in VLFs current not often is a big issue, so maybe better using cheaper NiMh batteries in a sealed pack like the ones for RC cars

[Dennis the Mennis]

I made a weeklong project out of nothing because I'm cheap.

When I jog at night I like to carry a "light stick" which is powered by three button alkaline batteries. They are very nice trim designs, but the batteries do run down after a while. At local stores these batteries cost a lot and they don't last too long, so I thought I'd rig up some AAA batteries and strap them on to the light stick. Ok, bulky and clumsy, but like I said I'm cheap.

I bought some "Philmore" AAA battery holders at Fry's. Turns out these are very lousy quality because when you solder wires to the solder lugs, the mechanical connection to the interior battery contact (spring or rivet) heats up and for some reason becomes extremely high resistance -- open circuit.

You have to be careful soldering also because the lugs heat up and melt the plastic case and the contact can fall right out or misalign.

At least one battery holder didn't have a contact at one end. I spent an amazing amount of time messing with it. Conclusion - even easy projects aren't easy.

An interesting note -- the button alkaline batteries are 1.5 volt each, and three are used in the light stick. But when the light is on, the voltage drops to about 3 volts across all the batteries because of the current draw. So I found I had to use only 2 AAA batteries which had less internal resistance, or else the voltage was too much.

Of course I went mad trying to solder little connections here and there.

-SB

I thought this kind of misery only could happen to me ....

kind regards ,

DtM

[simonbaker]

I thought this kind of misery only could happen to me ....

kind regards ,

DtM

Thanks -- Geotech is best therapy I've found...

-SB