I bought a set of AA batterizers - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 01, 2017, 11:27:52 pm
content: Only to silence Apple WL keyboards that make low battery warning alerts pop up at under 20%, which is 3-6 months of battery life! Seems like a good use for their little boost converter. Of course, even better would be for Apple to fix their crappy keyboard or allow users to control the warning level. Like 2-3% would be about right. That's a couple of weeks of daily use.So marketing hype and bullshit promises aside, there are some uses for these things...

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 01, 2017, 11:34:26 pm
content: I - and many others, I am sure - do not doubt the Batteroo sleeves could be useful in some niche applications.Where theyaren'tdoes not bear repeating.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 12:09:35 am
content: I wonder if they would work in the old Sega Game Gear handheld? It's designed for 6 alkaline cells (which it drains in short order) and running off NiMH the slightly lower cell voltage becomes significant with that many cells.

author: moz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 01:07:47 am
content: I really want to know the maximum current. For Lego Technic they use a 6AA battery pack but the motors and so on are all designed for 9V and work on 10V. So a batteriser that lifted disposable batteries to 1.5V at 3A and held them there would be really handy... toys that slow right down with not-brand-new batteries annoy everyone. Except that 3A seems unlikely. 2A would be bearable but not especially useful. If it worked with rechargeables that would be awesome (everything would be awesome... )What I'm doing instead is using 5S AA sized LiIon cells and a badly DIY buck converter that fits in the space for the final AA cell, but it runs hot so in my list of projects is "design a more efficient buck converter for this exact task". I would love to machine up a heatsink to replace the side of the Lego battery pack but that would be extremely fiddly (and Lego are notorious for their "to the nearest micron" tolerances with ABS... the cheap Chinese clone bricks just don't ever work as well because they don't have the same tolerances)

author: jolshefsky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 01:39:22 am
content: Quote from: bson on May 01, 2017, 11:27:52 pmI would bet the quiescent current of the buck-boost converter alone would drain a battery in a few months.DuckDuckGoingaround, I found theEEVBlog Bateroo Test Project pagewhich has one data point of a 14.4µA quiescent current. Not much indeed, but a 2.5AH AA battery would run out in 17,000 hours or about 7,000 days ... so ... never mind.As long as it fits without strain, the whole "batterizer shorts out the battery" feature probably won't activate.

author: Kevman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 08:22:16 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 02, 2017, 12:09:35 amI recently measured the cut-off voltage on the Game Gear- its like 5.8V with 6.0V low battery warning or so... I don't remember the exact number but I remember concluding that the batteriser won't help and that Ni-Mhs would work fine in it. Makes sense that Sega engineers would do their best to squeeze every last drip of power from the batteries, considering the competition.Current use actually went down a little when voltage fell, if I remember correctly. Old switching regulator design?I replaced the backlight on my Game Gear with LED and got about 13 hours out of a set of 2400Mah NiMhs (wore it like a badge at a convention).

author: timothyaag
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 09:04:28 pm
content: Quote from: Kevman on May 02, 2017, 08:22:16 pm13hr is impressive. Isn't it normally 5hr or so on a set of standard alkalines?

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 09:59:13 pm
content: Quote from: jolshefsky on May 02, 2017, 01:39:22 amIt might... it'll be an interesting experiment. I do agree it will probably actually shorten the battery life.

author: Hensingler
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 10:03:15 pm
content: Quote from: bson on May 01, 2017, 11:27:52 pmThrowing away 20% of 2 AA batteries costs you 10 cents. Batteroo sleeves attached to fresh cells will waste about 10% in losses so you would save 5 cents. It would take 100 battery changes to save the $5 cost of 2 Batteroo sleeves and you will be dead before it happens.If you clip the sleeves on 'dead' batteries maybe you could break even in 50 years for the trouble of changing batteries nearly twice as often.Nothing with 1 year + battery life is a sensible use for Batteroo sleeves, barely worth using rechargables.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2017, 10:23:14 pm
content: Quote from: Kevman on May 02, 2017, 08:22:16 pmWell so much for that idea then, that's about the last thing I could think of that the Battreiser *might* actually do something for.I had suspected that the fluorescent backlight was largely responsible for the voracious appetite for AA cells and your post seems to support that. I had contemplated replacing mine with LEDs but hadn't got around to really exploring how best to do it. Did you fabricate a light pipe or edgelit panel or just put some LEDs back behind it?

author: Kevman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 12:44:08 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 02, 2017, 10:23:14 pmI used this...https://handheldlegend.com/products/game-gear-backlight-replacementThere's also a video on how to do it there.If you do this mod, make sure to keep moving of the screen flatflex to an absolute minimum and consider a recap of the main and audio PCBs at the same time. Game gears are notorious for having bad caps.Expect a doubling of the battery life at a minimum.

author: timothyaag
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 01:58:20 pm
content: Quote from: Kevman on May 03, 2017, 12:44:08 pmThat's very enticing. I have 4 GG's on my bench awaiting recap and changing out the light on one or two of them sounds like a good idea for their eventual sale. Though I wonder if this is a selling point or if the GG crowd is too purist for the change.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 02:13:34 pm
content: That's great, you could have bought a bunch of Eneloops for that price, which increases your battery life some 80000%.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 03:37:52 pm
content: Where the batterizers may actually help is with rechargeables. A device that takes 4x AAs or even more may not work as long with rechargeables as the voltage will be too low right off the batt and shortly after it will think the batteries are low.Though I wonder how most devices would fair if you replaced 4x AAs with 2x 18650's. Voltage would be a little high though. Suppose a crude fix is you could stick in a diode to drop it by a volt or so. Depends on the device, something like a flashlight it probably does not matter.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 03:54:25 pm
content: Quote from: Hensingler on May 02, 2017, 10:03:15 pmnot to mention that 'dead' batteries have a higher preference toward leaks. So in effect the OP spent $ to increases the chances of having a battery leak in an overprices poorly designed device

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 04:13:50 pm
content: QuoteWhy on earth did you do that?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 06:23:48 pm
content: Quote from: Kevman on May 03, 2017, 12:44:08 pmCool, thanks. How does it look compared to the original fluorescent lamp?Yeah I already re-capped mine a few years ago, I doubt there are many of them left that are still working on the original caps.

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 12:47:02 am
content: Well, that was a waste of money. They won't fit inside the keyboard properly, and while I could jam sleeved cells in there they will probably be near impossible remove... Meh.I also tested them on some random cells sitting in a box waiting to be disposed of, and can't see any difference. None of them would function in anything I tried. Totally and utterly useless.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 01:20:48 am
content: You could also try Lithium AA batteries, here's for example 20 pack of them for 30$, so 1.5$ each :https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Ultimate-Lithium-Size-Batteries/dp/B004EFT2BU/They have a higher default voltage (about 1.65..1.7v when fresh) so you'd have to be careful that 2 of them in series won't exceed the maximum input voltage (but i doubt it the keyboard is so sensitive), but the voltage drops much slower so the keyboard should still work until the batteries are close to being depleted.Here's a discharge graph at 200 mA :http://batteryshowdown.com/static/images/curve-200ma-135.pngYour keyboard naturally won't use so much power so you can basically extrapolate how much longer the lithium batteries will last before you get that 20% life warning.Here's how they compare to other chemistries :

author: Kevman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 12:14:41 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 03, 2017, 06:23:48 pmIt looks... Pretty different, but not worse. The light's obviously strongest at the top rather than the middle, and you can see the individual points of the LEDs. Its probably less even overall, so I wish the diffuser was a little better. Of course, this may be expected since you're looking at a bunch of little light points rather than the solid light bar florescent gets you. The instructions have you toss the original diffuser, which is really just a hunk of white plastic.I think the color is a little improved, though. And it certainly doesn't look bad.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 03:46:31 pm
content: Quote from: bson on May 10, 2017, 12:47:02 amWow, I'm completely shocked!