Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/17/batteries-are-bombs-learn-how-to-replace-them-with-battery-eliminators-and-parallel-battery-adapter-holders.html
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I got a battery eliminator for my DSLR and have been very pleased. I’ve been using it as a webcam, and so now I don’t have to worry about swapping out battery packs or losing power mid-stream.
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Wanted to be pedantic last time and point out that Nanoloop 2 was for the Gameboy Advance not the DS (tho playable on the DS of course) but I left it too late and the comments closed. so, that.
I’d recommend anyone into chip/portable music making to get a Nintendo DS (probably as cheap right now as they ever will be again), the Korg DS-10 synth cartridge and optionally an R4 or similar/clone cart (cheap fake ones are dirst cheap from china) so you can put the many interesting homebrew music apps on there.
p.s. you would HATE the Poundland chain here in the UK - they still sell Zinc Chloride batteries. fake-Kodak branded at that. You can get like 24 AAs for a pound and they will last about a few hours probably
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I have dozens of old dc adapters of various voltages so I picked up some cheap AA and AAA battery adapters and AA, AAA, C and D dummy batteries on aliexpress. I hook 'em up in whatever combination needed for the particular device’s requirements.
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This is cool and a pretty good idea, but this solution eliminates the wireless quality of the devices. There are times when this isn’t a problem; I wish that I had known of this option for my old elliptical machine, which I had to replace the 3 AA batteries in every time I used it. However, this is not a solution for, say, my TV’s remote control or my wireless XBox controller.
I was hoping that this article was going to be about replacing your batteries with super capacitors. I’ve seen examples of people replacing their car batteries with a bank of super capacitors, and I’d love to see similar things done for household electronics.
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Plenty of places where a battery eliminator would be useful, but wall-warts in the modern era are Switch-Mode Power Supplies that can generate a fair amount of electrical & RF noise. Using this kind of battery eliminator in communications equipment, even receivers, is likely to further raise the noise floor and generate unwanted interference.
You can have a better chance at avoiding this if you have a magnetic wall-wart which uses an honest to goodness transformer to step down the voltage ahead of the filtering and output. You’ll be able to tell if you’ve got one by the weight of it in comparison to modern ones. It is less energy efficient, for sure, but far cleaner for those scenarios where a piece of equipment was designed to run on batteries for sake of performance.
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A judiciously applied ferrite bead or two should help with that, no?
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Some of it, at least. Depends on interference/noise type. Certainly wouldn’t hurt to have some on hand.
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I don’t know shit from Shinola with you kids and your schmantzy fancy pea pod cast or whatever, but this was a really cool and informative article.
I don’t have anything purely battery operated or a laptop that leaves the house anymore so I won’t be trying your solutions, though I’m sure I woulda got a charge out of ‘em. Gotta stay current. Bad puns? Sure, I would be anode too.
Anyhow, when I was still playing professionally, those battery powered pedals while being real cool sounding and all, ate up a $hitload of very expen$ive batterie$. A buddy finally made me a powered pedalboard. One plug in and I was good to go.
The fact that batteries are sometimes necessary doesn’t alter the fact that they are indeed nasty and toxic little buggers.
What hath Gassner wrought?
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Batteries are great. Here’s how to recharge them!
Supercap arrays are so cool! I’d love to have one with enough juice to fully charge my cell phone. In theory, I could plug something like that into a wall outlet for a few seconds, then enjoy the juice for the rest of the day.
It’s basically just a wall-plug based AC adapter with a dummy battery
That is a fairly significant typo right there. I’ve been using thrift store wall-warts to replace batteries for a while now, but only the DC kind will ever work for this.
The amount of batteries that surrounds me called my attention when the quarantine started. The first one to go was the wall clock. Now I have a dozen of remotes each with a pair of AAs or AAAs and a gas powered water heater whose spark igniter sucks a pair of Ds every three months. I’m waiting the delivery of an IR blaster to get rid of the remotes and use my smartphone instead. I also got an eliminator that I hope can provide the amps the igniter needs. This one is tricky because I have to drill a hole on the battery casing to pass the wiring.
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“AC adapter” refers to adapting the device to use AC, i.e., wall current, and is the correct term.
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I can say the same about electrical wiring. Electrical fires are the major cause of residential fires in my area. Not batteries. I could make a clickbait headlines too: “Home electrical wiring is a bomb!!!”
I do think we are over using batteries, and that for a variety of reasons they need to be all replaceable by users - a functionality that could also make it easier to use devices without their batteries.
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So - not a typo. Just a misleadingly redundant phrase. If it’s wall-plug based, then it’s automatically an AC adapter.
Sure but it’s also describing an object for the benefit of those unfamiliar with what they are, meaning “what is a battery eliminator”.
It’s a wall-based cable (physically) that is an AC adapter (functionally).
Ha, absolutely true. Hand-cranked turbines, for all!
I think the safest method is a dedicated power strip which you connect things and then unplug the power strip off the wall when not in use.
Electrical fires are a mix of many factors, upkeep of a home and health of wiring far exceed device management - though operating at 70% or less of a circuit is a good consideration. Something like a KILL-A-WATT can let a consumer know how much power is being used in amps on a single power plug. It should be mandatory in public schools to teach how to count up things like the power draw from a vacuum cleaner, toaster, etc. and know what is in a 15-20 amp circuit in a wall. Or other basic safety: like not hammering nails into the wall until you know exactly where the wiring is, etc.
Incidentally, regarding batteries or wiring, there’s these funny fire hazard scenarios: Leaving rechargeable batteries in the charger. I’ve known people to just keep them in the charger, plugged in, as storage!
Is that really an issue for smart chargers? Smart chargers check the battery voltage, and in some cases also battery temperature, to monitor the charging cycle and stop charging when the fully charged voltage is reached.
Dumb chargers, chargers that just provide a voltage, I would think might be an issue.
