Author Topic: adapting push button 3AAA battery operated to 3 C rechargable NiCads  (Read 2334 times)

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Offline Norm

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I have these little round pushbutton lights that I get from places like mostly DollarTree that use 3AAA batteries that work quite nicely .....Only problem ...
they only last a couple of nights even at  $1for 8 ...they become expensive..
so since I have a lot of NiCad batteries (of course) i've decided to start a project
of making battery holders for my NiCads to replace those 3 AAA holders .
......continued as I progress today .....
Later .....
Norm.


   

Offline eidolon

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Re: adapting push button 3AAA battery operated to 3 C rechargable NiCads
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2017, 03:47:44 pm »
I have a lot of nicad batteries too, but they are all crap.  Do have a ton of LI batteries and they work nice in these applications.  You can buy Li charger boards for 35 cents each on ebay and small enough to build right in.  Then just find an old 5V phone wall wart. Be aware that they use internal battery resistance to limit current to the LED, I'm just assuming that is the light source.

You can do about the same thing with nicad.  They are more forgiving as far as over charge current.  Just use a high enough value resistor to limit charge current to something safe.  It will take longer to charge. 

Offline Norm

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Re: adapting push button 3AAA battery operated to 3 C rechargable NiCads
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2017, 11:28:31 pm »
I have a way of recharging  that usually restores crap NiCads to almost good ones.
Of course we  may have different thoughts about what are called crap batteries...
Guess I'll have to look into Li and charger boards as they seem to be a better way of batteries.
Thanks for the reply.
Norm