Very simple question...: battery holder

Hi, I have a very basic question, but I want to be sure that I won't blow anything up...
For a battery holder like in the image below (that can hold 8 AA batteries), can I just put some wires on the places where I drawed (yes in Paint 8) ) blue lines to make a 4 AA battery holder of it?

Thanks for your help!
Bram

You could do that, or you could
A) add one wire
B) move one wire

In theory yes, but in practice I think you might find it somewhat difficult soldering wire jumper(s) as the metal of the contacts and springs on some don't work well with normal solder. Also when completed you should really measure the resulting voltage with a multimeter to make sure the pack is generating the voltage you expect. Such meters are available very inexpensive and are a 'must have' for any work with an arduino project.

Sure, you should also be able to just connect a single wire from the last battery to the last one you want connected. Check things with an ohmmeter if you want to be sure.

You may find you could thread the bared end of the wire through the coils of the spring, to be held in place by the presence of the last battery.
It depends on how reliable you need the arrangement to be.

Or just find or make brass or copper rods the same size as AA cells and there you go. :wink:

If you have a Radio Shack nearby (that is still open), I would be tempted to wander down there, and see if they have a 4 AA holder.

I've seen people making fake batteries for using external power for camera flash units, by getting an appropriate sized wooden dowel, and drilling it, and installing a metal pin of the appropriate size (and the last battery, actually has the wires to connect to the external battery).

retrolefty:
Or just find or make brass or copper rods the same size as AA cells and there you go. :wink:

I have an even simpler solution.

I simply stick some fired .308 Win cases in the holder instead of batteries.
Approx the same diameter, and less than one millimeter longer.

Bob Pease: "My favorite programming language is ... solder."

Steve Ciarcia

AWOL:

Bob Pease: "My favorite programming language is ... solder."

Steve Ciarcia

God.... that is an old one...... I remember his articles in Byte in the old days :grin:

I suspect Bob Pease was even older.
I loved his articles, even if most of the time, I didn't understand the subtilties of analogue design.

Back on topic, you can buy dummy batteries for this purpose. Look like (or at least similar to) a battery but it's just a metal strip from one end to the other!

I've just picked a listing at random:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12-pcs-Pack-Dummy-Battery-AA-Size-Conduct-Conductor-Electric-Current-Ultracell-/181182376696?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a2f4faaf8

AWOL:

Bob Pease: "My favorite programming language is ... solder."

Steve Ciarcia

Bob Pease
I picked it up from here: http://www.ti.com/ww/en/bobpease/index.html
(But whether he made it up or picked it up, that's a good question)

Thanks for the mass amount of answer and for the history of Steve and Bob :stuck_out_tongue:
I'll try to solder it, if I mess up, I'll just buy another one. They're so cheap :slight_smile: and I'll measure the Vout with a multimeter at school before I juice my 2 hacked servo's (360°) with it.

MichaelMeissner:
If you have a Radio Shack nearby (that is still open), I would be tempted to wander down there, and see if they have a 4 AA holder.

We don't have that shop in Belgium. Everyone is always talking about Radioshack on this forum :frowning:

brammieboy007:
We don't have that shop in Belgium. Everyone is always talking about Radioshack on this forum :frowning:

Radio Shack is a chain of electronics stores in the USA. Originally it started out as a leather company (Tandy). The owner got interested in the electronics of the day (1980's or so), and bought a small company. For awhile, the stores had both leather and electronics, but eventually the company spun off the leather supply company into a separate company. They even had their own computer for awhile (TRS-80, universally sneered at as Trash-80). In the late 1990's and 2000's, the company moved away from the hobbiest market, and tried to compete with the big box electronics stores, and not succeeding that well. Right now, many malls in the USA have a Radio Shack. While most of what they sell is cell phones, and other finished electronic stuff, they usually have a large filing cabinet in the back, that you can get resistors, switches, etc. RS also carries official Arduino boards.

As a side note, except for Best Buy, most of the big box stores that only did electronics have also passed from the scene. In the last few years, RS has started to try and bring back the home builder market. They are now starting a push to modernize the store and had a commercial with icons from the 1980's US TV shows, saying the 80's called and wanted their RS back, and had a store razing to come out with whatever their new stuff will be. Unfortunately last month, they just announced that they would be closing 1,000 stores (that was what my comment was about if you still have one nearby).

Now as a consumer, many RS's that I've been into have clerks that have no real electronics knowledge, and they have a deer in the headlights look if you ask them anything technical. These clerks seem to push upgrading cell phones heavily. Now, occasionally, you will find a RS with a clerk who has some electronics knowledge, and those are nice (but very rare). While their prices are a little on the high side when you compare to mail order, they are very useful if you need a particular resistor, wire, etc. late at night. Personally, if the 3 RS's near me all closed, I would be sorry for the people laid off, but since I have stores within an hour away that I can get basic components as well as Sparkfun/Adafruit/etc. kits, it won't affect me as much as others who may not be as fortunate.

Oh as an amusing side note, you might think leather working and electronics have nothing to do with each other (and generally they don't), with some of my steampunk camera builds, I have bought both leather goods (from the Tandy leather company) and electronics bits and pieces from Radio Shack in the same day.

MichaelMeissner:

brammieboy007:
We don't have that shop in Belgium. Everyone is always talking about Radioshack on this forum :frowning:

Radio Shack is a chain of electronics stores in the USA. Originally it started out as a leather company (Tandy). The owner got interested in the electronics of the day (1980's or so), and bought a small company. For awhile, the stores had both leather and electronics, but eventually the company spun off the leather supply company into a separate company. They even had their own computer for awhile (TRS-80, universally sneered at as Trash-80). In the late 1990's and 2000's, the company moved away from the hobbiest market, and tried to compete with the big box electronics stores, and not succeeding that well. Right now, many malls in the USA have a Radio Shack. While most of what they sell is cell phones, and other finished electronic stuff, they usually have a large filing cabinet in the back, that you can get resistors, switches, etc. RS also carries official Arduino boards.

As a side note, except for Best Buy, most of the big box stores that only did electronics have also passed from the scene. In the last few years, RS has started to try and bring back the home builder market. They are now starting a push to modernize the store and had a commercial with icons from the 1980's US TV shows, saying the 80's called and wanted their RS back, and had a store razing to come out with whatever their new stuff will be. Unfortunately last month, they just announced that they would be closing 1,000 stores (that was what my comment was about if you still have one nearby).

Now as a consumer, many RS's that I've been into have clerks that have no real electronics knowledge, and they have a deer in the headlights look if you ask them anything technical. These clerks seem to push upgrading cell phones heavily. Now, occasionally, you will find a RS with a clerk who has some electronics knowledge, and those are nice (but very rare). While their prices are a little on the high side when you compare to mail order, they are very useful if you need a particular resistor, wire, etc. late at night. Personally, if the 3 RS's near me all closed, I would be sorry for the people laid off, but since I have stores within an hour away that I can get basic components as well as Sparkfun/Adafruit/etc. kits, it won't affect me as much as others who may not be as fortunate.

Oh as an amusing side note, you might think leather working and electronics have nothing to do with each other (and generally they don't), with some of my steampunk camera builds, I have bought both leather goods (from the Tandy leather company) and electronics bits and pieces from Radio Shack in the same day.

I used to work for them years ago. Cell-phones and GPS's were their biggest income then, but this was before they started carrying Arduinos. They did have a goal at the time of having a Radioshack within something like 10 or 15 miles of 99% of the American population and were pretty close to it (again years ago), so even is 1000 stores close, they have some ridiculously high amount of stores so it actually probably won't hurt too much, except the job loss. However, you are correct, most of the clerks have no electronics knowledge, though after talking to a more knowledgeable clerk a year or two ago, they definitely want to be the go-to place for electronics parts again, since DIY electronics is coming back. They also seem to be the best place to buy Protoboards that I've found.

Someone wisely said that RadioShack was the 7-11 of electronics stores.