ChamII battery life

[keystone9]

I just checked RS's web site and they sell a 4-AA battery holder with wires and on-off switch for $1.99 and a 4 pack of AA rechargable batterys for $18.99. Might this be a solution? Seems like to me a $20 investment for preventing headaches is a good one. Bill

[poppo]

I just checked RS's web site and they sell a 4-AA battery holder with wires and on-off switch for $1.99 and a 4 pack of AA rechargable batterys for $18.99. Might this be a solution? Seems like to me a $20 investment for preventing headaches is a good one. Bill

The AA rechargeable batteries have a voltage of 1.2V. So 3 would give you 3.6V. Without knowing what the circuit design is, they may not charge properly. That is why by using a diode, it will disable the charging circuit and the voltage would not be that critical. But I would not use 4 regular AA batteries either as that will give you 6V which is above the normal 5V.

The bottom line is that unless someone is comfortable with making mods, it may be best to just leave it as designed and deal with changing the battery as needed. Of course there is nothing preventing one from just soldering on some extension wires going to the battery, so they don't have to keep heating up the board every time.