"Homemade" Emergency Battery Adaptors/spacers - or what to do with a battery that won't fit?

The household need for several types & sizes of batteries on short notice drove me during frequent storms and power outages here in Texas to finally find materials in and around the house to convert ANY available batteries to existing equipment such as flashlights , Radios and other equipment.

Perhaps every boat, car and camper needs a set of retail adapters for emergencies. Commercial adaptors look like regular batteries but heavy plastic and hard to service.

Disposable alkaline batteries, lithiums and recharables like Nickle Metal Hydride or Lithium Polymer can be obtained most anywhere now...In widely varying sizes and all sizes between!

Exotic chargers, PCB temp control and voltage controlled chargers are not addressed here...

Please be careful, recharge OUTDOORS on a hard fireproof surface and clear from all combustables. Cover or contain especially LiPO cells. Use over temp and voltage/current monitored re-chargers for THAT cell type and pack size with voltage and current + temprature regulation.

Ok on to the various battery sizes & dimisions!

Step 1 Battery sizes charts (length & widths for fitting adaptors)

"Table of modern battery sizes" (c) GFDL by Wikipedia editors, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_sizes#Table_of_modern_battery_sizes Retrieved March 16, 2008,

Use spacers or adapters and retail converters...these should be within .5mm of actual sizes for snug fit.

Use springs, spacers or magnets for slight adjustments 1-5mm.

(attached)

Comments

[knektek]

just get a spring on - . or just stretch up the tabs for the - and + side.

[erckgillis]

I prefer strong rare earth magnets. they conduct and hold well.

[laci37]

There are 3 things needed to fit a beterry if there is enough space: 1. aluminium foil 2. some kind of paper 3. tape

[iectyx3c]

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[erckgillis]

Did ya see past step 1?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Instant-Battery-Adaptors---AA--%3e-D-%2c-C--%3e-D-with-r/?comments=all#

[iectyx3c]

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[apburner]

I have found these sold at Wally world and big lots. I have 3 of them in a 3 D cell mag-lite with an led bulb. The flash light is really light. Also if any one has not noticed when you buy a NiMH D cell it is just a 2500mah AA cell in a D package.

[aaronscottaugustinhotmail.com]

oh i just use cardboard and tape to thickin batteries and aluminum foil to legthen the ends but this looks more pretty i guess

[patron_zero]

I've actually hacked this at home putting C-cells in a D-cell flashlight by using the bottoms of empty 35mm film containers. Put a hole in the bottom of each container and wrap a bit of thin cardboard outside for a nice jiggle-free fit.

[fstedie]

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[erckgillis]

yeah, I build custom spacers. AA to C and D size converters in serial 5v to 12v and parallel in 4.5 to 6v for use in Mag flashlights converted from Icandecent to LED or Hitwire MR16 and Welsh-Allen bulbs... see pics E

[nightmaresyndrome]

I think you should reword the title of your instructable to better describe what you just said above. That makes more sense to me. I think what camp is trying to say is that your instructions don't have very much follow-through. It takes a lot of detective work to figure out what it is you are trying to convey. This is a cool concept though! Show those flashlight companies you'll use whatever batteries you want!

[erckgillis]

Done

[fstedie]

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[erckgillis]

yeah, so true. That's why we use LiIon 3.7v with 'balanced' rechargers and temp control monitors. For the 1.2-1.5v cells I never use the alkaline as pictured but use NiMH and again use a quality recharger. Most people would never recognize the 14500 or the button top LiIon & NiMH generic industry cells (attached) so I 'swapped' some for panasonic, walgreens and rayovac batteries from my old "dead" drawer of lonely batteries! lol Ed

[erckgillis]

Organized and added step by step info... E

[Mr. Chicken]

I have to agree with camp6ell and hananiel, this is rather poorly put together and chaotic. While there is a good concept behind this, it doesn't flow as well as it could. Perhaps a step by step for each size/conversion. Also, I use rechargeable batteries and always have extras that are charged and ready to go. Much easier I think.

[camp6ell]

this is a good concept and subject for instructible, but it just doesn't seem very clear/organized to me... sorry, you probably don't find this comment "constructive," but it kind of seems all over the place/it's not clear what you're doing in each step. it would be easier to understand if each of your steps dealt with how to adapt one size of battery to another, instead of whatever it is you did. sorry.

[theRIAA]

thats a good idea, never thought of a bolt spacer like that.

how much do you pay for those batteries? there dirt cheap (and free shipping) at
http://www.dealextreme.com/

[Johny]

Yeah, AA to D Battery Convertors are cheap @ DX. Here's a direct link: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3228~r.11505301

[Myself]

Instead of the metal spring, consider the plastic coil binding springs. You can usually get a few from Kinko's just for asking, if you're in there on other business. They're not conductive, and they weigh practically nothing, but the larger size looks like it should upsize AAs to Cs pretty easily.

[erckgillis]

The coiled plastic thingy's on the binders and presentation folders etc...? i guess they do have lots of sizes to accomidate more pages...hum...I got some at work. I'll go try. E