EZ SE adapter? How about a EZ charger?

charliebrown · #1 02-06-2004, 11:53 AM

http://tinyrc.com/forums/showthread....threadid=13862

Well, I looked at his idea, and I decided to make my very own Stand-alone ZipZap SE charger. I mean, you'd save money by using the adapter and all, but not every thing can run on adapters....what if you're at a mall or something, and no outlets are around? Save the batteries for the controller, let the car be charged from your home outlet and be used for later!

This would especially be useful for home, just plug the adapter into the wall, wait for 17 minutes (with this adapter, heh heh) and get ready to hit that mall! It's expecially useful since you can turn the car off, and SAVE battery power for later use.

Let me post pictures of MY charger.

Chuckster...

charliebrown · #2 02-06-2004, 11:55 AM

The adapter used.

Chuckster...

charliebrown · #3 02-06-2004, 11:56 AM

A view of the whole thing put together, so you wouldn't think I was lying.

Chuckster...

charliebrown · #4 02-06-2004, 11:59 AM

A view of the soldered connections to the charger. I soldered the wires to the contacts, then melted some more solder on top, then hot-glued them so that they would be insulated and wouldn't interfere with anything. I thought it would be useful to help keep the connections strong, but remember.....melted plastic glue comes off way too easily.

Chuckster...

charliebrown · #5 02-06-2004, 12:00 PM

A closer view of the connections.

Chuckster...

charliebrown · #6 02-06-2004, 12:00 PM

The car on the charger....a beautiful fit.

Chuckster...

charliebrown · #7 02-06-2004, 12:01 PM

And, just pull back the piece that the spring is on, and the car comes off.....easy!

(I promise this is the last pic)

Chuckster...

dero · #8 02-06-2004, 05:05 PM

Nice! How much did the adapter cost? Where did you get 17 mins from?

charliebrown · #9 02-06-2004, 07:29 PM

Well, I bought it from RadioShack, this is the adapter that I used.

I figured that since it pumped out 300 ma, and the capacity of the battery in the car was 70 mah, I divided 70 by 300 to get how much time I should charge it for (the unit is by hours) and increased that by 20% (or, multiply by 1.2) to count in the battery inefficiency (batteries and charging them is not an exact science, as Namuna told us in a different thread) and then multiplied that by 60 to get how many minutes I should charge it for, then multiplied the numbers after the decimal by 60 to get seconds, so I got....*rushes off to get calculator*........16 minutes and 48 seconds, rounded up to 17 minutes.

Anyways, this is only good for portable use, like outdoors *only on outside tables) or at the mall, or in a school, when you can't plug into a wall. you still need to use batteries for the controller, but charging the car won't suck away power from the batteries in the controller, so it will last longer....(and add to your electric bill, lol.)

Anyways, this is the mod for me.

Chuckster...

clxfiles · #10 02-07-2004, 03:57 AM

I did almost the same but I kept the charging base on the transmitter. I just don't have batteries in at the same time. I also used connectors so I can hook up my peak charger or my adaptor direct. Here are some pics of it... Works out pretty well and I still can put batteries in it and run like normal.

clxfiles · #11 02-07-2004, 03:59 AM

The Tekin is the peak charger and it helps cuz I can set it from .1 to .5 amps for a single cell and just walk away without timing it (I'd forget about it anyway and end up with a fire). I can set it up to like 9 amps but will never use it for this size car. Here is another pic.... Oh yeah, the adaptor I use is the same as yours...

charliebrown · #12 02-07-2004, 10:49 PM

Way too complicated.

I'm not an electronics buddhist, so I don't know all about that stuff. Oh well, at least I was able to solder together an adapter for the charger.

Chuckster...

clxfiles · #13 02-09-2004, 10:56 AM

Trust me CB, I'm no wizard either. The only thing I did different was leave the charging base in the transmitter when soldering the new wires (that's gonna give it juice), and put a connector to it.
I just wanted to show that you could leave it in the transmitter and the transmitter still work, as long as you take out the batteries when you use the adaptor.
And that by using a connector, it leaves the door open to use other means of power than the one adaptor.
I didn't mean to try and belittle your work, cuz it's a great job, just wanted to add something to add value.
Sorry if it came out sounding wrong.

charliebrown · #14 02-09-2004, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by clxfiles
Trust me CB, I'm no wizard either. The only thing I did different was leave the charging base in the transmitter when soldering the new wires (that's gonna give it juice), and put a connector to it.
I just wanted to show that you could leave it in the transmitter and the transmitter still work, as long as you take out the batteries when you use the adaptor.
And that by using a connector, it leaves the door open to use other means of power than the one adaptor.
I didn't mean to try and belittle your work, cuz it's a great job, just wanted to add something to add value.
Sorry if it came out sounding wrong.

Belittling my work? Nah! I think your project is astounding too.
Thanks for your input, I think I'll try that indoors.

[edit] Woo Hoo! 800th post.

Chuckster...

frizzen · #15 02-10-2004, 05:24 AM

If you add in like a DPDT switch or some Diodes, or a Micro-switch that opens the stock charging circuit when you plug in the external charger to clxfiles version of the charger in the controller, it probably could work without having to rip out the controller batteries to charge the car.

Just an idea.