DIY Hacks & How To's: Convert a Battery-Powered Device to AC Power

[daveylc]

Worth pointing out those switching regulators can get hot so take that into account when deciding where to place it and consider the load (current consumption) of the item you're powering.

[Jesusandbible]

A great video for teaching other electricians, everyone else gets lost or worried after 60 seconds

[robertmal]

Amazing! I remember when I was a child my ankle doing a similar trick for my toys that require batteries. And I was very happy. Now it's the time to learn to do it for my self and others.i am not an electrician but I am very interested in these stuff!

[eksyte]

Where was this video 6 years ago? My youngest is 7 now, and I remember looking for this exact "project" on several occasions.

Seriously, this is an excellent tutorial.

[chuacheewei]

Hi there, just a quick question. If the device I want to power up currently uses 6 x LR44 batteries in series (total 6x1.5V=9V), and I happen to have an old adaptor with 9V DC output, can I just wire the adaptor directly to my device without using any other components such as the voltage regulator? Does it matter if the adaptor output is 1A or 2A? And what if I plan on powering up 4 of the same 9V devices wired in parallel?

[pcofranc]

Awesome video and info. Super clean and easy to follow. I have basic multimeter / electronics knowledge but too often circuits get too complicated. This is easy to follow and looks very doable! Thanks.

[JoshWeaverRC]

Been thinking about dummy batteries. This is the first time I have seen them. Nice video. Been doing this for a bit now and it is awesome.

[SpriceMachines]

How about an even slower explanation for those with no knowledge of electronics

[VoidHalo]

I've just started getting into electronics a couple of months ago and bought an adjustable ac to dc adapter like this. I learned the hard way just how unregulated the voltage coming out of these things is. When set to "off" it would still have 0.5v across it, but when set to 9v, the open voltage would be a very unreasonable 18v. I get that the voltage drops when you connect it to a load, but I couldn't for the life of me get it anywhere near 9v. Meanwhile I blew the 250ma fuse in my multimeter because I got twice the voltage I was expecting.

[Ttr-tx]

Would it still work if instead of the dummy batteries you just wire the terminals? Thanks in advance.

[aguilarkevin]

I came here because i wanted to convert my childs battery powered swing to ac ..!!! Thanks very much !!

[wolfeman]

Love these videos. I second the motion on AMP draw on the power supply. Most devices with 4 batteries will not draw much but a motor like the swing could draw up to 1 amp depending on configuration. Use a volt/amp meter and take some measurements or look in the tech section of the owners manual. Google might even provide a direct conversion for the number of batteries and size to max amp availability.

[rtikulouno]

Do you use long wires to connect each batteries? Additional info, make sure that the total average of battery use is equivalent to the voltage of adaptor to avoid overheating or exploding.

[DementedDistraction]

Video summary:

'I wanted to save batteries by converting my baby's swing to AC Power, so I did.'

The End

[TheLeedog]

I need to do this for my cats toy. But how do I know why type or voltage of power supply to pick. Here is my problem. Our cat gets these 3:30 am zoomies and he needs attention. Of course we're sleeping and I'm not about to switch to his schedule. He has this toy called Hot Pursuit which is battery operated by 3, AA batteries. I tried an Amazon battery converter but it said it was good for LEDs and didn't work on the toy.

The master plan is I get the toy to have a power supply, and the power supply is controlled by a smart plug so we cant have the toy distract the wild cat at a programmed time like 3:30 am

[iAmThatGuyJohn]

I was wanting the exact opposite.
How would you go from AC to battery?

[RaymondDay]

But what if you have like a old cellphone or old Bluetooth speaker were they charge the battery up too. Replace that with a power supply would it mess it up if trying to sent power to charge it?

[joebywan]

Wouldn't the amperage output of the power adapter be an issue though? E.g. I've got a bouncer that takes 3 x C size batteries, which output 1.5v each, but how to figure out how many amps I should be providing it?

[JosephHowes]

What if I want to keep the batteries for when the power goes out but I want them to be constantly charged as long as power remains? I have a smartlock that doesn't warn me when the battery level is low. Could I just run a wire from the normal battery charger to one of the batteries in the lock? If I do that would the charger still be able to avoid overcharging the batteries?

[brandon]

Check with multimeter, some cheap LED, computer fan, etc. Generally though in the US the wire with writing is the positive one. But always good to check.