Lighter battery / balance help

[Martian Gil]

Covered before, but a couple of thoughts on helping with a fragile robot with balance issues.

 

For old robots / toys that have balance issues due to the weight of the D cells...
- this pic shows a pair of AA's that I soldered a length of solid copper wire to.   I then coiled the copper to mimic a little spring and made a friction fit.
The D cells have a bit more power, but I haven't had any issues running smokers, etc.

 

John Rigg has a couple outstanding thoughts as well;

"They used to sell plastic shells that were D cell sized but you put AA batteries in. A person could 3d print a light weight D cell case that holds a AA battery these days. AA batteries these days have more power than D cell batteries did back then."

[Brian..]

That's an artistic solution!

 

I use adapters all the time. They're quite cheap and you just need a supply of AA cells that can double up as C Cells or D Cells. They're very light. 

 

I don't enjoy squeezing hefty old D Cells in to old space toys. The weight they put on the battery door is often alarming. 

 

Here's a link:

 

Battery Adapters

 

Some old English toys, early Daleks and the like,  use a very narrow version of the C Cell and it's an absolute bugger to get these old toys running. If you force a C Cell inside you won't get it out. Some peel off the outer layer of the battery and that can work. Like John advised, I printed an appropriate size tube and pushed the AA Cell inside. Bingo. 

[K-9]

 

2 hours ago, Brian.. said:

I don't enjoy squeezing hefty old D Cells in to old space toys. The weight they put on the battery door is often alarming. 

I agree, thanks for the link and recommendation Brian! I'm going to order the C and D adapters to give them a try.

[Ultrarobotman]

First I'm seeing this, what a great idea.

[Roboto]

They are great to use on the Thunder robots due to weight on the rear as they can fall backwards!