Charging a Gelert 12 LED Lantern

[cpvh]

Hi All,

I have been given a Gelert 12 LED camping lantern (minus it's mains charger ). The sticker on the base says you can charge it (mains or wind up) witho ut putting any batteries in and it will run for approx 4 hours from a mains charge (doesn't say how long the charge has to be). Or, you can put in 3 x AA Alkaline or equivalent and switch it to ON and run it from them.

Anybody know what the spec of the charger might be? It has an input socket that looks very similar to that that was used on ancient Nokia phobile moa ns. I suspect it will cope with a fiarly basic PSU and has some current li miting circuitry within it's base.

Any one know if the above is true or false?

Cheers

Chris

[cpvh]

Meant to say, it's like this one...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If the charger goes direct to the 3 AA cells, then it should be easy enough to buy one. But it could have the charger built in and a simple DC (or even AC) supply from the mains.

[cpvh]

If the charger goes direct to the 3 AA cells, then it should be easy enoug h to buy one. But it could have the charger built in and a simple DC (or ev en AC) supply from the mains. -- *Young at heart -- slightly older in other places Dave Plowman [e-mail] London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound.

From what i've read, it seems to have some rechargeables buried within it s omewhere in addition to the holders for the 3 AAAs (AA was typo), I am assu mming they will be roughly equivalent. If they were say 3 AA NiMHs, what amperage of PSU might be suitable?

[mick]

I really wouldn't like to guess at choosing a charger. Perhaps you could find a lantern like that in a shop and, while having a look at it, take note of what the charger is? lol

If you pick the wrong thing you are quite likely to destroy the built-in cells - possibly explosively. The alternative is to not provide enough voltage and/or current and they won't charge. You'd be lucky to guess at the right charger first time.

If it was myself, I'd try a voltage of about 5 or 6 volts set up as a constant current source of about 25 to 50mA. I'd then have to monitor the voltage over a period of time (say 8 hours) to see what happens. Part of the problem is that, unless you can find the built-in cells, you can't tell by their temperature whether they are charging too fast.

Best of luck with this one.