I have an electronic GPS datalogging device that is designed to be powered through a 9v battery. It runs the battery down in about 2 hours, and because it goes through batteries so quickly, I have been looking for solutions to make it last longer
I have had success in replacing the 9v battery with a 6 AA battery holder with attached 9v clip and this powers the device for significantly longer with 2500 mAh rechargeables giving 7.2v.
I have seen 8 AA battery clips available, that would give me 9.6v but I am concerned about overvolting and damaging the device. Is the extra 0.6v likely to cause damage?
Sounds like a crap product then unless it records the information by hacking chunks out of a large tree trunk. Decent GPS logging devices should last a few days of continuous use.
How much longer?
I guess the small PP3 9v batteries are about 200mAh so you should get
10x longer off a set of AAs (~2Ah). Your best bet would be to use full capacity rechargeable D cells (~11Ah) assuming weight is not an issue.
Diodes in series with override switches for low battery might work but it is hard to predict how tetchy the device will be about >9v.
It might extend the lifetime a bit but it really depends on how well the device tolerates overvoltage and undervoltage. You need to know what current the thing draws and at what voltage it stops working.
Freshly charged the terminal voltage is something like 1.4v per cell so
6x = 8.4 and 8x 11.2v - and I'd expect *that* might cause trouble.
Some moderately high current devices can be awful on rechargeable batteries and only work properly on alkaline primary cells. The low voltage protection circuit triggers early on NiMH - long before the cells are exhausted. It is very annoying. Typically one weak cell in a block of 4 or 6 scuppers it and the others will slowly kill it.
Almost certainly not. There is always a slight risk, but many things that also work off car or mains supplies are pretty accomodating on voltage. What they don't like is reverse voltage and large spikes.
...and what you get with one hand you are taking away with the other.
It is a bit nonsensical to add in an extra cell for more power and then throw away most of that additional power dissipating in a diode or any sort of linear regulator
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