I have a couple of old Nokia phone chargers do they go into the bin or is it possible to plug them into a toy that operates on a couple of batteries. if so, how do i go abot connecting them?
I have some led light strings that require two 1.5V AAs. They didn't cost very much so I wouldn't weep if I burned them out. What sort of output do the chargers run at?
Is there life after death of phones that anyone here has made use of?
Every wall wart I've ever seen has the spec printed on it.
But only any use if you know the rules?
e.g. If something was powered by 2 x AA and therefore typically 3V, any PSU offering 5V of sufficient current may well cause an incandescent to burn very bright (for a while) or some LEDs to burn out (possibly quite quickly, depending how hard they were driven in the first place).
If the PSU had restricted current it may well light the LEDs for ever (or till the PSU itself dies) as it's voltage could be sufficiently depressed to not overrun the LEDs.
A mate of mine has this thing about powering outdoor LEDs from battery chargers. He seems to think they = power supplies but they generally don't. Now, if you are 'lucky' an old linear charger is only an unsmoothed full wave rectified supply but it's often quite a bit higher than the nominal '12V' of the batteries they are designed to charge. An incandescent would generally work around the RMS of the output whereas an unsmoothed / regulated LED may react (badly) to the peak.
So, he has been (happily) running such outdoor LEDs for over a year so can't understand why I tell him he's not doing it 'right'.
Cheers, T i m
Will the partner be happy with wires.
G.Harman
often it is. Tell us what their output is, it's printed on it somewhere.
you tell us!
not a lot. Battery, miniature speaker, mic... Maybe fill them with lead & use as a joke?
NT
Well in the early days some phones had the charging circuit in the phone others in the charger. My feeling is thus that you first need to find out what the voltage is coming out of them when feeding a load. Once you know this and the polarity, you can get some adaptors for the plug to convert it to whatever you think it may run.
The older ones were mainly old fashioned non switch mode devices and the newer ones switch mode. Some of the latter ones put out a lot of RF interference so powering a small radio might not be the best use.
Brian
Except thos3 that are just chargers and sods law would suggest the one you need to identify. Brian
That reminds me of a friend who used to have a little Mazda 121. She thought servicing and and oil changes were a total con and didn't need doing.
I don't know how but she wasn't wrong. She ran that car from new until it had done 120,000 miles without ever once changing the oil. Or the spark plugs. Or any belts and such things.
She has a lot more sense than I and cleared me out years ago.
I have to admit you got me with that one. What is so funny about that?
I take it the AA just changed things for her each time it broke down?
120,000 miles is a great deal for any private motorist to do in a new car. Those who do buy new privately usually change them long before that. Business users can claim for running costs.
I sold my "bought new" Peugeot 309 at 112,000 miles. It wasn't quite 6 years old. 1000 miles a month was used for commuting.
Not saying it never happens. Bet you serviced it, though. ;-)
Oh, yes. I needed reliability.
But it depends what "sort of miles they are" ...
I've never needed a set of brakes on any car we've had - top mileage was
43,000, and the pads were only half worn. Whereas when I worked in a garage, some customers needed pads monthly.Also long even drives are much kinder to a car than short in-town runarounds. Our neighbour only used their car for the 3 miles to work and back. Needed a new exhaust every year (pre-cat days), and battery charging every weekend.
She said it never once broke down. Maybe there's some exaggeration going on there but I couldn't detect any.
Now that you mention it, I can't think the brake pads lasted 120,000 miles. Maybe not the exhaust either.
Maybe she fixed those but didn't consider them to be repairs. She's dead now so I can't check.
Very few are going to do gentle motorway miles only.
Pretty unusual to have pads last that long. You must be a very gentle driver.
It would have made sense to invest in a stainless steel one. The one on my BMW is original, and 19 years old. Much the same as the aftermarket one on my old Rover.
And neither of those would end up with a flat battery on a journey of only
3 miles. Even every time.
My guess is there was. It's a story which does do the rounds, though. But more usually a taxi or whatever.
perhaps if the journey was always done during "lighting up time" - it might happen in the winter - and it was a clapped out battery in the first place.
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