Subject:
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Some questions on batteries and AC power for lego
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.technic, lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:46:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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2072 times
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There seems to be a difference between the voltage outputs of battery boxes and
wall powered sources like the train speed regulators. From just listening to the
sounds that motors make, a battery box puts out the same voltage as a speed
regulator on the second to last setting, but the regulator on maximum speed runs
motors a bit faster than anything a battery box can do, even on a fresh new set
of (alkaline) batteries. I have one of the newer control centers (with an AC
jack) which also runs motors at the faster speed, and similar comments apply to
light pieces which look brighter. Do the Lego wall powered sources actually
output slightly more than 9V? The Lego AC adapters are labeled as having 12V
output, and the control center’s port says “9V-12V” above it.
I also find batteries to be a bit cumbersome in general. Their voltage drops
over time and even when they’re at about 75% capacity, the motors seem to slow
down by a fairly significant amount. I also have to avoid leaving them in
battery boxes indefinitely to avoid leaking, which I’ve had trouble with in the
past. I have many battery boxes around but they’re not that useful due to these
issues and I rarely use them in practice, so my models tend to all hog that
control center. :p
In light of this, I was thinking that a set of fake batteries that are powered
off a wall outlet would be very useful. These should basically be battery-shaped
objects that will fit into various things that run on batteries, but are
connected to an external transformer with an adjustable output voltage.
This page shows the kind of
thing I’m talking about, near the bottom. Have you seen anything like this that
is commercially available?
-Gaurav
Brickshelf gallery
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