relik1989

Hello all, I recently moved and in the process I lost the charger to one of my R/C Cars. It was not an expensive one, It just uses the regular 9.6V "Toys-R-US" battery pack. However, I have come to find that these chargers cost more than I really want to spend on the car. I have a spare Charger for my Black&Decker cordless drill that is also 9.6V. Is it possible to charge the cars battery with the drill charger, seeing as they are both the same voltage?

I do have some experience with electronics, however, I get a little timid when it comes to rechargeable batteries for some reason.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

crusey_aus

iTrader: (3)

You need to find out the specs of the drill charger (voltage and current ratings) they should be written on it somewhere

What are the specs of the car battery .........

Size in MAH (milliamp hours) ?
Cell type (Nicd, Nimh etc....) ?


You may be in luck if the specs are ok

Cheers

relik1989

Ok, got the specs:

Battery:
NiMH
9.6V
800mAh

Charger:
Lists 2 different outputs;
1. 10.15 VDC 210mA
2. 11.60 VDC 165mA

crusey_aus

iTrader: (3)

Sounds like it would do the job then

10.15v would be for a 7 cell pack, 11.6v would be for an 8 cell pack

Around 11.6v is what your pack will be when fully charged

The battery capacity divided by the charge rate will tell you how long it will take

800 / 165 = 4.8 hours

Does it look like it has a colored led to indicate when the pack is full (usually red when charging, green when done) ?

If not, you will need to keep an eye on it


Cheers

relik1989

The charger does have a red light that goes out when its charged, I have the charger disassembled and I have two bare leads that I can fit snugly into the connector on the battery. I tested it for only a minute and it seemed to work correctly. It's getting late here and I don't want to leave it sitting over night, especially with my cat, so I'm going to try it tomorrow when I get off of work so I can keep an eye on it.

Thank you for your help, hopefully this works out and I can mess around with my car again.

Duster_360

iTrader: (21)

Good decision to wait - one thing you don't want to do is leave batteries charging unattended. Good way to burn your house down if there's a prob.


Sounds like you're going to be fine - watch the batts for temp - they should get warm and maybe a little more, but if the light doesn't signal end of charge near that point, you may need to do that yourself.