Seeking assistance finding charger, battery & cigarette plug for portaball

[mbaddah]

I am looking at purchasing a few power related items for my portaball and seeking the advice of IIS members.

As I'm quite hopeless with decribing power related items i'll attach pictures to assist with my childish vocab :D

The items I am seeking are:

1) Sealed lead acid 12V 0.8aH battery. The one that was in the portaball was a UB1208 universal battery but I assume any battery with same specs and size would work?

2) A cigarette socket plug, not sure what type of tip it is though???

3) Charger for the portaball. I think it's standard 110V US charger.

Thank you for any assistance, greatly appreciated.

[astronut]

Hi Moh,
Jaycar is the best place for all of these items.:D

[mbaddah]

Hi John,

I was at jaycar today and unfortunately they didn't have any of the items :( I'm contemplating purchasing them from the States...

[GrahamL]

Tandy or dick smith usually have a selection of those batteries in stock.

For a charger I'm pretty sure you'd be able to chase down some sort of
240 vl unit locally like this one.
http://www.master-instruments.com.au/category/Battery_Fighter_Chargers,_Testers_&_Accessory_Leads/1347

My pretty limited experiance with those small sealed l/a batteries is that they don't take well at all to overcharging (killed mine very quickly )so some sort of smart charger like the one above would be a wise investment.

The plugs you have there are fairly standard looking and you should be able to grab something off the shelf to suit.

[astronut]

Moh,
The battery amp/hour rate isn't that important, it's the area in which it has to fit.
The Jaycar 12V 1.2a/h battery would be fine, just check its size.
The plugs are at Jaycar, the charger.......well, is there a reason why it has to be 110v? Otherwise a 240v will do fine.:)

John.

[mbaddah]

I just got back from Battery World in Bankstown.

They had the 12v 0.8ah battery which I purchased. Unfortunately when i got home the female connecter was little too big to fit with the male connection in the portaball. (Can see picture attached).

nightstalker: In the portaball manual, it recommends you keep the charger plugged into the portaball and hence, charge the 12v 0.8ah battery through the scope. I need to use the Cigarette-to-rca male adapter to charge the portaball (the portaball has a female rca).

John: It doesn't have to be 110v your right. Ideally, if I could find a standard 240v charger with male-rca connection i could plug the charger straight from the mains to the portaball female connection, although I'm not sure if this is recommended by the manufacturer as they provided the charger with a cigarette socket and the cigarette adapter with male-rca perhaps to provide a pulsated charge and not kill the battery instantly?

If I could find a standard 12v charger to suit Australian power plug with a cigarette socket it would be the most ideal thing. I think?

[mswhin63]

It is possible that all or most of the items from Portaball are proprietry so you are gonna need to alter the configuration to suit. Should be relatively easy to do. The Cig lead the connector is a simple RCA. This is not the regular connection for power available off the shelf as RCA is design for Audio not power.

[mswhin63]

On the last photo the black 2 pin connector is from a very old communication power connector I used to use when i was an Apprentice. I have checked products from 2 of my suppliers I know and there is nothing I can see. So the only option as far as I can see is either mods or overseas (if they have any).

[mbaddah]

I think you are right Malcolm I am already contemplating cutting the wires and switching them over. Something I have no idea how to do :shrug: and a new skill I must learn :P



I was thinking of obtaining a charger which has the ability to switch inputs, i.e. in this case Male RCA. I can then power up from the mains straight to the 12v input of the portaball. Would that work?

[mswhin63]

After saying all this I do not recommendsome DIY stuff if you have no experience but

Steps I would do:

1 - Battery get the dimension shown in the picture, dont worry about the dogs leg and find a 12V battery that would slot in. The lead coming off the old battery can be cut off and reterminated onto the new battery.

2 - Any reason for getting the cig lead, or just need another one? If so easy enough to make , you can buy RCA connectors from most electronics shop. Even i have stack of them and solder it onto a cig lead which can also be bought from most shop. Just need to know which is Postive and Negative.
RCA connector from Jaycar - http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=PP0230&keywords=rca&form=KEYWORD
Cig lead - http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=DC1036&keywords=cigarette&form=KEYWORD


3 - Charger looks like a generic mains plug pack with a cig lead. I am assuming the system work with car battery as well so a simple unregulated power supply of plug pack would suffice.
Ciggy power supply (a bit overkill but) - http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MP3470&keywords=cigarette&form=KEYWORD