Too Many Batteries

[crokett]

With a new daughter comes tons of things that need batteries. Assuming something takes say, 4 D-cells can I not just get a 6V power supply and wire it to the swing/light/whatever and plug it into a wall? Do I need to pay attention to amperage as well?

[LCHIEN]

yeah, you need to pay attention to amperage or you risk burning out and maybe even cause a fire in the wall wart.

the Wall warts are usually marked with voltage and maximum current provided. You may also need to watch out as some of the wall warts provide AC instead of DC.

The hard part is to figure out the draw of the device you run off the wall wart. usually they'll be marked 6V, 500 mA or whatever.

reminder: 1000 mA = 1 Amp

[LinuxRandal]

Carefull with that idea!

Another thing on batteries. Some of the kids stuff will have a screw so the kid can't access the batteries. You really don't want her going through the teething/mouthing stage on an electrical cord.

[scorrpio]

There is a very good reason why all the small kids' toys are battery-powered and don't plug into an outlet. On a baby swing, a set of D's can last a couple months of heavy use.

If you totally don't want to keep buying new batteries, get rechargeable ones.

[mikel]

I am lucky that I have a lot of rechargable batteries around. I use the older ones in the home and kids stuff. I buy new ones each year. If it is used heavily I get Nickle metal batts.


...mikel

[ejs1097]

With 2 kids, we never went through 1 set of batteries on the swings and other toys for each kid.

With the exception of the kick and play bouncer. With the second child, the older one would turn on the vibrate and never turn if off so they'd run down.

I actually just put a TON of toys in the attic and ended up with a gallon size bag full of batteries. AFter 3+ years, most still had factory batteries in them and they went through lots of use.