One Way To Recharge Alkaline Batteries

It says it right on the side of every alkaline battery – do not attempt to recharge. By which of course the manufacturer means don’t try to force electrons back into the cell. But [Cody] figured he could work around that safety warning chemically, by replacing the guts of an alkaline dry cell.

The batteries in question were certainly old, gnarly looking, and pretty dead – [Cody] barely got a reading on his multimeter. As you can see after the break, he cleaned off the exterior corrosion and did a quick teardown of the dry cells, removing the remains of the zinc anode, now in the form of zinc oxide paste looking very much like what you’d slather on your nose before a day at the beach. He filled the resulting cavity with a putty of zinc dust, freshened up the electrolyte charge with a squirt of 20% potassium hydroxide, sealed up the cell with a little silicone caulking, and put the recycled cell to the test. Result: 1.27 volts. Not too shabby.

Continue reading “One Way To Recharge Alkaline Batteries”

Safety Warning: Arduino GSM Shield May Cause Fires

Be careful with those Arduino GSM cards. As [James] reports, they may turn into fire starters. One person has reported a small explosion and fire already on the Arduino forums.
Now before we go any further – You may be asking yourself who the heck [James] is, and what gives him the ability to second guess the Arduino team. Well, here is [James’] blog disclaimer:  “James is a Senior Technical Expert for Technology and Applications at KEMET Electronics, a capacitor manufacturer. The content of this post are his and in no way reflects opinions of his employer.”

Senior Technical Expert?  That’s a good enough reason for us to believe him.

[James] states the problem is a tantalum capacitor used to decouple the GSM radio power supply from the main Arduino supply.
Tantalum capacitors are great for their low ESR properties. However, they have a well known downside of getting very hot, or even exploding when stressed. It’s not the Tantalum Anode that is burning. The Manganese Dioxide used as a cathode in some Tantalum capacitors is the culprit. Continue reading “Safety Warning: Arduino GSM Shield May Cause Fires”