Is there a wall wart power supply for the Model B?

[sdean7855]

Or is there anything wrong with the ideas, such that it's been tried and found bad? Seems to me t shouldn't be hard to get a 4.5VDC wall wart, cut a piece of dowel the right length, make contacts at both ends and hey presto no more dying LR44 batteries?

[Citroen]

Swap the PM that's on your model B for a PM5 and you can power that with a regular cell phone wall-wart and a USB-A to USB-B printer cable (same is true for a PM3 or PM4).

There's no value in trying to hack a PM1, PM2 or PM2+.

[Carl Watts]

Is it not just a question of buying decent batteries for the PM1 ?

Basically the PM1 is a glorified calculator the batteries should last years.

Energizer 357/303 is what Concept 2 would sell you it needs to be the 1.55V Silver Oxide battery not the common A76 Alkaline variety or the screen contrast is hopeless due to the battery Voltage discharge curve being totally different.

Not the cheapest of battery options these days, they probably should have gone for a couple of CR2032 batteries. Each 357 battery over here cost you about $4.50. Probably would have got 5 years at least from Lithium.

[adouglas]

Swap the PM that's on your model B for a PM5 and you can power that with a regular cell phone wall-wart and a USB-A to USB-B printer cable (same is true for a PM3 or PM4).

There's no value in trying to hack a PM1, PM2 or PM2+.

Now that's a handy tip!

I have a Model B with a PM5 upgrade (which, by the way, is absolutely worth doing).

Do you know if the batteries have to be left in place? From time to time I forget the age of batteries and lose devices due to long-term leakage.

[Carl Watts]

You only use top quality Alkaline batteries in the PM5 and these have a shelf life now of 10 years.

I still have a set of Duracell D size batteries for testing that are still useable that have a best before install date of 2005.

Do not use the cheap zinc carbon batteries, they are monitor killers.

The ultimate battery tech is Lithium and if everyone used these in the PM2 I would be out of business trying to repair them because of battery leaks.