Portable 12 volt battery charger?
 

HI folks does any one know of or has seen a device you can plug into a cigarette lighter socket that will charge up torch or radio batteries? In essence a battery charger! 3 hours on Google produced a variety of chargers for charging you bike battery up from the mains or hand cranked/solar powered or biolite chargers by which time I had lost the will to live!
I am thinking if you had a torch or radio powered by small rechargeable lithium batteries you should be able to charge them from your bikes 12 volt output by means of some charging device while the bike is running?


I have tried solar and hand cranked stuff in the past and I have just ending up throwing the damn things away as they are imho a waste of time.


Thanks in advance
GM

PS it could be that I am not aware of the correct terminology to type into Google?

They are available
 

I did a simple google search for 12 volt in nicadd bettery charger and came up with a good number including.

Adaptor for Uniross Cordless Pro AA/AAA Battery Charger (12v Plug for cars) Batterybuyer.com


My question is why not get an inexpensive 12 volt to 120 volt inverter and use it to run any number of devices, I picked up one and use it to power my niadd battery charger or it has a usb port that I use to charge my camera and laptop.

Just an idea as I don't know how much space you have or how much cr*p you want to take with you.

Rick

thanks
 

Hi Rick thanks for that. Now I know to type in " in car battery charger" instead of "battery charger you can use on your motorbike to charge rechargeable batteries" or something similar it makes life a lot easierdoh


I will also take a look at invertors, they had never crossed mind as my only thoughts were to recharge the batteries in a head torch of for a small radio. I already have a dedicated charger for my phone which plugs into my 12 volt supply and is small enough to fit into a tank bag.


Once again thanks.:D
GM

Inverters, IIRC, have quite poor energy efficiency, and that a 12v charging option would be better, as it will also be smaller than the inverter.

My camera battery can be charged using USB 5v power, so I have a cigarette ligher power lead like this:

Hot USB 2.0 Port 3 Way Car Cigarette Lighter Charger Socket Splitter Adapter | eBay

attached to an ignition switched 12 source, and then use one of these:

Dual USB Car Charger Car Power Port Adapter Cigarette Lighter Converter White | eBay

so that I can charge the phone, camera etc etc.

Hi John yes I got the first one and indeed it does plug into the cigarette lighter socket I have installed, this too runs off the ignition or at least it will only turn on when the ignition switch is on so I do not flatten the battery. My camera and phone plus the little scala headset I use to listen to the little lady who lives in my sat nav are all charged from this. What I do not have (but it's on order) is a device to charge triple or double A batteries from the same cigarette lighter socket.


Google is a great thing if you know exactly what you are looking for. If you do not then you end going around in circles. If I had of thought clearly, I would have typed "in car battery charger". Because I am on a bike it never dawned on me to add those two little words "in car". I found everything but the item I was after and was slowly getting closer to throwing the PC out of the window.doh


Thanks to every one who has read and to those who replied. It's all sorted now:D


GM

There are also in-car (or motorcycle of course) inverters that come with USB ports too.

I've had quite a few battery charges over time and most are not very good. At best, they only give you a red/green light. I've been very happy with this one for a couple of years now. It also has the bonus of working of 110-240 v AC and 12v DC.

Tenengy TN 156


Tenergy TN156 4-Bay AA/AAA NiMH LCD Battery Charger

I have used Maha MH-C401FS for a few years in fairly tough conditions and still going:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maha-MH-C401.../dp/B00EO5417U