by D. Isaak » Jul 1, 2001 @ 12:54pm
After reading several articles on making a battery extender, I decided to do it the easy way, with a car DC power adapter for my Jornada 548, since I planned to buy one anyway. The adapter cost around $30 with S&H from HP and the rest of materials I purchased from Radio Shack for less then $5. All you need is a battery holder for 8 batteries (any type), a 9-volt snap connector and female conector for the DC power adaptor. After making it, and testing the output voltage, I was pleased to find that it didn't matter if I connected the car adapter to an 8 AA battery setup or to 4 AA batteries, the output was the same, 5.18 volts. That takes care of any problems with burning out my PDA with too much voltage. Obviously, the DC adapter controls the output voltage, at least for any input between 6 and 12 volts. And the whole thing fits into a small pocket camera case, along with the PDA.