It was quite annoying : every time I wanted to switch on one of my battery tube radios – or a new self-built one – to get out my power anode, to sort the connection cords and to plug them into the right sockets, – and to check again and again if they were all plugged in properly.. – a wrongly plugged connection can be the "death" All of these expensive, for the budget almost irreplaceable battery tubes mean..! The alternative? One anode battery plus one heater battery. The heating battery is not the worst thing, here you can help yourself out with a small adjustable power supply unit. Or you could take a motorcycle battery – like I do now – one of the older 6 volt types and tap it at 4 volts. – You can often even get such batteries for free at car recycling yards (the people there are happy not to have to pay the expensive disposal fees..). But the anode battery? Well, you could take a corresponding number of 9-volt block batteries and connect them together. – However, this is not recommended for two reasons. The first reason : much too expensive. The second reason: they don't last too long, as they only deliver their current in the milliamp range. The battery tubes do not need much anode current – but still…
A now very good friend of mine, a GFGF club friend, recently gave me a good, an excellent idea – a method he himself has long used. And which, what is especially practical, does not cost any money… With the following photos I show step by step how such an anode battery is assembled, – it is very easy!
First, empty Polaroid instant picture cassettes must be obtained – i.E., those whose 10-picture content has been used. Inside this blank cassette is a battery whose voltage is pretty much 5 volts – at a power of some Amps. – The first photo shows such "empty shot" Cassettes:
These cassettes are broken open, and their contents, which look like the following, are taken from.
The back side looks like this:
A sharp blade is used to score the top of the transparent film and remove the battery:
The connecting link visible in the picture above is bent back as far as it can be seen in the next picture
– that it rests on the front, as shown in the following picture.
Now Outside of the lug, in the middle, as can be seen this torn (or -cut) up to the half
– and bent over so that the metal layer faces upwards.
The next step is to turn the battery upside down so that the backside is still on top.
As can be seen in the following, the paper opening to the other side of the battery is generously enlarged.
The following photo shows a piled up stack of these so prepared batteries – one can recognize quite well the individual contacts between the batteries. – They are held together and fixed with strong rubber bands.
– Here again a top view of the battery stack.
With the measuring device you can detect a voltage of already more than 65 volts.
Meanwhile I reach, with the batteries already collected by me, a total voltage of good 90 volts. – In a few days I hope to have collected the remaining batteries so that I can achieve a total anode voltage of 120 – 140 volts. With contact strips made of copper foil in between, I can achieve the required voltage steps of approx. 40 volt, 60 volt, 90 volt, etc. Easily lead out.
The question, where to get the batteries in the needed quantity, is quite easy to answer : I "visit z. B. Car repair shops, – those that repair accident damage. This is where these instant cameras are used. There are a lot of these "empty" batteries Cassettes on… Another "source for me are larger photo specialty stores. This is often where customers come who "don't have much to do" with technology have so-called left hands and have the cassettes, freshly bought, immediately already in the photo store from the salesman inserted. The empty cartridges then leave them right there for disposal. – And the owners of the photo store are happy, if they do not have to pay the disposal costs..
One more hint I have to make : I got, probably with somewhat wet (sweat) fingers, when putting the battery stack together, when I put the rubber bands around it, to the contacts. At 90 volts and the ampere power you wince quite neatly..