• @Tubbles@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    -21 year ago

    This cannot work since both double and tripple As has the same voltage, and thus does not have a difference in light output. What we’d instead be looking at here is the battery/ies being drained faster the fewer there are of them. But yeah having it work no matter the amount of batteries installed is a neat idea

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)
      link
      fedilink
      21 year ago

      It could be related to battery position, rather than purely electrical characteristics. The spaces for AA and AAA appear to be keyed for the cell diameter. Since everything is the same, electrically, except for the mAh, you can probably control the LED driver by using basic position sensing on the cell locations with minimal components and efficiency cost. An LTC3090, for example, could be used with relatively simple voltage dividers to adjust the ratio on the Vin and Vctl pins.

    • @moody
      link
      01 year ago

      Batteries wired in series increase the voltage provided. The example in the OP us just a battery whose LEDs run at anything from 1.5V to 6V and accepts both AA and AAA batteries. It’s not a foil to planned obsolescence, it’s just smart design. It could still be made with the same design, but purposely use LEDs that die sooner, in which case it’s smart design and planned obsolescence.

    • @towerful@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      -11 year ago

      I assume there are either voltage sensors to detect which batteries are installed in order to control the light intensity, or there are multiple individual LEDs attached to the individual batteries.