The idea had crossed my mind as well, though I haven't got much experience
in casting. My approach would have been to reduce it to the physical
necessities and make it out of metals, with which I have more experience.
Picturing something like two rods running lengthwise with a band around
the batteries.
On the NiMH recharable pack the wall thickness is pretty thin, and the
longitudinal guides are pretty fine, though it probably wouldn't hurt if
they were wider. The catch location and end cap seem to be the trickiest
parts.
Adding a thermistor and its contacts would make it rechargeable in the
regular way too, which would be an improvement on the regular packs. You
could use NiMH batteries, but if they died far from home you could pop in
some alkaline AAs. Danger of accidentally trying to charge alkalines
though, which I'd guess would be a bad thing.
I'd also look at a way to add a high-power white LED so you could use it
as a flashlight. :-)
Given the current (crazy IMHO) prices for a small piece of plastic I felt
it could be a worthwhile project. Quick poll for how many people would
want a battery tray that could potentially double as a rechargeable pack?
(And maybe flashlight?)
jc
On Monday, December 16, 2002, at 09:46 , Aaron Eiche wrote:
>
> I don't know how complex the AA battery trays are, but it recently
> occurred to me that I could probably make a mold of an existing battery
> tray and then cast out of that mold.
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