Engineers: Built In Battery Charging?

The Lounge General Discussion
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I’m sure there are reasons for this, I just don’t know what they are — hoping more technically minded folks know:

10-15 years ago I remember having cameras that would charge rechargeable AA batteries in-body, nothing proprietary necessary, once you put rechargeable batteries in, the standard plug for the camera would now charge the batteries you’ve got in there.

So here’s my question: why do I not see this feature anywhere nowadays? In our case, with synths, that still choose a battery (like 6 AAs for Yamaha Reface or Roland SP404) over built in rechargeable cells — why do these devices not come built with this functionality?

Is it cost? Noise? Heat? Risk? I truly don’t know. Do you?

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I’ve wondered this for years!

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  • More testing and safety compliance requirements
  • More design elements to avoid risks of overcharging, overheating etc
  • More certification paperwork, warning labels
  • More laws to adhere to, especially region specific that can pertain to transport, recycling plans, repair rules etc
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More risk.

Lawsuits.

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Yeh bang on. A battery needs to be tested as part of a system to give confidence to the supplier it is providing a product that is fit for the consumer.

Especially as modern batteries require a lot more punch, you don’t want your product involved in a horror story where someone replaces a battery with a Chinese knockoff that expands and goes… pop.

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never forget…

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image900×600 49.3 KB

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Recall the Elektron Power Handle the BP-1, recalled and withdrawn because a potential short could possibly cause a fire.

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Conspiracy hat on…

  • Planned obsolescence.
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There’s definitely an element of that. In many cases modern products are so reliable long term that a battery that is past its usable life is the only real reason to buy new. I get this with phones, big time!

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Yup, it’s great, I have it in this radio / streamer and it’s completely different experience than putting batteries into Circuit / Reface - IT JUST WORKS! For hours / days, enough time to grab it randomly before batteries run out and take it to it’s default spot (or two!) and connect power.

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It’s such a shame they abandoned this instead of reworking it

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I’m guessing it was cost . Many supply an initial set of normal batteries… lithium batteries need additional safety checks / certification and export license I think … it makes all that stuff easier
I’d assume if people have rechargeable they also have a charger … it’s gives the consumer ‘more choice / options ‘ if you can believe that sort of nonsense marketing .

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OK, I know the answer now…

… sure, it’s partly added costs of electronics.

But there is likely a more fundamental issue - the physical dimensions of the battery bay.

You see, most of the devices that don’t do self-charging have batteries in series - batteries touching each other with their poles, usually in a 2x1, 2x2, or 2x3 configuration.

But we cannot do that for charging - we need to manage each battery individually (BMS)

For charging, we have to put batteries in parallel - each having its own slot, not touching each other with their poles.

So we go from this:

|--------||--------||--------|
|--------||--------||--------|

To this:

|--------|
|--------|
|--------|
|--------|
|--------|
|--------|

And while the physical area might be only slightly bigger (additional contact pins), we loose the design advantage of one short dimension and one long dimension and have to accommodate a component with two medium-long dimensions.

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Well, okay then! Much more substantive and sensible explanations than I was conjuring up on my own — well damn, back to the painstaking drudgery that is occasionally changing a set of double AA rechargeable batteries for another set — ugh life is toil and torment.

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