pcatterall
Well-Known Member
I notice that my toothbrush charger charges through a sealed plastic conector ( IE no metal contacts. How does this work and is there a marine use which we could take advantage of or is it inefficient?
Charging my toothbrush ( boaty )
- Thread starter pcatterall
- Start date
VicS
Well-Known Member
Basically two halves of a transformer.
Primary coil in base, around some sort of iron core i guess. Secondary coil plus rectifier, battery etc in the handle
Primary coil in base, around some sort of iron core i guess. Secondary coil plus rectifier, battery etc in the handle
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prv
Well-Known Member
A while ago there was a move towards charging mobile phones in a similar way, with a mat that you'd drop your phone on any-old-how as you came through the front door. Doesn't seem to have caught on; bit of a chicken-and-egg problem I suppose.
Pete
Pete
William_H
Well-Known Member
Electric toothbrush charging
As said the toothbrush has a coil wound in the base around the indentation (hole) The charger has a coil on an iron core that extends up into the probe.There is quite abit of electronics for charge control. It seems to work well charging the single AA NiMh battery.
Single rechargeable cells work well because flattening them is good for them. However in a battery series of cells the first to flatten can be charged in reverse by the discharge current which is bad for them.
I assume all electric TB are much the same. Mine is branded Oral B. The first one died from moisture running down the rotating shaft seal. The result was I could not turn it off. I got it apart but no way could I reassemble it. I now always park my TB brush down to stop moisture running into works.
Because of the nature of the charging the only way to recharge on the boat it via a 240v inverter. The inverter could be smallest available but still pretty inefficient. good luck olewill
As said the toothbrush has a coil wound in the base around the indentation (hole) The charger has a coil on an iron core that extends up into the probe.There is quite abit of electronics for charge control. It seems to work well charging the single AA NiMh battery.
Single rechargeable cells work well because flattening them is good for them. However in a battery series of cells the first to flatten can be charged in reverse by the discharge current which is bad for them.
I assume all electric TB are much the same. Mine is branded Oral B. The first one died from moisture running down the rotating shaft seal. The result was I could not turn it off. I got it apart but no way could I reassemble it. I now always park my TB brush down to stop moisture running into works.
Because of the nature of the charging the only way to recharge on the boat it via a 240v inverter. The inverter could be smallest available but still pretty inefficient. good luck olewill
richardabeattie
Well-Known Member
The toothbrush charging system works without metal to metal contact but is on 240 volts. If we were to use the same principle to charge other items on the boat - a torch for example - it would need to work on 12 volts. But would 12 v be enough?
Norman_E
Well-Known Member
In theory, yes, because it is quite possible to make transformers from any voltage to any other voltage, but, they only work on AC current so if you had 12 volts from the boat batteries you would need some electronics to create an AC voltage, then of course a rectifier in the torch charging circuit. The end result is that an inverter to create 230 volts AC from the boat battery is the simplest way to go.
richardabeattie
Well-Known Member
Missed the point. Nothing to do with tranformers. The question is whether a 12 v boat system can charge a 12 v device using the no metal to metal technology?
Norman_E
Well-Known Member
That technology is a transformer! That sort of transformer used in electric toothbrushes is clearly never going to be as efficient as normal transformer, but that does not matter. Someone who can do the calculations of wire size, number of turns etc. could undoubtedly make something that would work from 12 volt input, but as I said transformers work on AC so your 12 volt boat battery current needs to be converted from DC to AC to make it work, and stepping the voltage up via an inverter will make it much easier to make a working device.
