5 Minute Battery Case Hack

When prototyping it’s useful to have a power supply that can be easily switched on & off rather than just pulling a wire out of the block.

I needed an AA battery holder with a switch, looking at Amazon they cost anything between £2 & £5 including postage. However, I wondered if I had anything I could hack to do the job.

So rummaging through my box of faulty toys & electronics I found a £1 set of Christmas Led Lights from Poundland, this had a battery holder for two AA’s and it had an on/off switch.

Step 1, Unsolder the existing LED cables from the case terminals.

Step 2, Snip of the jumper pins from one end of a red & black jumper wire.

Step 3, solder the red & black cables to the correct polarity terminals ( Red to + & Black to - ).

Step 4, Fit batteries and test.

Around 5 minutes work and you have switched protoyping 3V power supply.