Having recently moved to a new place I've been sorting through my console collections and noticed to my horror I no longer have a Game Gear or Lynx I have great memories of both from childhood and will be looking to buy both at some point in the not too distant future, however, there is one over-riding downside to both - battery usage. I have vivid memories of California Games on Lynx being interrupted by the six AA batteries lasting barely any time at all :grief: and obviously being tethered to a mains plug kinda defeats the purpose of a handheld and buying an original rechargeable battery pack is probably pointless as it probably won't hold a full charge any longer after all those years. So I was wondering with so many companies making accessories for retro systems like video cables and controllers are there any making new rechargable battery packs for those consoles? or is the best solution simply to buy a good set of rechargeable AA's (Eneloop?) and just accept the limitation? Thanks for any input and hope you all have a good 2014 :smile-new:
A set of new rechargeables would probably be the best and easiest way. If you want even more runtime, don't want to swap batteries and feel up to the task, you could also get an external battery pack, open it up and retrofit new cells (that's also a good idea e.g. for old laptops). Most packs use cells in a standard form factor internally, though there might be complications with things like welded-on soldering tags. One thing to note is, if your device supports recharging without taking out the cells, pay attentions to what cell type it expects - e.g. LiPo charges differently from NiCd. If in doubt, err on the side of caution, remove the cells and put them in a matching standalone charger.
^ do this. I have found sites with batteries of matching voltages but with a much higher capacity that almost perfectly fit the NiCd game gear battery pack after a little trimming. There was even a tutorial floating around on how to mod the charging circuit to accommodate the new cell type. If I can dig that information up again I will cite it.
I use the wall wart or the car adapter if for some reason I'm in the car. Can't be bothered with batteries, and have nil instances where I actually play an old hand held port-ably.
Anyone ever instead of using AAs rigged up some D cells? That would give you more play time for sure. But the best and simple solution is just using an AC adapter, unless you really are mobile with it and can't plug in somewhere.
Can't say I have, but I used the battery from a phone similar to this... ...to power my Game Gear. Lasted for a whole week's class trip iirc.
It might also be worthwhile to mod the console itself to make it more power efficient. I know that the GameGear uses a cfl tube for backlighting, and replacing that (and the accompanying circuity) with 2 LEDs and a light diffuser makes for a much longer lasting, brighter console.
That is just awesome. I remember looking at the amount of energy you get out of Ds versus AAs or AAAs and thinking just how insane the battery life would be if you rigged up a couple D batteries to something like a Gameboy Pocket. Then ofcourse you could add extra batteries in parallel for even more capacity. And as far as cost usually it seems you get more energy per dollar going with Ds than AAs by a significant amount. I've heard modding Nomad's with more modern screens helps with both visibility and battery life.
Changing the screen but retaining everything else doesn't make it no longer a Nomad. The old CSTN screen isn't what makes the Nomad what it is. It's certainly a big part of how we remember it, but replacing the screen with something better doesn't hurt.
Thanks for the input everyone some great ideas here! In particular I love the idea of replacing the light with LEDs and retrofitting new cells in the battery pack. Replacing the battery cells should be easy enough - if I can find the right cells to replace with but swapping out the CFL for an LED may perhaps be a little beyond my capability but will have a look when I get round to picking them up As for just plugging it in I do agree thats best however I have bad memories of my Lynx being sent back to Atari for warranty repair of the power socket 3 separate times. Not sure if the Lynx had a known issue or if I just got unlucky
I don't know of any other power supplies for the Lynx, but I KNOW that the Genesis 2 supply works just fine for the GG. Sometimes thrift shops will have a ton of mismatched ones, read up on the voltage requirements and take it in and look for one that fits would be my guess. I usually use batteries for my GBC, my SP has a battery, and both the Nomad and GG use the same power supply, so I got a couple spare ones.
