Bike power for my FRS radio

[ltljohn]

I wanted to find a way to power my FRS radio from the bike instead of always having to carry extra batteries. The radio uses a 650 mA battery pack or 3 AA batteries.

I found a car charger with variable outputs from 1.5 to 12 volts with a 1 amp output.

 

I then cut out some scrap plastic that is about the same thickness as the battery pack

 

 

using a couple of terminals as contacts I made an insert for the radio.

This is the car charger dismantled

 

Used a Dremel tool to make room for the connectors and wired it up

 

A little notch in the cover so I don't pinch the wires.

 

Trim all the wires to fit and find a way to keep the adapter from shorting to anything and I am all set.

 

 

 

 

Installed it all in the glove box and it works great. If I want to use the radio separately I can put the battery pack back in. It's not elegant but it works for a one off Saturday morning project. Total cost was $24 I bought 3 chargers at $6 and some change each plus shipping from Amazon the rest was already in my garage. I bought 3 because I will be doing 2 bikes and I wanted one to experiment with.

 

 

[CoarsegoldKid]

Great idea.

[johnlt]

OR................... get a Kenwood 3101 with the Autocom faux battery pack and it gets powered through the normal Autocom hook-up. No extra wires. Been working on several bikes for years.