Reviving a 25-Year Old Power Wheels Barbie Jeep with Dewalt Batteries.
My wife and I helped clean out her aunt’s garage and in return we got some of the garage’s contents. Most of these contents were unremarkable, but one of them was a little more exciting, especially for my 3 (almost 4) year old girl.
The 1998 Fisher Price Barbie Sun Jammer was in excellent condition with no major damage and only light wear on the plastic “tires”. I was assured that it still worked and that it ran the last time that somebody charged the battery and that the charger was still in it. I knew however that there was no way that the original lead acid battery was still good after 25 years and that it was unlikely that anybody had even run it in the last 20 years. Still, I considered it a cool find and knew that a little girl would love it even if it remained stationary and she could only pretend drive. I figured that I could always remove the motors so that the wheels could turn freely and it would just become a push vehicle. In any case, I gladly took the little Jeep home.
Once home, I tried charging it even though I knew that there was no way that the batteries would hold a charge. After an hour or so on the charger: SURPRISE! the batteries were useless… as expected. I tried looking for replacement batteries. I could find old, red Fisher Price 6 volt batteries that looked the same, but had different connectors and were just single batteries (not 2 connected together). The old red ones are also $45 each. I could find newer fisher price batteries that were 12 volts (the same as my two 6 volts in series), but they had very different connectors, but would probably work, but only if I cut the old connector off of the old batteries and spliced it to the new one, and still paid $40 or more for a the new battery that I would still have to charge with the old charger that might not still work. Then, I thought of another solution: what if I used modern cordless tool batteries?
2 old Fisher Price 6V batteries, and 2 Dewalt 20V Max Batteries (one 1.5 amp hr and one 10 amp hr)
I got on Amazon and was pleasantly surprised to find several products that would allow me to convert the Barbie Jeep to run off of Dewalt 20V max batteries (or other cordless tool brands, but Dewalt is what I already had). What I ended up getting was a Dewalt step-down converter and I managed to get it for $13.99 even though I cant find one for less than $22 now, 2 days later. Anyway, this thing converts the output of a Dewalt 20V Max battery (which is more like 18 volts) to 12 volts and up to 15 amps which I thought would be perfect to run the Jeep. The part arrived in the mail and after a little trial and error, I was able to correctly wire its 2 output wires to the original 4-wire connector that I cut off of the old batteries.
The result: an old toy jeep that runs like new with batteries that I can switch out in about 20 seconds. The jeep ran for about half an hour on one of my really old 1.5 Ah batteries that can only run a cordless drill for about half an hour. I switched in one of my 10 Ah batteries that came with my Dewalt lawnmower and the thing ran for about an hour of hard use, loaded with 2 kids and afterward, the battery still showed 3/3 bars. It goes up inclined driveways. It takes off fast. The Barbie Jeep is any little girls dream. When a battery does eventually die, you just grab a new one from the compartment under the hood, switch it out, and keep cruising.
All I can say is that it is $13.99 well spent.