On 24/09/2012 18:08, Brian Gaff wrote:
Has the manufacturer never heard of a series diode?

Of course provided the design could cope with a 1.2 volt voltage drop, one
could fit a bridge and then it would not matter which way around it was.
Brian
Brian


Please bottom post, especially if you have a signature with "--" in a
preceding line.

It is possible to use a modest MOSFET, which can combine a diode and a
low resistance switch, to reduce any voltage drop to near zero.

The old fashioned method was simply to have a battery housing which
fails to make contact when batteries are put in backwards.