Small Battery Storage Tubes

First, I should mention that I own one of those Powercap hats with LED lights built into the brim. They're awesome, especially for rummaging around in the back of the car in the dark or reading the menu in the kind of restaurant that seems to pride itself on its dimness (I'm looking at you, Outback). But they take four 2032 batteries and burn through them fairly quickly. At $4.99 a pair most places, those batteries are not cheap and, of course, I am.

Obviously, being not just cheap but sane, I'm not paying ten bucks a pop to replace my hat batteries every couple of months (especially for two hat-wearers). I lucked into a deal where I got 48 of them for $5 a while back. I bought two packages. (this involved LED tealights and an after-Christmas sale, so I now have several dozen LED tealights that I have to figure out what to do with; watch this space) So far so good. Except that now I had to deal with dozens of little cardboard packages of batteries. Mostly, they've been living in a big Ziploc bag and getting in the way in the battery drawer, except when they get in the way somewhere else.

They're just a bit smaller than nickels!

They call them coin batteries, right? So I measured one of them, and it turns out that one is slightly smaller in diameter than a nickel.


Make haste to the hobby store! I purchased a package of tubes intended for coin collectors to store nickels in, just the right size for stowing my rampaging herd of 2032 batteries.

Package of coin tubes (empty now)

I still wanted (although, technically, not actually needed) a way to separate the batteries, though. That's where the Cricut comes in.

I fired up the Cricut with Plantin Schoolbook, selected a circle, and set it to a half inch diameter. I cut out a page full of circles. Actually, the Cricut cut out a page full of circles while I went elsewhere and did other things. Despite the cutting mat's best efforts (I really should have used a light grip mat instead of regular with paper) I removed my dozens of little circles and started emptying packages and loading tubes.

Lots of little paper circles

In the end, I had three coin tubes full of batteries, all neatly separated by paper circles (I'd used some batteries up already, of course). As I empty the tubes, I'll stuff a little bit of foam into them as a spacer to keep the batteries flat. They fit neatly into the battery drawer, and there's no longer a big Ziploc bag getting in the way of everything.

The results: Batteries in their tube

Now I just need the right size tube for my LR44 batteries that go in my laser pointer and little electric chirping bird!

By the way, the easy way to get batteries out of tubes, after you've used a few down from the top, is with one of those extendable magnetic parts retrievers that you can get for a couple of dollars at Harbor Freight. If you don't already have one to recover things that vanish under your crafting table, into the heating register, or, courtesy of the cat, under the refrigerator, you should. I first got one to recover bolts that disappeared into those annoying spots in car engine compartments where you can see them but can't reach (or dislodge) them, and I keep finding more uses for what has become a collection of several different ones.

Magnetic pickup tool

My nearest Harbor Freight happens to be right next door to Jo-Ann's. That's a marriage made in heaven for a cheapskate with a Cricut. Harbor Freight has supplied all sorts of useful crafting items, from storage boxes to weeding tools, which they believe are Mini Pick Sets. I won't argue with saving a bunch of money!