Those Astronomy PowerPacks

One of my local readers opened up one of the units and removed the socket.  It showed when plugged in to be charging.   That bending the charging connector caused it to charge but putting the socket back on the PCB solved nothing suggests that the pressure was bending the PCB in some interesting and useful way.

I had thought of salvaging the lead acid battery  and putting a 12VDC socket with that battery in a box.   Then I could recharge from a battery charger.  Only 12 VDC input so it would not be fast but it would not overcharge.  Now that I am home, it occurs to me not to build anything.   I will reassemble the unit, attach a battery charger clamps to the external 12 V terminals  and see if it charges.  If so I will attach a 12VDC charger plug to the existing charger(which produces 15VDC) and recharge through the cigarette lighter plug.  This is simple enough that even i can do this.

UPDATE: we did not put the battery back in place after replacing the socket on the PCB.  No wonder it was not charging!