I put a charging jack on my Spykee. I simply matched the connections to the underside charger contacts and ran it to a 2.1mm standard power plug. I built a 15 volt power supply with a charge indicator LED and a charge completed LED on either side of the female jack. It I can easily charge my Spykee on the desk and know at a glance how it seems to be going. There was plenty of room for the tiny circuit board I built.

The reason I did this is because I think the Spykee charger is lame. It has let me down too many times. I do have the replacement that was sent out for the recall, but it too wasn't all that reliable.  The power supply circuit I built was a cobble from a number of circuit schematic websites. It's basically a 7809 to clamp the 18 volts from the transformer, a couple of caps for ripple and line stabilizing; The power dissipation of the 7809 is handled by a TIP darlington pair power transistor bridging the 7809. It's capable of putting out about 2.5 amps. It charges the Spykee in about 30 minutes.

What I like most is that the original Spykee stuff is still in place and still functional. If I took my stuff away it would work the same as originally. But I have had a lot fewer issues with ol Spykee since I did rolled my own. Also, Spykee can stay plugged in and not experience overcharging. 

Hopefully this will some of you ideas for even better charging solutions. I am considering changing over to the a LiPo pack set; one of those 4200 amp hour behemoths to power the spykee, but I couldn't use the built in charginging because LiPos require their cells to charge separately (thus the 3 wire cable you always see for charging Lipos.) So maybe I'll stick with the Nickel batteries. I would have to use an 11.4v LiPo and then regulate it to 9v to operate the robot though, even if I figured out the charging.

I found that Spykee battery site. Wow. $35 + 7 shipping in the US, more elsewhere. That's a lot of money for a handful of sub C Nicads. Another motivator to roll my own.

Hope this was helpful to somebody.