But there isn't any more space at the positive end than there is at the negative!
I must respectfully disagree with you on that one. There most certainly
is more space available around the positive button in many cases and there
is never more space available at the negative end.
I agree with most of the others here that in many types of battery holders and any time cells are stacked inline, the space around the button is avaiable to be filled by components without increasing the length at all. If you put the components at the bottom you will increase the length. For
some holders it may be just as bad for the components to be on top but it is
always bad (additional-length-wise) if they're on the bottom.
Alkaline cells generally have the seal at the base so a base mounted boost board wouldn't need a sleeve to connect to the other terminal of the cell,
Indeed, and you don't have to stuff around with a crappy positive terminal, and shitty stainless steel sleeve, that won't fit in a lot of battery holders.....
You still need to connect to both battery terminals regardless of where the actual circuitry physically goes! If you essentially make a negative voltage regulator, you still need a wire or sleeve or something going to the positive post! You can't magically make the converter work with only one connection to the battery!
If you add, say, 1mm worth of PCB and components to the top of the battery, around the nipple, you still have to add the nipple on top of this, to make contact with the battery holder terminal, this nipple needs to extend the same height off the PCB as the original did off the battery, or you're guaranteeing it won't even make contact in a lot of battery holders...
You're assuming that the "new" positive button is solid. It's not, it is a spring contact!
I believe it was suggested earlier in the thread that the best solution* may be to use some kind of spring as the new positive contact. Devices that need a nipple will find one, and those that are a tight fit or have the cells end to end will squash it flat.
Yes, of course! That is really the only logical thing to do for the positive, and is precisely what Batteroo has always shown to be doing! It has to be a spingy contact of some sort to stick up and make contact when needed but also be able collapse when necessary to reduce the addition of length as much as possible.
.... and that's all I'll be saying on this tangent.
Agreed!!