[SPARCbook] 3gx battery

[Mike Hebel]

On Saturday, November 6, 2004, at 06:29 PM, Mike Parson wrote:

> I stopped by Batteries Plus with the battery pack from my 3gx to see if
> they'd be willing to re-cell it for me.  They weren't even willing to
> give it a shot, said that if they cut it apart, they'd never get it 
> back
> together, etc.
>
> I'm no stranger to a soldering iron, but I've never worked with NiCad
> batteries, has anyone else attempted this themselves?  Other than not
> cutting on the flat sides of the pack, is there anything else I should
> be aware of?


When I did it for my old Powerbook I used a soldering iron with an 
exacto blade attachment as a "hot knife" to cut through the outside of 
the casing.  I took it slow - it took about an hour to get the battery 
cut apart the first time - but it did a nice job without damaging 
anything.

The big thing that keeps coming to mind though was that I had to 
de-solder an intervening thermistor/diode(?) in the center of the 
battery pack and if it was left out or inverted the pack wouldn't be 
recognized by the system.  It was the same way on the old Zenith 433LT+ 
that I re-did a pack for.

Oh, and do yourself a major favor - order the battery cells with the 
tabs already on them.  It will ease assembly and reduce potential heat 
damage when soldering them together.

Mike Hebel
----
"I think we used too much!" - Chris Knight