[NTLK] Emate Battery Rebuild Tips

Hello all:

Yes, nuts for Newton lately. Enables me to procrastinate from working.

So I did a Emate battery rebuild, following Frank's page (great page, Frank), and here are some things to keep in mind - additions - (I won' cover all the details, just see Frank's site):

-It is not quite as easy as led on, but not too hard overall. It took me 1.5 hours.

-Try and get batteries that are already connected, so you don't have to solder tabs on them. It is quite difficult to solder tabs on batteries because it is messy and intricate, and the solder does not stick to the batteries very well. Also, unless you have a vice or something, batteries don't like to stay in one place because they are round, and roll everywhere, making working with them more challenging. I was lucky in that the place I bought the batteries attached the tabs to them (tabs to connect them together, and then two tabs on the end which is where you solder on the connection wire). The tabs are sort of "punched" on. So go to a dedicated battery supply place to get them, and they should be able to do this for you. I paid $20 total for 4 NIMH 2200 MAH commercial grade rechargeables. These are just a hair longer than consumer ones, but as far as I know, the batteries are more resilient.

-Don't spill superglue, used to glue the center of the batteries together, on a MacBook Pro trackpad. Butter, a wet rag and soap with lots of rubbing got it off, though!

-I did not use heat shrink to seal up the batteries, but I would highly recommend it. I just did not feel like driving to Canadian Tire to get the heat shrink (and for you stereotypers out there, yes, I contemplated using Duct Tape, of which I have a roll in my post-modern apartment). I reused the stock wrap as I simply cut it down the center and slipped it off when I was working with the battery. After I put the stock wrap back on, and then taped it all with electrical tape, it did not want to slip into the plastic battery sleeve. I then took the tape off, and taped it longitudinally, so the tape ran straight up and down: a spiral tape job causes the battery to not fit into the battery sleeve (here is me frowning as I am used to taping hockey sticks, which is accomplished through a spiral arrangement). After I fixed the tape, it slid in, but I had to work it in, and it was a tight fit, but a fit nonetheless.

-Make sure you carefully take off the cardboard ends and the silver tape holding the thermistor. You will be able to reuse these sticky pieces on your new battery pack.

-One thing that sort of confused me was the end of the battery: you have to sort of gently pry it off intact so it can be reused on the end of the new battery pack. This is the charging switch which decreases voltage to the battery when the temperature gets too hot, as measured by the thermistor. I used a paring knife and just sort of "peeled" it away. Unfortunately, the solder I had did not stick to the end of the new battery, so I could not solder this on. At any rate, I still attached it by wrapping electrical tape very tightly over each contact point. I did not wrap the tape around the center though, because I left that free to come in contact with the cardboard end. I then taped it again after the cardboard end was on. I just wanted that part of the assembly to be put together as it was on the original, so that is why I ensured the cardboard end was attached as such.

I never tested the battery, I just put it in the sleeve, installed it into the Emate and plugged it in. At first the Emate charge it for 20 minutes and then it reported it as full. I reset it and then it took about another 80 minutes to charge it. AVI's Backdrop is a good tool here: I kept monitoring the batteries voltage, temperature, etc. while it was charging. I then used it for about 25 minutes, and the battery is still at 100%! It is a full 1000 mah more than the original 1200 mah battery, so almost double the capacity. I love it when things are double capacity, it just sounds so good...

All the best,

Ryan

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Received on Tue Mar 3 16:56:52 2009