[NTLK] MessagePad 2100 recell problem

[Gavin Watson]

On Aug 9, 2010, at 8:07 PM, Gavin Watson wrote:

> I'll resolder all the temporary joints and report back.

I resoldered everything and it worked flawlessly for the couple  
minutes that I tested it reporting a stable, nearly full battery, even  
with the backlight on.  I went to glue the end cap back on and found  
that the joint I made between the yellow square and the battery was a  
bit too bulky and filed it down.  It now works  much more reliably  
than before, but I apparently got a little carried away.  It is now  
intermittent again.  Now that I know what the problem is, it should  
take about 10 minutes to reinforce it early tomorrow morning.  Thank  
you again for the help.  I couldn't have done it without that little  
bit of advice.  I look forward to wire free Newton use on something  
more capable than my MP 110.

Mostly for my memory but also the benefit of others looking into this  
on the list archive, what I did  to the yellow square was I took a  
strand out of some twisted copper wire about 1.5 inches long and  
folded it in half, then used pliers, a 60 Watt iron (probably  
overkill, though my 25W wasn't up to the job) and a little bit of 18- 
gauge 60-40 solder to keep it in place.  If you can cover both ends of  
the loop at the middle of the copper wire with solder, it is very  
secure.  I then waited 30 seconds for it to cool and used a pair of  
needle-nosed pliers to bend the excess wire into a shape that would  
fit over each of the contacts on the battery.  Nothing special, just a  
few bends.  I then soldered each end back on.  Make sure that it the  
joint isn't much more than 1.5 mm or _maybe_ 2 mm tall or it will not  
fit in the casing.  I used regular plastic model cement to secure the  
cover on the end again.  If you didn't break yours off by mistake,  
this doesn't apply.