Battery users of the world unite....

I just discovered a website that taught you how to rebuild your own battery pack for a siemens/Fujitsu laptop. It seemed pretty straightforward...but what caught my attention is that the individual cells cost a little more than $5 each. I looked at my 880 battery - in desperate need of a new battery and thought...$15...vs. $70 or more for a new one. I know it is not difficult and many of you know about this already and have mentioned it in posts. My reason for posting this here: Does anyone who has done this before know of a more fail safe way of opening a battery pack rather than prying it open with a screwdriver? Would a glass cutter work - set on a piece of wood cut to the precise height, like a jig?

BTW, if you want to see the website that I have seen, go to: http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/Li_Ion_reconstruct/index.html

Edited by pengyou 2006-02-18 1:28 AM

Been there and done that: http://hpcnec.com/battery.htm Most of those battery packs are heat sealed...or glued...really tough to open. After about a zillion scores with an Xacto knife, I separated the shell halves on my 780 batteries and rebuilt them. These days I use a tiny cutting bit from a moto-tool with my Craftsman full-size tabletop router. I can set the depth of the cut very accurately, and the width of the cut is less than 1/16" and the router fence makes it easy to determine where on the battery I separate. Guiding the battery along the fence makes the cut perfectly straight.

When I'm done, I rubberband the halves together and then fill in the gap with black silicon adhesive. It holds everything together well and if I ever have to separate the halves again, they come apart easily.

Rich

Thanks!