if you do a google search, i think there is at least one website with some instructions. i would however suggest that you not fill the case with silicone rubber as many people do, it will impair heat flow out of the batteries and make them get hotter when charging and discharging which will shorten the battery life (heat is a big enemy of rechargeable batteries) and possibly confuse the charger circuitry into not charging the battery pack as fully as it should (most of them, in the laptops i've seen, detect full charge by noticing when the batteries suddenly start to get warmer, though some do monitor the voltage instead).
i'll be doing this myself, and have decided to glue a thin piece of plastic inside the case that can glue to both halves, allowing nearly normal heat flow (probably using "all purpose" plastic pipe cement or methyl-ethyl-ketone, or possibly just pvc cement which is less aggressive, i'll have to test and see which works better without totally dissolving the plastics). also, don't try to solder directly to batteries, get the cells that have tabs on them for soldering, or use conductive epoxy to make the connections (expensive). solder them reasonably quickly, any time you can't solder within 10 or 20 seconds there's a problem with how or what you are trying to solder and you don't want to overheat the cells and make them leak. also be sure to leave in all the thermal/short circuit protection, those cells are very dangerous if shorted or overcharged without the thermal protection, potentially exploding or at least leaking some very nasty corrosives, or spraying them on you and the computer possibly. the pack i've opened for a duo had both a self resetting thermal fuse and a one time fuse in case that failed, keep whatever the battery pack had originally or you could be injured or worse. if you can't solder to the metal strips on the thermal protectors (which will also ruin the one-time fuse if not careful) use the conductive epoxy to connect to them, they are essential for safety. it's probably smart to make a drawing of just how things were fit in and connected originally. there's also a temperature sensor that controls how fast the battery charges and possibly lets the charger know when it's fully charged, make sure it's where it is supposed to be and isn't heat insulated so it will accurately reflect the temperature of the cells. i'm too impatient for the exacto knife method, and i'm gluing it back together with new plastic bridging the cuts (on the inside) any way so i carefully pried off the sliding latch and used a hack saw to carefully cut that side open, i then carefully pried/tore the two halves apart. this way the ugly cut will be hidden when done. do be careful not to cut the cells open! they do tend to contain nasty stuff. do be careful, shorting the cells is also very bad, which is the other reason for thermal protection, it can quickly heat a cell and make it burst and make whatever is shorting them very hot. there are several sellers on ebay that have the cells at a cheap price, some of them also have a website so you can avoid the ebay bs and possibly get a better price, particularly if you are buying a lot of them (for the duo pack, you need 10 aa nimh cells, a little over $1 ea. on ebay, $3-4 ea. most other places). i believe you can use cells that have a higher capacity than the original as well, so you actually wind up with a better battery pack. most of the cells seem to be higher capacity now than they were back when those battery packs were originally made. Ruffin Bailey wrote: > > I was surprised how much new batteries cost, Etc. > > Anybody have any pointers on battery rebuilding? -- "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future by the year 2000, may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons" Popular Mechanics, March 1949 -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
