Back to the Drawing Board

[n2ize]

Well, I got the Lithium battery for my Handie Talkie.. I went out of my way to order a battery with solder tabs so I could solder it in to the circuit board. Well I was all set to go. i had the battery ready and when I picked it up to begin the soldering I noticed that one of the tabs fell off. Apparently the spot welds broke, despite careful handling.

Of course in attempting to solder the tab to the battery I blew the cell. Soooo. It's back to the drawing board. back on line and back to ordering another battery.

Ah well, thats SHOW BIZZ FOLKS....

P.S. This time I'll order two or three of them. This way if another one breaks I'll have two more to play with. The moral to this story. Order lots and lots of em cause if any stupid shit can happen it will. Murphy all the way.

P.S. One would think Yaesu could have put a battery holder into the unit so that the battery can be changed out with a standard tabless battery found at any drug store. Unfortunately that would have made too much sense.

[kf0rt]

Batteries are huge profit items for the electronic widget companies, kinda like print cartridges. See this all the time with digital cameras. Recent Canon SX30 purchase uses a Canon NB-7L Li-ion pack (about a cubic inch in size). Retail for that battery is $69, I think, but you can buy it at most places for about $40. Aftermarket knock-offs sell for about half that and you can buy after-aftermarket knockoffs for under $10.

I think there are two reasons the widget companies don't standardize on this: profit on the batteries and at some point, they'll EOL their own brand, rendering a number of the devices obsolete even when they still work.

But yeah, buy extras.

[n2ize]

Batteries are huge profit items for the electronic widget companies, kinda like print cartridges. See this all the time with digital cameras. Recent Canon SX30 purchase uses a Canon NB-7L Li-ion pack (about a cubic inch in size). Retail for that battery is $69, I think, but you can buy it at most places for about $40. Aftermarket knock-offs sell for about half that and you can buy after-aftermarket knockoffs for under $10.

I think there are two reasons the widget companies don't standardize on this: profit on the batteries and at some point, they'll EOL their own brand, rendering a number of the devices obsolete even when they still work.

But yeah, buy extras.

In this case its just the single lithium wafer cell for memory backup. So it's only a $4.00 cell...with tabs. But you'd think they'd have the tabs welded onto the cell a bit better.

Rebuilding the portable battery pack will cost a bit more.

If this ever happens again I'll use epoxy to re-attach the tab to the cell. Either that or build a battery tab welder. My Globe King 500 power supply should be able to supply enough power for the job.

[kb2vxa]

Jesse "The Governing Body" Ventura will tell you it's a conspiracy. They make crappy welds knowing you will break them and buy another battery. Of course the portable battery pack will cost more, a LOT more. You know resin is an insulator so toss that one out and you don't need to build a welder, Lincoln makes one that's sure to do the job. Then you can use the power supply as a charger, there's nothing like overkill to lay a conspiracy to rest.

[n2ize]

For the portable battery pack, 1 or 2 , 7.4 -11.4 V RC LiPo batteries should do the job nicely and will cost only 4 - 8 bucks a piece. Might even be able to use some of my older LiPo's since the max current draw in the HT won;t be nearly as much as in their intended application. Only difference is that I won't be able to use the NiCad charger. When I charge the pack I'll have to use a dedicated LiPo charger.