Mastodawn

Mark Roszko Aug 1, 2024

@Judeau the tabs are welded. You can't solder them onto a cell as the cell cans usually because the metal is incompatible with solder or you risk damaging the coin cell because it's so small and easy to heat up.

Personally I would just "make" a new battery. These cells are often available with the tabs from the factory. So you just buy one and transfer the wires over.

Or find an additional piece of nickel stripping to solder and extend the prewelded nickel strips to move the wire solder point.

@mroszko Thanks for the reply even if it is not what I wanted to hear. 😅

These are 20H 1.2 volt NiMH batteries and it is quite difficult to locate these with the solder tabs already installed and the ring of rubber around the battery edge.

The only ones I can currently locate are on eBay and ship from China. Says the shipping will be over a month.

The battery with the rubber ring is on Amazon but unfortunately no solder tabs.

I'll keep looking.

Thanks again.

Mark Roszko Aug 2, 2024

@Judeau use nickel strips to "extend" the tabs out so you can solder wire to the strips in a better configuration. Nickel to nickel tabs solder just fine. Just do it really fast to avoid heating up the cell.

Judeau (EatTheRich)Aug 2, 2024

@mroszko I had not thought of that. Thanks for the suggestion.

@Judeau just a thought - since the batteries are indeed easily damaged by heat - maybe they used a soldering paste with 139 degrees melting temperature at the factory and if so - try using that same type of soldering paste as well

@Judeau or maybe spot weld a new cell instead of soldering and then solder a wire to the welding strips

@in_sympathy that is what I was currently looking at was purchasing a battery spot welder.

These batteries are tough to find with the tabs already installed.

I thought if I could buy the batteries and tabs separately then maybe I could purchase a battery welder to weld them on.

Looking on Amazon it looks like I could get a battery welder for less than $100. At the same time I know very little about all this stuff and while I'm not opposed to learning I hope I'm not getting in over my head.

@Judeau I just ordered one of those welders from Fnirsi a few days ago from AliExpress, but it’ll also take a while to arrive. Hopefully it’s pretty easy to use

@Judeau and also it was like 30-40$ with free shipping - way less than a hundred dollars

@in_sympathy Oh nice! Hopefully it works good.

Knowing very little about this stuff I don't know what to expect to pay for a quality welder. I see quite a few handheld ones available anywhere between 30 and $100.

I might have to pick one up but I think I will probably try that paste you mentioned first.

Thanks for all the info.

I can't believe that aftermarket batteries for some of these PDAs are so hard to come by.

@Judeau I’ve been looking for a backup battery for iPAQ hx4700 - 80$ on eBay VS 1$ on AliExpress 🤷🏻‍♂️

And similar story was for the super capacitor for iPAQ H214

@in_sympathy That's wild. It seems like with everything there's usually a Super Fan out there that makes aftermarket stuff but in this case I guess there's a niche to be filled.