Gregory's Servertime to repair my Thinkpad 700C battery pack! 🧵
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i pulled the 2/3A cells out. they were stuck in with some adhesive, but eventually the assembly came out. i've noticed something interesting about how the metal strips tie the cells together... you can fold them up so the cells are all next to each other and the metal strips are flat! on the top of each photo is the old pack, and on the bottom are the new cells arranged with the correct polarity and taped together. i also used superglue to hold rows of cells together, but in hindsight it might have been better to make a 3D printed jig to hold them. i've welded new metal tabs onto the cells, following the pattern of the old ones. here's one of the two inline fuses that i pulled off the other pack. the other one is already welded in place.
[DATA EXPUNGED]
mastodon broke the thread, it continues here: https://mastodon.social/@tubetime/113155601893075807  @tubetime do you have any recommendations for cleanly *removing* tabs from those cells? (I've mostly done OK with just trimming the excess and leaving the welded part on, at least for reusing them in spring cases and such, but I was wondering if I was missing something cleaner...) |
first, i took it apart and documented the process here on iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/IBM+Thinkpad+700C+Battery+Pack+Teardown/176472
you can read through that if you want and come back. but basically that tells you how to remove the lid without making a huge mess.