My journey of repairing and recycling anything I put my hands on that I believe is still useful. Not just hardware, but including software with relevant content and issues in the field of Cyber Security, Vulnerability Scanning and Penetration Testing.
This is a battery pack from my AEG Brushless Combo Kit.
The Combo kit came with a hammer drill/driver, an impact driver and two battery packs with a charger. I used this AEG kit when I was building my timber deck back in 2016. Since then, I had been using the drill/driver sporadically. Recently when I went to use it, found that the drill would not run so put the battery pack to charge while I used the other battery pack. After it was fully charged, I found that pressing the test button shows that the battery pack is fully charged, but it still didn’t work on the drill. I checked the AEG website for my warranty, but found that the battery packs were now out of warranty.
I searched the local Bunnings website for replacements. These AEG batteries are not cheap, and I could not find the 2.5Ah version. I did find the 2.0Ah 18V battery pack for $89 or the 3.0Ah 18V battery pack for $129. I put it aside until I had a chance to do something with it since I still have one working battery pack.
Whilst I was working on the Segway battery pack, I thought that I should check the batteries inside the battery pack.
The battery pack is held together with eight security Torx screws. Fortunately I have the proper T-10H screwdriver bit so could remove the screws with ease. Four screws held the top cover.
Another four screws held the sides – these sides need to be removed to expose the tabs on the battery cells inside the battery pack.
To my surprise, both sets of screws were the same length – this is not often the case, so means that I don’t need to keep each set of screws separated.
I used my multimeter to check each cell. The first one I measured was 2.56V – which wasn’t right. The remainder all measured 4.1V each, so it appears that this one cell is the problem. As my Swallow Advance charger was still on the bench, I can use it to charge the bad cell.
I don’t need to kick start the cell, since there is some charge in the cell.
After it completed charging, there wasn’t much capacity delivered. I ran another charge cycle and it topped up a little, but the cell voltage drops from 4.1V down to 3.9V – so it appears that the cell is not retaining its charge capacity.
Anyway, I reassembled the battery pack and put it on my drill and was happy to confirm that the drill now worked with this battery, when it failed to do so the other day. Then I put the battery pack into the AEG charger to let it charge. Again, time will tell if this particular lithium-ion cell will remain usable.
Oh, one more thing – I found on eBay that there are compatible 4Ah battery packs available – a lot cheaper at $36.99 – and appear to be for Ridgid branded drills, and works with AEG. That is always an alternative since replacing a single cell would require dismantling of the battery pack and spot welding the contacts again – I don’t have a battery spot welder, maybe I should get one.
My friend Thomas owns this Segway Ninebot One S2 Unicycle. The Ninebot One S2 is powered by two battery packs, and he got a warning from his Segway phone app that the batteries were “severely disparate”. Further troubleshooting found that one battery pack seemed to be low in charge and just wouldn’t charge. Replacements for these battery packs were not available in Australia, so he was looking for other solutions. He then remembered that I do all sorts of repairs and contacted me about it. I said that I would be very happy to have a look at it.
He brought it to me a while ago, and I had a quick look at it. When the ND1501-B battery pack is removed from the unicycle, there will usually be a small green led that is lit to show that the battery pack is working. The left side battery pack seemed to be ok, but the right side battery pack was bad – when viewed with the power button facing forwards.
I couldn’t make a diagnosis until the battery pack could be opened up. There should be an electronic circuit board inside the battery pack that would monitor the status of the batteries and if anything goes wrong, it would disconnect the output to protect the battery pack from further damage. The battery pack comprises of two halves that clip together, and unfortunately – it was very difficult to open without causing some damage to the casing.
Even a Google search did not come up with information on how to open the battery casing – I did find a YouTube video of one that had been opened – but the only instructions were to pry it apart. After some thought, I chose to put the battery pack into my milling machine, and carefully mill off a section of the case.
Getting ready to mill a hole near one of the tabs
This would be where one of the clips would be located. That can be my entry point to determine how the clips work and how to open the casing. It sounded easy, and I could see how the clip engaged, but just could not push the casing apart at that point. I tried a number of times, and would put it aside, then come back to look at it again. I really didn’t want to damage the casing any more than I already had.
Anyway, I eventually worked out that I had to lever the area where the clip was located outwards, and then the case started to separate. Then I used another tool to pry the sides apart bit by bit as the clips began to disengage. There appeared to be some sort of glue used to join the sides together, so prying the case halves, caused the glue seal to break and then the sides eventually came apart.
Now that the battery pack was open, I could look at the battery layout and how it works.
The battery pack consists of 15 lithium cells. The part number is LGEBMG11865. When I look that up, I find that it is a Lithium-Ion cell, 3.62V and 2850mAh – this will be important for when I do the cell charging. The 15 cells are joined in a series arrangement with 10 cells in one group, and 5 cells in the group above.
Coincidentally, it seems that those 5 cells were all showing little or no voltage, whereas the other cells of the group of 10 were on average 4.1V each which indicate a fully charged state. From this, I would surmise that perhaps that group of 5 cells at some point, had less capacity than the rest, so when the battery pack was being used to its capacity, those cells went completely flat before the protection circuitry could prevent this. Once that had happened, the battery pack would no longer charge.
I have a Swallow Advance Digital charger which could handle 1-5 cells, but this will only work if the cells still had some charge. The only way to find out if the lithium cells are still workable is to charge each cell individually. To do this, I need to kick start the cell first using another charger before I can use the Swallow charger.
I have a TP4056 charger that I had previously used to fix a completely flat Samsung phone battery. This TP4056 charger is designed to charge a single cell with a specific current until it reaches 4.1V. I connected this TP4056 charger to my multimeter so that I can monitor the voltage, then used the multimeter probes to contact the first cell. I could see the cell voltage slowly rise from zero to 1V – this was promising. After disconnecting the TP4056, I could see that the cell was still holding some voltage.
Ok – great. I then connected the TP4056 again, and charged the cell to about 1.5V. This kick start process takes short period of time – usually around 15-30 seconds, so I had to hold the probes on the lithium cell until I got to that voltage. I know if the Swallow charger can detect some voltage on the lithium cell above 1V that it would be able to charge the cell.
At this stage, I then connected the Swallow and it was able to commence charging. The way the Swallow charger works is that it first checks the cell voltage and if it is below a certain threshold, it stops and gives a low voltage error. This time however, it could measure some voltage and began to charge at a constant current of 0.1C.
Remember earlier, I noted that the cell capacity was 2850mAh – this is what I set in the Swallow charger configuration. 0.1C is one-tenth of the capacity and so it charges initially at 280mA or so, until the cell voltage rises to near 3.6V – at which time, it switches to CCCV mode, i.e. constant current at 1C and constant voltage.
I could see that once the charger was running in CCCV mode, it increased the maximum charge current to 2.85A, which then slowly decreases while approaching a target voltage of 4.1 Volts. The target voltage will differ depending on the cell type – this one is Lithium-Ion, so it will have a nominal voltage of 3.6V and end up at 4.1V. Lithium-Ion Polymer would be different – with nominal at 3.7V and full charge at 4.2V.
It is important to use the correct charging method for the battery type – and since the Swallow Advance is an automatic charger, I just need to input that the battery type is Lithium-Ion, capacity is 2850mAh and nominal voltage is 3.6V or 1 cell since I am charging a single cell at a time. When the charge cycle has completed, the charger will give a short series of beeps and then display a status screen.
This shows that it took 221 minutes and 17 seconds, and delivered approximately 2353mAh capacity to the battery. Ok, on to the next cell – kick start the charging first, then connect the Swallow charger, and then the next, etc until all five are done. For the remaining three cells, I decided to connect the cells to the Swallow charger, then using the TP4056 would kick start the cell by connecting the probes to the Swallow charger output. Then when the cell voltage hit 1.5V, remove the probes and quickly press and hold the Enter button to start the Swallow charger.
My Swallow charger could have charged those 5 cells together at once, why didn’t I do this, you might ask? Yes, I could have kick started each cell individually, then used the Swallow charger to charger all five cells as once. But this might overcharge some cells and undercharge others as the charger doesn’t have a charge balancer. Since I didn’t know whether each cell was working, I might have caused damage to any good cells. By charging the cells individually, I can at least determine how much capacity I delivered to each cell using the Swallow charger.
The table shows each battery, how long it took in minutes and seconds, then the delivered charge capacity. As each cell was fairly consistent at around 2350mAh – I thought this was ok for cells that were a year or two old, as it is normal for cells to lose a bit of capacity over time. And yes, the individual cell charging was taking 3-4 hours each – I didn’t have to sit and watch it of course – once the charge is completed, the charger will give a series of beeps and then sits monitoring the cell voltage until I disconnect the cell.
I checked the overall voltage of the cells and got 60.2V – which was satisfactory. On the output though, I could measure only 5.5V – but I think that was because the battery pack is in safe mode. After I had checked that everything was intact, no stray wires sitting on the battery pack, charger disconnected completely – I pressed the S1 switch.
The switch press caused the green led to start blinking – which is a very good sign. Just think of the S1 switch as being the start button for the microcontroller (the black square chip with lots of leads) to turn on. Once it is on, the battery pack will continue running until the battery pack either fails or goes completely flat. Ideally, if the Ninebot is going to be unused for a while – then it should be placed on charge once a month or so.
As to why it failed in the first place – since it was a group of five cells, I suspect that maybe those five cells had a lower capacity in the first place – or may not have been fully charged when the battery pack was manufactured. Then over time, those cells eventually went completely flat – causing the Segway app to generate a warning about the batteries. It isn’t uncommon for cells to go completely flat, so whatever the reason – these cells seem to be ok – were able to charge, so time will tell if this repair is going to last.
If it happens again, I can always charge the cells again – now that I know how to open the battery pack. Other actions that I could take – would be to run a number of discharge/charge cycles. This is usually done to determine the actual capacity of the cells, and can sometimes help to rejuvenate failing cells. These cells are most likely failing, but at least they are working, so until it fails again – best to get some use out of it. Using the Ninebot One will help to discharge the cells, then putting it back on charge, will help to exercise the cells anyway.
I reassembled the battery pack, put duct tape over the hole that I had made and installed it back into the Ninebot One S2. Then the rubber seals installed and the covers fastened into place. I found and installed the Segway-Ninebot app on my phone – then powered on the Ninebot One, and connected to it via Bluetooth. Once I registered my app, I was able to see that the battery packs were at 100% and 99% – which I thought was fantastic.
All of this work had been done over several days – not consecutively, and summarises the main points of this particular repair. Today is a Sunday as I write this article which was started a couple of days ago – maybe after my badminton this afternoon, I could try going for a little ride! Or at least attempt to – since this would be my very first experience on an electric unicycle.
[P.S. The white connector in that picture above connects to each battery individually, so when charging batteries 12 onwards, I inserted small jumper wires to contact the pins, i.e. white and black wire, then black and blue, blue and yellow and finally yellow and red. The jumper wires then go to my Swallow charger – for battery 12, negative would be the white, and positive would be the black. Then the next battery, negative would be black, and positive would be blue – and so on. For the low charge currents that I am using, those wires can easily carry the charging load.]
[P.P.S – This is the third lithium battery article – you remember, all good things come in three’s! Actually, there is another lithium battery article coming up next – so maybe it is four’s!]
It seems that once I get started on lithium batteries, it doesn’t seem to end. This post is about a Sound Blaster E5.
The Sound Blaster E5 is a 24-bit/192kHz high resolution USB DAC and portable headphone amplifier and contains a lithium battery. The E5 belongs to my son, who had been using it for many years. My son didn’t use it with its portable capability, but was permanently plugged into a USB port on his computer.
A while ago, he noticed that the metal name plate didn’t seem to be attached properly. Little did he know that this was a sign of a swollen battery – and from the Google searches on this topic, it seems likely that almost every E5 will suffer this fate sooner or later. Creative had tried to fix the problem by offering a firmware patch, but if the battery is very swollen, that patch will not help. My son had taken it apart by following instructions found online. The battery was very swollen, and there were wires everywhere, so due to the potential fire hazard, it was put aside.
The battery in this case is a lithium-ion polymer battery. Lithium-ion batteries usually contain electrode sheets that are wrapped around like a Swiss roll. When the battery is overheated, or overcharged or even left discharged for long periods of time, it can swell or pillow. Gases build up inside, and if the protective envelope is punctured, it can cause an explosion or fire.
It was at this stage that I was involved. After some careful examination, I could see that the battery was a bit loose on one side, so it was most likely held in by adhesive tapes. If I could separate the battery from the adhesive, I might have a chance to detach it, and bring it outside of the case. Nothing of course is as easy as it sounds, and due to the very swollen nature of the battery pack, it was essential not to damage it by using sharp utensils. Ideally, I would be wearing a full face mask to protect myself from fire, and wearing fireproof gloves – but I don’t have those handy.
Yesterday, it was time to look at this delayed job. It had been sitting there for a month or so, and as long as I was careful – I should be able to remove the battery. I made a couple of soft plastic spatulas from an old store loyalty card. I could have used an old credit card but those are usually cut up and disposed of. The edges of the spatulas were rounded so they won’t have a sharp corner, and although it helped, the spatula would stick to the adhesive. I then got a worn wooden clothes peg, the type that was held together by a spring. By separating the peg, I was able to use the pieces to prod the tape until the battery was loose.
The clothes peg pieces were much stiffer, so that made it easier to do the job. Once the battery was out of the case, I could then cut the wires off the battery, as I would need to use the wires eventually – if I want to restore this device back into a working condition.
For the moment though, I was concerned with removing the fire hazard. Once the wires were cut, I can then have a closer look.
A lot of “Do Not’s”
From the battery model number, I can see that it is a 535058 1S2P. This means that originally, the battery is 5.3mm thick, with a width of 50mm and length of 58mm. It is also 2 battery cells in parallel, which you can see in the next photo.
It has pillowed out to be just over 20mm, which caused the case to balloon out and hence why the metal nameplate was loose. I will store the battery in a tin box for the time being. If this Sound Blaster E5 had been sitting under a desk, out of sight, it could eventually have exploded or started a fire, so we dodged this bullet this time around. If we have battery operated devices, we should check them from time to time. If they use lithium batteries or even NiCd and NiMH, it makes sense to charge them, from time to time.
I just received another UPS battery delivery today, since my main UPS started beeping recently. My eBay purchase history shows that the batteries I just ordered, had also been bought back in 2018 – so a life of 3 years in a UPS is quite reasonable, but I would have preferred it to be longer. I ordered the two 12V 18Ah lead acid batteries yesterday and they got delivered today from Melbourne. I will have to schedule the battery replacement, since the main UPS powered up my internet and internal network – maybe a Sunday morning would be good.
Anyway, that’s it for now – another lithium battery article. Good things come in three’s – next article to come will be about the lithium battery pack from a Segway Ninebot One S2 Unicycle.
This story begins about two weeks ago. Do you know that often – one thing leads to another? This story is a bit like that. I noticed that my phone, the Xiaomi Mi A3 had some very fine scratches on the screen. When I bought that phone, I had also ordered a glass screen protector which arrived in many pieces, so that got refunded and I didn’t get around to getting another screen protector. My wife’s phone was the Xiaomi Mi A1 and it had a plastic screen protector that was very worn, so had patches on it where the top coating was missing.
I ordered glass screen protectors for both phones from eBay. Eventually they arrived a few days later, so last week – I was putting the glass screen protectors on the phones. After doing this, I then had a look at my old phone, which was a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 – for which I had a spare plastic screen protector. I thought while I had the cleaning materials out, I should swap the screen protector for this phone at the same time.
After removing the Note 4 from its case, I noticed that the screen was bulging out. Then I noticed that the back was bulging too! I remember that for a while now, this Note 4 was getting quite hot when being used, and now I realize that it must be due to the failing battery. This battery had been replaced in October 2018 – just about three and a half years ago. I still had all the tools to remove the back cover, so decided to do just that.
There are two tiny screws on the bottom where the micro usb (charging) port is located – it needed a small pentalobe screwdriver to remove the screws. Then it was a matter of using the plastic prying piece, which looks a bit like a guitar pick. I finally remembered that it needs to be pried where the metal back cover is contacting the plastic around the screen. The best part to do this was where the charging port is located, so eventually removed it. I saw that the battery was swollen – puffed up a bit like a balloon, but not that big, of course.
The battery is hermetically sealed, or at least – it should be. When it begins to fail, it can generate more gases than can be recombined, so these excess gases lead to the bulging of the battery. If it wasn’t airtight, exposure to water vapour in the air due to humidity can cause catastrophic failure, i.e. you hear stories of phones burning – yeap. This can happen also if the gases continue to increase until the plastic around the battery breaks (pops) – then yeah, burning can happen, since lithium is a highly reactive metal.
A quick check on eBay shows that the BN41 battery is still available, so was able to order it a couple of days ago. It should arrive sometime next week. In the meantime – what do I do with this swollen battery, and come to think of it, the batteries that had been swapped from the UPS’s, and all the other batteries. The lithium battery should be stored in a fireproof bag, but I don’t have one handy, so might be best to be placed in a tin box.
Remember those old alkaline batteries, AA, AAA and 9V ones! These are all meant to be recycled, and not thrown into the garbage. I had been putting the old batteries into plastic bags and stored in the garage. Also a lot of rechargeable batteries, NiCd, NiMH – were similarly stored. Old battery packs from broken cordless tools were also stored in the garage. I did mention that one thing leads to another – I started by replacing screen protectors, then needed to get a replacement battery for a phone, and now need to dispose of all of the old batteries. Come to think of it, I still have the old car battery that came out of the Honda Civic recently when it failed and needed a replacement.
I looked on the local government website for battery recycling and eventually found a place nearby – Battery World at Northmead North Parramatta. I sent them an email asking about whether I can drop off these old batteries and they replied back that I could do this any time. So on Wednesday, I will most likely bundle all of these batteries, including any others that I find and drop them off to be recycled.
I realize that not everyone sends batteries to be recycled, and often the alkaline batteries are tossed into the garbage along with everything else that is discarded. In Australia, about 98% of lead-acid batteries are recycled. Most of these are of course, car and truck batteries – usually when being replaced, the servicing guy will take the old batteries away to be recycled. If you buy certain brands of UPS batteries, they used to come with a freight label to send the old battery back – I don’t know if they still do this.
Lithium-ion and associated batteries though – only about 2% of them get recycled here in Australia. The CSIRO says that Australia produces 3,300 tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste a year, and this increases by 20% each year, and may hit 100,000 tonnes by year 2036. Lithium-ion batteries are used almost everywhere now – laptops, phones, portable electronics, electric vehicles and now even some UPS’s are using them instead of lead-acid ones.
So let’s do our bit for the environment – if you have old batteries lying around, check with your local council or local government on what to do with them. Now I just need to wait for the phone battery to arrive, and I can complete my repair.
Remember that I bought some replacement UPS batteries a while ago, to get some UPS’s running again. One battery I got was for this APC Back-UPS BK650MI model. I had time a week ago to swap out the battery and put the new battery in. I then left it powered up, so that the battery can have the opportunity to fully charge.
On Saturday night, my younger son needed help with his computer which was going through a reboot cycle, and I connected it to this UPS but the computer would not power up. Remembering that this UPS also had a surge protection outlet, I plugged into that outlet and was able to work on the computer. It turned out that the memory modules although inserted correctly didn’t seem to be recognized, so after removing and inserting the memory again, the computer would power up and boot to Windows 10.
Yesterday, I decided to do some further checking and was checking the output voltage on the protected outlets of the UPS. I got no voltage from each of the three outlets, but the surge protection outlet was ok.
This particular UPS is of a mains interactive type. What this means is that when mains power is available, it should provide mains power to the protected outlets. If the power was disconnected, it would then switch to the standby power which would be a modified sinewave. I disconnected the power cord, and sure enough I could measure some voltage on the protected outlets. This indicated that the battery inverter section of the UPS was working – it was generating an output as I could measure it.
After some thought, I decided that the most likely culprit was the output relay – the device that connects to the mains power or to the inverter power. After turning on and off the UPS a number of times, I could hear the relay engage with a slight click, then disengage with a slight clunk. This means that the relay was energizing, so then the likely reason is that one of the relay circuits was not engaging. The only way to find out is to open the UPS.
First I opened the panel on the bottom of the UPS and removed the battery. Then removed four screws and the case cover could slide off. Then I fastened the bottom panel again. With a visual inspection, I was able to find the relay quite easily. I measured the normally closed contacts and both were working. Knowing that the relay is a 12V model, I could have connected a battery to turn the relay on, but as it was almost certain to be faulty – it would be best to remove the relay.
The relay is highlighted
Using a multimeter in the resistance range, I could check that the left two pins of the relay connect to the L1 and L2 contacts. Then the next two were connecting to the third pair of contacts, which is correct when the relay is not energized. When the relay is turned on, the second pair of contacts should connect to the left pair, but I can only check that if I manually connect a 12V voltage to the relay coil – the right hand pair of contacts. If I try this in circuit and get the polarity wrong, it can cause issues on the board, so it would be best to test it after the relay has been removed from the board. After desoldering the 8 pins of the relay, then with a bit of a wiggle and slight heating of one stuck pin, the relay came loose off the board.
I connected the multimeter to the two top left contacts, then applied 12V to the coil. The relay clicked and I could see that the two contacts were closing by reading a low resistance. I then moved the multimeter to the bottom two left contacts and energized the relay again. This time however, there was a high resistance, indicating that the contacts were not closing. This means that the relay is faulty, as one pole of the relay was not working. I did this about 10 times, and it started to be intermittent, sometimes working but mostly not working. After another 10 times, the contacts were mostly closing, i.e. working. A relay can often get some oxidation on the contacts and by performing this energizing test, can sometimes restore the relay to working order. Maybe I could set up something to automatically energize this relay every 10 seconds – if I do this 1000 times, and it works each time, it might be fixed.
This relay is a critical part of the UPS as it directs the power from the outlets to mains for normal operation and to the inverter during power loss. What I wouldn’t want is for the relay contact to suddenly stop working – thereby causing a connected device to suddenly lose power. In this situation, it is recommended to replace the faulty relay, than to put it back in and hope it doesn’t fail again. Imagine you are using your computer that is powered through this UPS and the computer suddenly goes off in the middle of something important.
The relay after removal from the board
The relay is an OEN 68-12-2CE made in India. It has contacts rated for 6A continuous. I could get similar relays but those were rated for 5A only. I then found that I could get the exact same model from a supplier in China for US$10. For critical applications like this UPS, it is best to use either the same part or a higher rated part, and as this relay is still available – that would be my best choice.
So, clicked the Buy Now button, then Pay Now to buy the replacement relay. All I need to do now is to wait for it to arrive. Once I install it, I can make a follow-up post to show whether this was a successful repair. Maybe I didn’t need to replace the battery after all.
R.IT 