>>>>>How and where do you start cracking it open?
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This is how I do it —- VERY carefully. The batteries are thin and the plastic is sharp. It isn’t a race. Just take it slow, and it’ll be a breeze. Feel any battery getting hot during the process; toss the whole thing outside and leave it alone for at least 15 minutes or so. If you feel heat, you probably short circuited it and that’s the end of it. But fortunately this rarely happens.
I sorta think of it like defusing an IED. Someone on BLF said this — not me. But they’re pretty close to the truth.
Get some needle nose pliers and some leather work gloves. Tear the label off. There is also a long thin piece of plastic down a seam. Pull that off. Then start with the tabs. Sometimes, you can get a good grip on one of those and pull back the shell enough to get a gloved finger in. I suggest gloves because this plastic can have edges like razor blades. Trust me on this. I have got some NASTY cuts pulling apart packs without gloves. A couple almost deep enough for stitches.
Okay after the tabs break off and you do all you can do there, start peeling back the edges under the label. Just keep peeling and trying to get the plastic off in as big a pieces as possible. Finally you will get a pretty big hole going in the center. Now go to the rounded ends with the needle nose and sorta grab an edge and see if you can break the ends off and then you can pretty much diassemble it.
It’s not exactly easy, but it’s not exactly hard. These acers are about a 5 in difficulty. There are FAR worse. It is better to twist off little pieces of plastic then to twist a big piece and dent a cell. Once dented, even a small dent, to me the cell is usless and I’ll toss it. If you can cut the label, I’d never use it without a shrink tube over the original label. These cells can arc in a millisecond and tack weld themselves to whatever the arc is jumping to. Once they’re welded to something, you are not going to separate them, and the reaction will continue to its messy smoky and fiery end.
Once you get the battery tree out, twist and pull the tabs off the terminals. Be really careful around the neg poles. The cell-can metal is thin and can be deformed easily, another cause for tossing a cell.
Once you get all the batteries separated, use a chop stick edge to wipe off the crunchy glue. dremel off any weld remnants, especiall VERY carefully on the neg ploes again. The metal is thin and you do NOT want to weaken it. You need a super light touch to do this.
Then use clear 18650 shrink tube — cut to size — to cover any nicks and the whole cell, like a second clear label. Some people don’t do this and I can’t figure out why. The shrink tube costs like 2 cents a cell and protects the label and prevents shorts. Plus it looks totally pro and factory installed. The original label is a stretchy plastic and doesn’t hold up well to use.
I also write battery info on the battery before covering it with the shrink wrap. If you’re using it in a light like the S5 that has a tiny tube, don’t use a second shrink tube. It won’t fit.
Stand cells upright and QUICKLY put an even solder blob on top. Do NOT heat the battery. Once again, you have to be super quick. There’s a thin plastic bag jelly-rolled inside, and if that melts, you’ll get a vent with flames for sure. But you can do the solder so fast that the postive terminal barely gets warm. If you’re unsure of your soldering skills, practice on something first. Magnets will work in a pinch if you’re feeling lucky, but they can migrate and short out. Not a chnace I want to take. Obviously no preheating the tab when soldering. Flux will help it stick better.
Then charge em up.
Maybe there’s a better way to crack a pack, but this is the way I do it. Once you do it a couple times, you’ll do it much faster and be able to do a six-cell pack — from cracking to solder — in about 15 minutes. Charging these in an intellicharger takes about 4-5 hours. Like any new and unknow battery, charge it OUTSIDE. I have had a li-ion blow up inside, and believe me, you don’t want it to happen to you. Not only is it life-threatening dangerous, it leaves a toxic-nightmare mess that will take you and another person DAYS tp clean up.
Oh —- Be careful about twisting the whole pack in a gorilla grip with Hulk strength, thinking your superhuman prowess will bust all the glued plastic seams, and the cell tree will miraculously tumble out unharmed. I have never succeeded in doing anything better than twisting 5 out of 6 cells completely out of round and bulloxing the whole pack. And DON’T use the cells for leverage against your needle-nose pliers. You will dent them for sure. Tear the plastic in peces AWAY from the cells, with a twisting tearing action.
I have also used a dremel cutting wheel to get into some packs, but these acers don’t really have any clearance between plastic and cell, so there’s a good chance you’ll cut the battery AND the plastic.
This all sounds much worse than it is.
Hope this helps!