@RolandS888 This was done before.. (Not my work, all credit to Solo Ing);
Hi,
I opened up a Solo battery, and just want to share my findings. This is my first ever write-up, so be nice. : )
- I cracked the battery open. The case consists of two pieces. Top and Bottom. They are just snapped together. No glue and no screws. It was really hard to open and a huge PITA. Kind of like trying to open some of the hard plastic blister packs, you have nowadays for many retail items. : )
- Once you take the top part of the case off, you can see the actual "battery" - the LiPo cells. The cells are taped to the bottom piece of the case, with double side tape.
- The "brain" of the battery, the board, "sits" next to the cells. It is not glued in place, or anything like that. It just sits there. Not lose though. It is held in place by the top and bottom case pieces.
- On the little board at the end of the battery, you will find the ON/OFF switch and the LED indicator, for charge and capacity. Same with this little board. It is held in place by the top and bottom case pieces. No glue, screws or tape.
- Once you open the case, you can take both boards out. However, the LED board is still attached to the main board, and the main board is still attached to the battery via the power leads (positive and negative), and the balancing wires.
- The next step was trying to get the battery itself (LiPo cells) out of the case. This was not to an easy task, as I feared to damage the cells. If I remember correctly, I used a butter knife to slowly pry the cells out of the case. They are attached with double sided tape to the bottom piece of the case.
So far, so good. Now you have the top and bottom piece of the case and the cells with the boards attached to it.
- The next thing I did was, de-solder the positive and negative wires from the battery, and unplug the balance wires from the board. (The balance leads are just connected via a plug to the board. You can just pull the plug out).
- Once I did that, I installed Anderson Power Poles to the wires (the ones coming from the board), and soldered wires to the battery, in order to install my APP connectors. I love those Anderson Power Poles btw... : )
- At this point I was able to finally hook up my OWN battery to board, and plug the board into the Solo! YEAH!
- The only thing left to do with the battery, is to take the balance wires off and replace them with any balancing tab of your choice. Since all my batteries come with JST-XH balance connectors, I soldered a JST-XH balance lead to the battery.
- Now you have the ORIGINAL Solo cells with a connector and balance tab, of your choice. Of course you can use the modified Solo battery in the Solo, or any other RC application of your choice! (in other words, the battery (cells) itself does not go to waste when you open the case!!!
- Now it was time to put my "creation" to the test. I plugged the board into the Solo, then attached my OWN battery and pressed the power button. BAM! The Solo powers ON! Great! After around 10 seconds though, the Solo started peeping! WTH? It turns out, that you also NEED to attached the balance leads to the board. If you don't do that, you will not be able to fly.
- Since the JST-XH balance leads from my batteries obviously don't fit into the board, I had to make an adapter. JST-XH to - whatever the connector is on the board. I have no idea what connector that is, but I just used the original balancing wires from the Solo battery. Even though I hate soldering, I managed to make an adapter, ha ha.
- Having done that, I was finally able to power on the Solo, using my own battery, without having the Solo giving me trouble!
- I took it outside and went for a spin. Everything seemed normal!
- Only thing left to do is to set the capacity in Mission Planner to whatever mAh you use...
I hope my write-up is easy to understand?! If you have any question, feel free to ask!
Thanks.
