Any interest in NEW Repro Lombard / Pismo battery packs?

[Sideburn]

Is anyone out there interested in buying some brand new reproduction battery packs for the Lombard / Pismo?

Im going to take a shot at building and 3d printing some new ones. I purchased a small lot of dead batteries and will be pulling the connector and electronics out and then buying new 18650 batteries. The cost of the batteries I’ve ordered is about $5.00 each and there’s 9 of them. They are 3450mAh.

Then my labor and materials cost for the dead packs and building them. The dead packs I got so far are costing about $10 bucks each. I’ll be spot welding the batteries and then printing new pack enclosures.

Was thinking maybe $100 ?
If there’s interest I’ll buy more dead battery packs.

could also do a discount if you trade in your dead packs so I can get the electronics out of them and not have to seek them out and buy them.

 

[S. Pupp]

That seems reasonable. With shipping costs what they are, that was about what I spent getting my Lombard’s battery rebuilt by Chans in Canada.

Too bad that customs opened the package, then repacked it using the batteries to protect the bubble wrap rather than the other way around. The batteries arrived in pieces.

 

[Sideburn]

Yeah There would be a shipping cost but i wouldn't take anything off the top for that so whatever it is based on location.

I'm figuring the batteries are going to be around $50,, the dead batteries will cost me about $10 or so... plus materials for printing and, packaging, etc.
And then each one will take me about an hour or two to make + printing time. I would do a small run til I burn out on it.

 

[Fizzbinn]

I’d be interested!

 

[Sideburn]

ok cool I ordered the 4 dead OEM packs off the guy on ebay. they shipped today. he has 4 more though that i will get if there's more interested. id rather hold off on buying the batteries til i know how many people are in so i can place a single order.

I will wait til my first set of batteries gets here and build ONE first and prove it is doable then we can go from there.

 

[rikerjoe]

Following. My Pismo’s original battery is still functional but doesn’t hold much of a charge anymore.

 

[Sideburn]

Same here. I get about 20 mins or so. But I’ve read that if it dies completely then the machine won’t even run. Or has issue. I’ll have to test that to confirm if it’s true or not. I’ve been building PB 1xx, and Mac portable packs so I figured I’d give these a shot.

here’s some photos of the other packs I’ve done:

 

[3lectr1c]

It’s the PRAM battery being dead that can sometimes cause a Pismo to act dead. If you disconnect the PRAM battery, it will start working again unless there’s another problem.

 

[Sideburn]

Ahh I rebuilt the pram battery already.

 

[Arbystpossum]

I have 3 packs that have anywhere between 10-30min charge left, absolutely interested in this. Can you just put new cells in and the battery will work, or is there more to it than that?

 

[Sideburn]

Well I think so from what I’ve found online. I mean you have to connect the circuit board to it and spot weld the cells correctly but then I think it should work unless it needs to be reset or something to on the chip but I don’t think so. I found a page on one guy replacing them and it it worked and someone else on YouTube did it and his didn’t but I think he messed up the display was all screwed up. Looked cracked.

I should be getting the dead pack and 9 cells next week and then I can build one to see how everything goes.

 

[3lectr1c]

I do believe these can be rebuilt without resetting or reflashing the BMS.

 

[Kai Robinson]

Oooh I do need a 1xx series battery - is that using the case design from thingiverse??

 

[Sideburn]

Oooh I do need a 1xx series battery - is that using the case design from thingiverse??

No I designed my own. I have one up on ebay right now. It has 10 2600mah (5200mah total) Eneloop Pro cells in it. I payed more for them than i am selling the pack for. asking $50.00 + shipping.. If interested I'll pull it off ebay and sell direct to you.

I also just made two new packs that have a single 5 cell 4500mah pack in them with protection circuitry in them. I guess I could let that one go for $60... Both packs get about 2.5 hour runtime in Battery Amnesia but the Envelop pack gets a bit more than the 5 cell pack..

The 5 cell pack, freed up space so the case was redesigned and has 4 bolts.

Oooh I do need a 1xx series battery - is that using the case design from thingiverse??

 

[Sideburn]

An update on the Pismo / Loma are pack project. Well 8 or the 9 cells I ordered arrived so waiting on the other one to do the first test build. Good news is they seem to be good cells that are actually the mah rating or higher after doing some discharge tests. They are each 3300mah. I was also able to pry open an OEM pack with minimal damage and have sent that off to my friend to try and 3d scan it. He has a high end scanner.

Otherwise I will have to model it myself and it’s a bit tricky for my skills in fusion 360 with all the curves in all directions but I’ll get it sorted.

 

[3lectr1c]

Question - why are you bothering to build a 3D printed pack exactly? You can get the original packs open with little damage, you can't build a new battery without taking the BMS from an original, and a 3D printed pack won't look good at all on the side of a PowerBook. Why not just reuse the original? It doesn't seem like there's much of a point to building a new case.

The MODEL would be nice to have, as that would allow someone to build 100% new batteries if they reverse-engineered the BMS, but as that isn't happening, using a 3D printed case seems like a negative.

 

[Sideburn]

I have one good pack that I was able to open and I will be using that I have others that are mangled and it would be a lot nicer to have a new repro enclosure. It will look fine on the side if it's an exact replica and nearly the same color. A lot better than taping together a busted up old case. the ones I have are in pretty bad shape that I bought online.

 

[3lectr1c]

Alright, makes sense. Texture match is the real trouble though, not color. Makes perfect sense though if the packs you have are beat up.

 

[S. Pupp]

Question - why are you bothering to build a 3D printed pack exactly? You can get the original packs open with little damage...

What is your method for opening these? I have created significant damage to the ones I've opened, and could use some advice before tackling the few I have left.

 

[3lectr1c]

I saw something recently on YouTube - a hypersonic (I think, something like that) cutting tool. Looks like a small razer blade but vibrates very quickly. It can make extremely clean cuts in things, would be PERFECT for opening these batteries. Problem is they're pretty expensive, a few hundred dollars I think.