A night in the cells

Yesterday I visited, for the first time, the Norbreck rally in Blackpool, taking the family along so they could have a day out riding trams and on the beach. I took a shopping list of just a few items I required,

Well I didnt get any of them! And the rain and wind meant that the kids never got on the beach, nor did I, and I was looking forward to a bit of metal detecting.

I did however meet a number of the other SOTA activators, and got, finally, some replacement cells for the EBP-16N 7.2v pack for my Alinco handheld. These are 2500mAhr 1.2v NiMH 'hybrid' cells, a substantial improvement in capacity from the packs original 700mAhr rating!

Re-celling battery packs is not something I enjoy, its hard work, awkward, and fiddly.

Above is the open pack, showing its innards and the card tubes that held the old cells. These new cells are either a fraction wider, or the tubes have shrunk, either way they wouldnt go back on and have been discarded after I checked there were no places the cells could short out. Most fiddly was getting the bimetal resettable fuse to fit correctly at the top of the pack.

And this is the finished pack beside my venerable Alinco DJ-F1E, the mainstay of my SOTA operations. It isnt pretty, but the tape can be removed to repair the pack much more easily than if I glued the pack back together!

Planning the SOTA side of the Lyke Wake Walk ( Why not support us? ) I also discovered that the terminals of the battery holders in my FT-290mk1 are corroded. So next job, when the new ones arrive, is to replace the holders within the Electric Handbag to hold the 8x C size 4000mAhr NiMH cells.