After some considerable work with a chisel, the cells in the 1Ah unit eventually decided they would come out, the bloody foam in this one was seriously hard!
Its now nice and clean inside, still has most of its original shape. I still need to clean up the terminal block. The next job with this one then will be to find a nice compact switch mode 24v power supply that will fit inside it.
The 15v pack for the PRC-350 however, proved to be, initially, a bit of a pig. Despite carefull prising around the seam, I still managed to break a corner of the plastic top off. In the end, after spending a long time trying to get the top off, I decided that prising up the side was a better option - at least the metal can be bashed back to something like the proper shape!
Once I had the top off, getting the cells out was still a bastard to start with, requiring some serious chisel work on the first few cells. But, once I was a layer of cells in, I found that the rest could be manipulated out by a bit of kinetic inertial pulling (the same technique used to de-bullet cartridges - make the moving case stop suddenly and the inertia of the heavy bullet will mean it keeps moving and comes out). Banging the open end on a plywood board a few times made the cell block creep out, until I could grip it and pull it free
I dont yet know what im going to do with this one though. A LiPo pack? A SMPSU? A battery eliminator? Perhaps all three? Hmm, a multipurpose 15v supply pack... theres a thought!
I still have to work out whether the antenna wire I snapped is repairable. Heres a closer look at the damage
Theres about 2m of wire from the plug to the break. I might look at whether its possible to splice this stuff.
What I really need to get on with though, is moving on some of these PRC-349 batteries! Im looking at the postage implications at the moment. Im not even after making much money from them, just covering my costs plus a few extra shekkels. Now, since theres no way ive time to fully test them, im going to have to sell them pretty much as untested at the buyers risk, with no return, which means that I really cant have much mark up on them. I think postage will be about £3, so asking a fiver each might be ok. A fiver might be an acceptable risk. Probably offering them in small bulk, say pairs or quads, might be effective. If I can recoup my initial £15 outlay I can reinvest that in the remaining Clansman parts im looking for!
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