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Introduction |
| Originally my Pono Player would run for 5 or 6 hours. Now, 6 years later, the battery can only play a 45 minute album on a good day. Time to upgrade that battery ‘cause I love this little music player. | | | Let face facts, 18650 batteries will recharge a couple of hundred times but the capacity degrades. Perhaps the Panasonics, Sonys, Sanyos and LGs really are higher quality and will keep recharging to full capacity in the 1000s; show me the data. My Pono has a “McNair New Power” 3.78V, 2950mAh cell (they all had the same cell). Remove the black plastic wrapper and label (thanks for the label and specs fellas) low and behold it is a Samsung 18650, rated at 3.7, 3000 mAh, with a little protection PCB added on the plus end. | | | The Pono’s original battery is “protected”. Can the Pono power IC work with an unprotected battery? No, I don’t think that is a good idea. Will an off the shelf protected 18650 battery work with the Pono power design? I don’t know, I haven’t delved into it, if you do post it. | | | I bought a high capacity, name brand, medium low current, unprotected, flat top 18650 to put in my Pono. I want to spot weld nickle tabs on the plus and minus contacts (like a real battery manufacturer) rather than solder to the battery (like a hobbyist). Then I will reinstall the original little PCB in the plus end, it has the cable and connector for the Pono power input, cool. | | | It turns out people are doing this spot welding operation quite a bit using a motorcycle battery or a “super cap array” and a moped starter relay to make DIY battery arrays for e-bikes and e-skate boards. Spot welding batteries at home is fun and dangerous, PPE required. There are battery spot welders that can do this work for < $200 on Amazon which are safer. I plan on using a few batteries not hundreds so I’m using a 100 CCA motorcycle battery I have available, a $15 dollar 12 V relay and 2 copper nails for welding contacts. Should you solder or spot weld your battery? WELL, MISUSING OR MISHANDLING LITHIUM ION BATTERIES CAN POSE A SERIOUS RISK OF PERSONAL INJURY, PROPERTY DAMAGE, OR DEATH. | | | This is a link to the very well done Pono Player Teardown by Mike Beauchamp, I will not repeat this effort here. | | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIV8Od-eWC0 | | | This is a link to the SWEET! youtube video by “darkevind“ of a home grown battery tab spot welder that inspired me. The linked video has 100k views but his follow on video (also valuable for this project) has over 400k views. Very fun as I said but play with 18650s at your own risk, seriously. | | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEV21DIVQZA | | | Here is the battery I installed. Do not buy 18650 batteries from a flaky vendor, there have been confirmed counterfeit batteries sold online. | | | https://www.18650batterystore.com/Sanyo-18650-p/sanyo-ncr18650ga.htm |
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