Thanks to the advancement of mobile devices, users have received multiple benefits, but at the same time they are forced to face other problems. With greater integration and more compact designs, many manufacturers followed the path of the internal battery, which makes replacement difficult. In this case, we have a guide published by Andrea Gangemi, focused on installing a new battery for his Sony digital reader, although it has several details that could be transferred to other accessories.
The Problem with Internal Batteries
It is likely that a large part of the mobile devices acquired before 2011 or 2012 are already suffering from battery problems. No matter how much we dislike the idea, all batteries have a limit, and the user has no choice but to replace it. Then we find other issues, such as the availability of replacements, their quality (fake batteries are a plague), and the price. The chances of finding two products from two different companies using the same internal battery are very low, so there will never be a lack of that situation where the user must improvise. Let's look at the case of Andrea Gangemi, who left his Sony PRS-T1 digital reader inside the car. The sun's heat annihilated its battery, and on eBay they ask a minimum of $15 for it.
A Clever Workaround
The solution? Apply a slight hack. As an alternative, Gangemi took a Motorola BT50 battery and made all the necessary connections with a soldering iron and some Kapton tape to protect the unit during the process. Unfortunately, the digital reader was not very pleased with the maneuver, and it did not allow the battery to take a charge, under the excuse of overheating. This is due to the differences between the NTC thermistor that the battery has, and the value that the reader expects to read. Gangemi's adjustment was to trick the temperature sensor by placing a 60 KOhm resistor between the wire and the pin.
The trick is quite raw, since in essence it disables the thermal control that the reader exercises over the battery, but being a low-density unit inside a device that has been on the market for half a decade, the risk is relatively low, and the charging circuit in the reader should be able to detect any irregularity. If you have a reader or tablet with a dead battery and cannot obtain a replacement, maybe a hack similar to this will help.
