Ni-MH Charger Demolition 

for anyone unaware, IKEA LADDA batteries are just rebadged Panasonic Eneloops. They come from the same factory in Japan.

Hi Fran - watching you struggle to open the charger just made me think of Big Clive and his Vice of Knowledge lol

"A failed surgery is halfway into a successful dissection." The discombobulation is so BRUTAL! Not fucking around at all, bringing out the big guns. Vise of knowledge and all that.

Yeah, I'm surprised there were no visible signs of the magic smoke escaping. So most likely a component failure that didn't lead to heat build up in it, but cooked those batteries good and proper. I had that happen once but I don't recall how different the overtemp battery cell smell is to the magic smoke smell.

Wow at how hard it was to get apart... It's a battery charger, not a national secret!

Securitorx is very common these days, used in almost everything. My bet is the little Nichicon capacitor on the primary side has failed, going open circuit, which meant the power supply would no longer regulate the secondary. Primary side regulation, so the secondary voltage likely went to around 15V, instead of the 5V or so it normally had, and the pass transistors for the charger went all short circuit, and cooked the cells nicely then.

Not disappointing at all! A lesson from the Big Clive school of precision investigation. 🙂

Your masterful use of tools was entertaining

I'm surprised. I remember the really old chargers which just had a light bulb to limit current. SO high tech. And affordable too.

It was difficult watching you struggle to open this! I have the exact same charger and I compulsively disassemble almost everything I own. If the screws come out cleanly it easily splits open with a spudger.

Rechargeable battery tech has really come a long way, I remember we used to have a massive brick that you had to plug in with a wire. It had a switch on it for two different types of battery you could charge with it. I was pretty surprised when I got a unit that could plug straight into a wall socket - so much smaller!

I have a simalar charger and this week wondering why higher capacity batteries wont charge, so happy you tore it apart, simple videos can give a great insight. Great timing too. Universe working its magic as always :)

The gentle persuasion of a hammer 😆

I'm wondering if under the yellow tape the transformer has shorted windings.

nice teardown, the fact that there were no visible signs of combustion would make me wonder if the smell was in fact from the batteries, but then permeated into the charger unit. Did you ever try checking the current & voltage output to see if the values were within the acceptable ranges?

Left-hand drill bits are useful at these times. The struggle is almost comical. Entertaining.

Cap can blow at the leads below too...

Hammer and chisel - best friends for repairing such stuff :D

Very informative! I wanted to see the AC line isolation in similar types of chargers. Thanks for tearing yours apart. If you tell Radio Shack you dropped yours and it broke, will they replace it?

5:28: "Do not under any circumstances, ever, even think about opening up this device!" Never seen such opposition from a little box:-)

Hey Fran, I have excellent news, Gilbert Arcieniega is a recorder guy back in 1980 he uses to record Audio cassettes and Video cameras with VHS and Digital.

Very cool autopsy, even if the mystery was not solved. And you are adorable!

Only Fran would take a hammer and screwdriver to get into delicate electronics, she's one of a kind😂

A bit of reflow and some crazy glue, right back to operational!

All the Kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put charger back together again

Try using a small pocket screwdriver on those tamper proof screws,I used this method plenty of times.

Torx security screws.... Had to deal with them at my shop with Rowenta steam irons.

brilliant Fran

would acetone remove the plastic solvent that holds the two shells together.

Well, that was a fight worth watching 😁

@02:15 At the bottom of the back cover it has '05-15' molded or stamped in. So May 2015? Chip @10:30 is 1505 so same date?

What’s the black mark on top of C16? Could be a burn mark but I guess it could be a dab of paint?

i use a 4-amp charger and i wonder how long its caps are gonna last

2:16 There is a date code of 05-15 embossed on the back, lower corner of the case.

I have that white Panasonic charger also use it over single use batteries, they last a long time!

We used to call that "Brogan Maintenance."

I've been really happy with my Panasonic Anyloops. My first set has done well over 1000 cycles and have lost about 20% of their capacity, but that's pretty good value all things considered. I did buy a newer set of anyloop pros, but for some reason I'm only around 2000mAh out of them instead of the rated 2450mAh. Not sure if it's just because I'm using them in a Game Boy Color [sic] and they've just got a different discharge curve to the original 1900mAh cells, or what. Still better than the old ones, so that's fine with me. My charger is an Opus BT-C3100, not the greatest but it does the job. I mostly got it because it supports Ni-MH and Li-ion, and you can set the charge current.

Ah, a Bigclive-style teardown, I see! 😆

I love the smell of cooked capacitors in the morning... OK, OK, I am going... 😀

I've been slowly getting rid of my old fashioned batters to use USB chargeable ones. It is so convenient to just plug them into a USB charger and away we go. I have duplicate pairs so I can using one set while charging the other. I like that they are drop-in replaceable for standard cells.

Interesting anyway to see you successfully get inside after many tries.

Fun, fun. Digging and exploring. Resistance is futile.

When I caught a (different model of) NiMH charger in the act of cooking my batteries, it made a bad smell. I think the smell was just the batteries, though, which were visibly weeping liquid. I also took my charger apart and I also saw no obvious signs of damage. An internet search showed me that my model charger was widely recognized as having design and/or firmware issues that could just ... cook batteries once in a while. Jeepers! I threw it out. And replaced it -- with a Panasonic. Hah! The house of entropy always wins.

3:18 Adore the 'Sod This' Attitude.

i was beginning to feel empathy rage just before it finally opened

I can recommend the BC-700 charger. It is sold under different brand names but pretty ubiquitous.

I just snap off the centre pin.

you should have plugged it in and look at where the magic smoke escapes from :)

C16 looked oddly colored though?

Theirs probably screws under that label Fran.

They break when you don't want them to, and don't break when you want them to.

Grrrrr yes universal tools.

I don't know... those electrolytics do look a bit bulged on the sides...

Gosh, why so brutal and destructive, huge screwdrivers chisels and a hammer! I had that model and with the right screwdriver, a little heat and a spider, they do come apart easily, to live another day. 😢

wot no angle grinder?

Just use a soldering iron to heat the screws and they will come out easy.

But her school very current charger I bought one in 2021 I doubt the store would have kept it around for that long cuz they are still selling them to this very day

I have two of them. Different brandings but otherwise identical.

i got same one with Nikon L120

All I can say about this particular video is, kids, take note, do not try to fix electronics after having too many shots of malibu.

Valiant little Panasonic charger case! Could have ended worse: two busted tools, lots of blood drawn!!

9:00 "And... time."

Awesome! I have 3 very similar Panasonic chargers of slightly different model number. I absolutely LOVE seeing it "exploded" view 😊 thank you Patreon supporters. You are amazing!

WTB jaws of life.

Next project, replace the battery in a $1,000 smart phone. Drill, hammer, chisel; check, check, check.

I used to recharge Alkaline batteries as a kid, you have to go slow or they kersplode

Star Drive? Warp 1! Engage!

Aweome job 🙌👍😊👌🍀

When all else fails, use a bigger hammer. I love it. Nothing to see here...

Are you able to recycle ewaste locally, Fran? ♻️

It pays to have the right tools. A much bigger hammer in this case.

If "resistance is futile", what is Voltage divided by Current? LOL.

Delicate like Shango66.

ah a new tool the spudger-chisel and the more common pry-driver and pry-hammer.

A surprising number of smd components in there.

This looks like me trying to be delicate! Where is my BIG hammer?

That was cool! I have a few of these chargers and use them for basically the same things ... I had no idea they'd put up such a fight, though. 😵

it looks you really hate this charger...

If you can't fix it with a hammer, you need a bigger hammer

There's a point where you just take a hammer to it.

This is not the way! 😂

These Panasonic chargers suck and will destroy batteries sooner or later. I highly recommend buying a set of security Torx bits, they will pay for themselves.

Battery operated toys ???

I would see what my nose knows, I would run my nose over the circuit board to see if the smell is stronger near a component.

Démontage à la Russe !..

...glad you did'nt choose to became a dentist..

That was somewhat inelegant.

Fran needs a Vice of Knowledge...

you little animal?

I have watched your videos with some interst during for some time, and I´ve also subscribed. I watched some of this particular video perhaps two weaks ago. It´s obviously ment to be a joke of some missguided sort, and ment to be funny. Well, it´s not! Please cut this silliness out, and resume making regular videos as before, please.

get new charger

Child proof? screw under label? Hwy, Whereas the BigClives "One Moment Please" 😛

I was wondering that it actually came with a PCB, I have/had one that only had a transformer and a rectifier maybe a fuse, can't remember, and loose wiring, that "device" came with 4 NiMH 🤷 I took it apart because it was heavy (transformer) and after seeing the inside never used it again, I bought one of those electronic chargers.

You are making me scream at the TV! 🤦🏻‍♂️ head it with your hands and pull it apart for gods sake!

I've been watching videos of circuit board repair lately, a lot of people try to "fix" their play station or xbox then send it in for repair... judging by how the boards come in I'm guessing this was a 1 for 1 recreation of a PS5 owner getting to the motherboard lol.

Yeah, no electronic horror, but it does show that the struggle we all face when trying to break into some enclosure is real and universal. Thank you Fran.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who find opening some of these devices a challenge. BigcCive with his spugger must be really lucky on what he chooses to take apart..

A battery type that I have started using and really like are the re-chargeable 1.5 volt lithium batteries. Each battery consists of a lithium ion battery with a tiny voltage regulator as part of the battery. They work well where 1.5 volts is required. The only quirk to them is that the voltage does not fall off gradually like a conventional battery. It just suddenly drops to zero. So if your device has a voltage monitor it will not give you any warning of a low battery.

First workshop rule: Everything is a hammer. Except chisels. Chisels are screwdrivers.

You weren't kidding about the demolition bit ;)