We all know what happens when you have to disconnect a 9 Volt battery from it's clip: sooner or later, one of
the two wires breaks off. No matter how expensive the gizmo was, they all use the same low grade battery
clips.
These clips look to be made of cardboard with two connectors riveted on top. Not a good way to mount
connectors which are subjected to considerable force when disconnecting old batteries.
When fooling around with some old batteries, I wanted to look inside the 9 Volt block. There are two or three
designs. One is a stack of 6 battery cushion. The other is a sixpack of small cylindrical cells connected in
series with welded strips.
Varta use the second approach. I had two old Varta alkaline batteries (like the one on the first picture) and
decided to see what's inside. If you ever opened a tin of spam or corned beef you also know how to open an old
9 V battery.
For the vegetarians among us, I have made some extra pictures. See how to open an old battery here.
To the left you can see how to put a pair of pliers and fiddle the jacket open. Just bend it open a bit and
next wrap the metal around the beaks of your pliers.
After some turns you get something similar to what you see in the righthand picture. Just keep on rolling the
metal off the battery. Use some controlld brute force. Try not to break the metal otherwise you will need to
ease down on the control part and focus more on the brute force.
In the blurry picture you see a traditional batteryclip from which I removed the backside of the isolation.
This specific one is a rather sturdy clip. No wonder, I bought it from the Quality people of Germany: the
Reichelt
mailorder company.
Anyway: not much inside. Read on and see how you can make your own, ever lasting, battery connector.
Just follow the pictures.... First, remove the full metal jacket. Next shake out the six individual cells
(neat concept of these Germans ayh?) and get to the prize: the sturdy battery clip. Perhaps you can even reuse
the piece of high grade rubber that's below the cells. As you see, Varta use a phenolic printed circuit board
to mount the male and female batteryclip connectors.
They NEED to do so, because the mechanical pressure of the mounted cells must be tolerable to the head of the
package.
With packed batteries, like Green Power (a high grade chinese manufacturer) do, the pressure on the top
section of the battery case is much less. These batteries mostly have 'beer bellies'.
But not with Varta (and probably others). The cell-concept makes the batterycase lean and adds a double layer
of protection against leaks. And it gives us a neat and strong battery clip.
Perhaps this gives you a new idea for your new application: use the lean cells in your new design by opening
unused batteries. If I'm right, these cells are smaller than triple A cells.
Just solder some wires to the PCB supported clip, wrap some tape aroun it or apply a piece of heatshrink
tubing, and you're done. This new battery clip will last a lifetime.
I also opened a UCAR Goldline 9 Volt block. I opened it along the seem. That distance was shorter and it
proved to be faster.
The full metal jacket looks like shit when you're done, but who cares? The garbage bin is its next destination
anyway.
Inside are the same kind of 6 triple-A style cells.
In the Ucar, the series connection is done with only PCB strips. This means that the power terminals are not
on a piece of PCB. The string in the back of the picture is not for hanging myself. It's a fragment of my DNA.
So now you know it. And Google will spread the word. Above you see the Ucar clip.
It's not as nice as the Varta clip is, but still much better than the pieces of plastic or cardboard which are
used in average applications.
Be
VERY
careful when soldering wires to this kind of clip. The plastic carrier will melt way before the meltingpoint
of tin. So do it fast or use a small screw or other mechanical connection.
OK. So I got addicted to stripping batteries. Big deal! Much more are addicted to girly pictures or marihuana.
Or both. And I get my kicks from opening 9 Volt blocks.
The Hema batteries are only for sale in the shops of the Hema chain of stores. HEMA is short for Hollandse
Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam (Dutch unit prices company, Amsterdam). They operate in Holland,
Belgium and possibly Germany. So if you don't live in either, you can just skip this section.
Judging the exterior shape, I think we have a six-piler again here. Let's just open it up and see what's
inside. You see the results in the topleft picture.
WOW! You see that? There's a complete
VARTA
inside! But at a HEMA price. Varta won't like this.... But Hema will, probably. And I certainly like it.
Now I have one more incentive to buy Hema batteries.... :o) This makes things easy: Just look further in the
top of this page where I opened up and explained about the Varta 9 Volt block.
Today I was at the Hema store again: I needed a new dishwasher brush. You know, I am the dishwasher at home.
And when there I also looked at the battery section. So now I've got a small problem: The Hema batteries are
twice the price of a Varta!
No wonder VARTA doesn't hide it's identity at the inside.... They're in a win-win situation here.
In the picture on the right, you see how many other 9 Volt blocks are constructed. Six cushion shaped cells
are piled on top of eachother. The seriesconnection is by mechanical pressure.
As you can see, there is a thin wire running from the bottom of the stack of cells, to the battery clip.
You may use this kind of clip for your own purposes of course. But these clips are not as strong as the Varta
kind.
The second day of the IWM, Hatesmurf brought the contents of his chemical waste box (standard equipment in
every dutch household) to me.
So I got some new batt's to play with.
Look at the picture to see the brands and make a guess about the contents of each block: is it a
beer-belly-batt? Or is it a six-piler?
And most important: can we harvest the clips?
I took the liberty to take apart every brand one by one. There were some very neat and nifty designs among
these batteries. Especially the Philips cells are very impressive. Don't expect leaks from these cells. You'll
see what I mean when you get there.
OK, this is an easy one: the contents of a "universal alkaline Varta battery" as they call them at Varta. Not
much news inside here. The construction is typical for Varta: a six-piler.
Of course the clip is harvestable since it is the by now familiar epoxy PCB type. The ideal kind, for us.
In the process of documenting this battery, I forgot to put the clip in the picture. But believe me: inside is
the A-one clip.
On the right, we see the red battery from the IWM collection picture. The brand is 'Hi Watt', an oriental
brand. I used them, occasionally, but they were as good as they get.
From the picture we learn two things:
- the design is a beer belly batt
- the clip is not worth harvesting
Just take a good look at the cell stacking. This is how the majority of beer-belly-batt's are constructed.
Remember the construction. You'll need it when we get to the Philips one.
GP are a major chinese manufacturer. GP stands for Green Power.
I am very fond of GP. They make fine products, be it batteries or rechargable cells. I used to operate 20 odd
GP 1300 mAh NiMH AA cells at home and I can recommend them to everybody.
Anyway: the GP 9 Volt block is a beer-belly-type. Like the Hi Watt battery, this one is stacked as well.
This was a veni, vidi, vici experience. As soon as I un-spammed the bottom of the full metal jacket, it was
clear that this was another beer-belly type. And most of them just don't have clips that are worth harvesting.
On the right we see a Philips 'long life' 9 Volt battery.
Philips use the phrase 'Long Life' for batteries that have superior standard technology, without being
alkaline.
Look at it's construction. We note that this is a beer-belly type again. But a special one: the bags with
electrolyte are doubly sealed. Each 'bag' is surrounded by another layer of plastic.
Philips did a good job here. Leaking of old batteries is made less likely this way.
The clip is harvestable. It is of the 'Ucar Gold' type and it can be soldered, if it's done with some care.
From the clip, down to the bottom of the stack of bags, runs an isolated strip of metal. If you need some flat
displacement from your clip to the circuit that needs power, you might be able to utilize this part of the
assembly. For soldering, the metal strip is ideal: now you can solder without having to worry that the plastic
carrier will immediately melt.
On the left we see a Philips alkaline cell. And this is what I was referring to in the head section of the IWM
battery chapter: just look at this stack of bags.
This typical Philips design (they are known here, among engineers, for over-engineering their products) is
100.1% leak-proof. Each bag with electrolytes is sealed in a tough plastic case.
The cases are stacked on top of eachother, giving the battery a lot of stiffness. I was surprised to see the
contents of this one. Judging by the exterior of the batt, I first thought this had to be a six-piler as well.
But I was proven wrong. This was an over engineered beer-belly type.
In the picture on the right, we see a close-up of the clip of this battery. It clearly shows the properties
and quality of this battery clip:
- the clip is harvestable
- the clip can be soldered
- lots of copper already welded
The Varta six-piler clip is best for our purposes, but this Philips clip comes on a good second place.
I hate (at least, kind of) to brag about the dutch and our inventions, but I truly like the design of the
Philips 9 Volt blocks. They're clearly more expensive to make, but they're an assurance to have inside your
batt powered appliance.
Well done, Frits!
It took a LONG long time, but at last the LIDL cells have died. I have been very curious what's inside these 9
Volt blocks. From the outside, these tall and slim blocks look like a six-piler. But the contents are
different as you can see within a minute.
On the left, you see a picture of the closed cell: Wow, this neat package does not contain 6 small cells as I
anticipated. No, this is a traditional cushion-type battery with 6 stacked cells. But there's a difference. A
difference from which even Philips (qv) can learn: these cells are completely sealed, even better than
Philips. It looks like these cells are welded together.
As you can see, the clip is connected to the bottom cell with a rather thick metal strip, insulated with high
stock kraft paper.
I don't know who's the manufacturer behind the LIDL cells, but this is a mighty interesting cell. Quality is
the bottom line here. On the right, you see the complete contents of the battery.
The clip
is
harvestable, but it's not as nice as the Varta clips. This battery clip is especially interesting if you need
to connect something 'far away', by means of the insulated metal strip.
All in all, this is an interesting 9 Volt block. It's one of the cheapest available (in The Netherlands in
domestic shops) yet it sets standards for its leakproofness. I cannot imagine these cells to leak within 4 or
5 years (if used within technically normal limits and conditions).
From a spanish friend I got some pictures from opening a Cegasa battery. The brand is unknown here, but
perhaps only under this name... Read more about it below.
On the left, you see a picture of the still closed cegasa battery. And the right picture shows a nude cegasa
battery.
As you can see, this battery is from the 'beerbelly' or stacked bags type.
Look at the packaging of the stacked cells. This looks a lot like Philips and Lidl cells. Hmm, if only we
could have a look at the clip....
In the picture at the right, we see the clip....
The clip has contact springs, and so did the Lidl battery. I don't believe in coincidence at this level, so
this leaves me to three possibillities:
- Lidl and Cegasa buy their OEM batteries in the same (third party) factory.
- Lidl buys Cegasa cells under their own private label.
- I am completely wrong and this IS coincidence.
Now, that third option is really ridiculous, but I wouldn't put any money on it.
All pictures on my site are taken with an Olympus C-860L 1.3 Megapixel camera and the images were processed
with Kview under Slackware GNU/Linux 8.0 and KDE 2.
The computer used is an old AT style system with an IDT WinChip 200, 48 MB RAM, and two HDD's of 1.2 GB each.
The pages were made with 'jed' (the standard editor under Slackware) open in desktop 4 and Netscape 4.77
running in desktop 2. This enables me to have the source ready for changing while I still can see what
Netscape makes of it.
The pictures taken from the spanish batteries were made with a Minolta d'Image.
| Source | URL | Brand | Price |
| Reichelt | www.reichelt.de | Varta Alkaline | € 1,83 |
| Reichelt | www.reichelt.de | Energizer Ultra | € 1,75 |
| Reichelt | www.reichelt.de | UCAR Alkaline | € 1,55 |
| Reichelt | www.reichelt.de | Varta Universal | € 1,80 |
| Reichelt | www.reichelt.de | GP Alkaline | € 1,50 |
| Hema | www.hema.nl | Hema Alkaline | € 3,61 |
| Karwei | www.karwei.nl | Duracell Alkaline | € 5,00 |
| Conrad | www.conrad.nl | Conrad Zinc/carbon | € 1,55 |
| Conrad | www.conrad.nl | Conrad Alkaline | € 3,55 |
| Conrad | www.conrad.nl | Varta High Energy | € 4,80 |
| Conrad | www.conrad.nl | Varta Zinc/Carbon | € 2,95 |
| Conrad | www.conrad.nl | Energizer Ultra+ | € 5,20 |
| Super De Boer | ? | Duracell Alkaline | € 5,40 |
| Super De Boer | ? | Varta High Energy | € 4,50 |
These prices may change, without me having to immediately update this page. If you buy batteries, you do it on
your own budget and on your own risk.
I collect these prices while doing my regular shoppings. I do not go to shops to look for battery prices. So
if I make an error concerning a price please tell me.
You will find my E-mail address in the bottom part of the navigator frame.
I am a chemical engineer by profession, so I know what I'm doing. If you decide to start taking batteries
apart, inform yourself about the risk that could be involved.
9 Volt blocks are almost harmless, as long as you ONLY remove the outer metal shell. Do not go any further. In
the steel containers and plastic bags are toxic chemicals.
Do never, ever, open cells that are based on Lithium chemistry. These cells ALWAYS contain hazardous
chemicals. Lithium cells are potential bombs. Especially Li Ion cells!
Do never, ever, open 'normal' batteries (the 1.5 Volt types) since they contain nothing of value to tinkers.
Do never, ever, open rechargable cells like NiCd, NiMH, SLA, RAM, Li-ion, or whatever other chemistry type.
Rechargable cells allways contain hazardous chemicals. Lithium cells may well EXPLODE.
Not even open 9 Volt blocks that are rechargable.
Page created June 2003,
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