Radio surgery, part 1 – QRP in the Driftless

When I got my Xiegu X6100, around 3 years ago, the edge of the back cover was sealed with a little sticker that said “XIEGU VOID IF DAMAGED”. A few days ago, (the warranty long expired), the time came to open the vault and view the mysteries inside! Why, you may ask?

Carefully removed, and added to the back panel for decoration.

Replacing the Xiegu X6100’s internal batteries

I have mostly neglected the internal battery ever since I acquired the 3 amp-hour Bioenno battery pack, using that almost exclusively for field operating. Over time, though kept fully charged, the internal battery apparently deteriorated, so when I tried to turn the radio on without external power, nothing happened! Overnight charging did nothing, so it was clearly time for replacement.

Two tiny screws hold the panel in place, and this is what I saw when I removed it:

A protective shield for the circuit boards covers the battery packs. A layer of Kapton tape over a strip of glass-cloth-and-fluorocarbon tape as used to protect heating elements in heat sealing equipment.

Peeling off the tape reveals the two battery packs and the battery management board.

The batteries seem to be glued in place, so I start doing some gentle probing, becoming not so gentle as the adhesive begins to reluctantly give way.

And here is the information I was looking for! 605080. You can see the adhesive, it seems to be RTV silicone.

605080 defines the dimensions: 6.0 millimeters x 50 mm wide x 80 mm long. Now I know what batteries I need to order! 3.7 volts is standard for lithium-polymer batteries; 3000 milliamp-hours is the imaginary electrical capacity of the cell. Why imaginary? In practice, the internal batteries, when new, could support about an hour of operation. I have a real 3 amp-hour battery pack that is much larger, and capable of full power operation for several hours. That, in a nutshell, is why I don’t use the internal batteries; a secondary consideration is that the internal pack limits my RF output to 5 watts, where the external 12 volt pack allows me to use the full 10 watts, which does make a difference!

Confirming that the radio works just fine on external power with no internal batteries; this means I can go on doing POTA activations while I wait for the new batteries to arrive!

Honestly, I am not sure that I even need to replace the batteries, it’s not like I ever use them, though they are handy as a fallback, just in case … I remember a year or so ago finishing an activation on internal power; I had forgotten to recharge the Bioenno pack and it ran out of juice in the middle of operating!

Anyway, that’s where it stands right now; watch for the next chapter in the story, and thank you for visiting driftlessqrp!