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Battery Replacement

only be done by Raymarine and that any attempt by the user would render
the warranty invalid. No problem there, as my unit was out of warranty !

It is quite tricky prizing the unit apart and care must be taken not to crack
or otherwise damage the casing. Once done, like many electronic items,
the inside is a fairly simple construction. It is simple to unplug the old
battery pack by lifting the white power socket away from the circuit board.
The original battery pack was nicely shrink
wrapped. Cutting the wrapping, I could
see that the two batteries were glued to-
gether, with reversed polarities at each
end (positive to negative). The Red wire
from the white socket was soldered to
one end across a plate and the blue and
black wires ran to the other end of the
batteries, again soldered to a small plate.
Having cut away the shrink wrapping, I
used a soldering iron to remover the
3. The finished job
wires and the attaching plates.
I drew a blank when searching on the web for identical batteries to use as
a replacement. However, I found two 1600 mAh rechargeable batteries
which were available for about £12 and ordered these. Once received, I
reversed the process by taping (I did not have a glue gun) the batteries to-
gether with the same polarity as when removed and soldering the plates
and wires back on to the new battery pack. The job I did was not as pretty
as the original pack, but with a saving of £50+, I was not worried. Having
reinstalled the circuit board back into the case and clipped everything back
together, it has been working fine since and no harm seems to have been
done to the Smart Controller.
Nigel Campling

S115 Dutch Courage of Cowes

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