Question Stuck battery door on a Sherwood Widsom 3

[Cthippo]

My DC has died for the stupidest possible reason!

The battery is dead.

So what? Change it.

Yeah, the door is jammed and I have pretty much destroyed it trying to get it open. The manual says use a coin, but I bent a quarter into a fortune cookie and displaced the plastic of the door itself.

Replacement doors are $25 and the thing under it is a dead coin cell battery, so I am thinking I can take a dremel and cut a bigger slot in the door until I can get a tool in there that will take enough torque to open it. If that goes horribly wrong I am back where I started, buying a new DC.

Anyone got better ideas? WD40? Soak in boiling water?

 

[tridacna]

Too late now, but I use one of these - never a quarter. Blunt end works wonders - terrific leverage.

Amazon.com

 

[Altamira]

If the coin ridges on the plastic cap have broken off, and the rest of the battery hatch cover looks OK, I have had excellent results by putting a mounded glob of PC Super Epoxy (can get on Amazon) over the broken coin slot, then when the epoxy starts to set up (clay like texture) , push a coin or screwdriver into the curing epoxy, giving you the size slot you want. When that epoxy fully cures, it is like a rock. I have removed. repaired, and replaced numerous plastic battery hatch covers on my two 2010 vintage Aeris Atmos AI computers, which I believe used the same hatch cover as the Sherwood Wisdom. I also have used an Aqualung I550 hatch cover (if you can find one), which I baked in an over to slightly change the thread, and then covered the slot with PC Super Epoxy as above. All of the modified battery hatch covers work as original. DM me if you need more info. A couple years ago, I posted a couple threads on extracting, repairing, and replacing those stupidly designed plastic battery hatch covers. One of the posts explains the baking process.

 

[Johnoly]

Just a wild azz guess from me. Maybe the battery off-gassed and the pressure is holding the door shut like a pressurized reg on a tank. I don't know but it would be harmless to put it in your freezer for a few minutes to see if you can reverse Boyles Law and get the air pocket to shrink? I don't know if an ice cube on the door would be effective, but it shouldn't harm it trying and maybe 5 minutes wasted time?

 

[tridacna]

@DIVEWATCHDOCTOR may have the best advice on this one.

 

[Mike_4635]

The battery may have corroded and expanded. If this is the case, it may have also damaged the computer battery terminals.

 

[Altamira]

Without question, corroded/expanded batteries could easily cause failure of the computer. However, my unpleasant experiences over many years with the Aeris, Wisdom, and Aqualung plastic battery hatch cover/coin slot ridge breaking made it impossible to get the hatch cover removed from the computer to even make an assessment of damage or simply change the battery. The first time I removed one of the broken hatch covers, I drilled three holes in the cap and used an adjustable watch back remover tool, which opened the hatch, but effectively destroyed the hatch cover. Since I started using the epoxy method to rebuild the slot, changing a battery has been a breeze, and so far have not found any corroded/expanded batteries in the computers.

 

[Cthippo]

Ok, thanks, I will go look for some of that epoxy!