Originally Posted by
usndoc2011
Wow, that seems like an awesome stop gap while I figure out the best way to go. $160 is an insane amount of cash for a battery, but I felt forced into it. Can you post or send me more details about what you did and how you did it?
I actually went and looked at photos of a L&M pack and it seems that they have a connector right on the pack rather than having a cable leading from the pack. This makes it a little more difficult. Does L&M make an extension cable at all? If so you can use the connector from that. Otherwise it might take some significant hacking to get the battery pack connector separated.
I'd probably look to see if there was any way I could crack the case and replace the cells inside. Replacement cells are about $10 so you could rebuild that pack for $40. That's pretty involved though. There is a place near me that will rebuild battery packs, that might be an option.
Assuming you can get hold of a connector somewhere, find out how many volts the pack is, buy one of the same voltage from someplace like batteryspace.com. Assuming it's 7.2 volts (or thereabouts), pick up a 4, 6 or 8 cell pack with about that voltage. Or heck, buy a MagicShine pack. It's not like Light & Motion has special custom electrons that they pack into their batteries, volts are volts. Then hack off the connector if the pack came with one, take the connector off of the L&M pack, solder them together (making sure to get the polarity right) and wrap it up with electrical tape.