Saving a Computer with exploded battery

Restoring its capability to power on again

Sep. 14, 2017 - Willem L. Middelkoop

Last night I had a nasty surprise: my original MacBook Air was swollen due to an exploded battery. I immediately had to take action, for reasons of safety and to preserve this piece of modern computer history. Don’t try this at home, but if you do... read along for some practical tips.

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MacOS X correctly concluded that there are no batteries available, it works fine using a Power Adapter.

Swollen and cracked. I carefully looked for any leaks.

The MacBook is back alive, greeting me with its boot screen.

Steve Jobs unveiling the MacBook Air in 2008 from a vanilla envelope

The original MacBook Air: Groundbreaking due to its thinness and lack of ports

That bobble is not supposed to be there.., causing the keyboard to be bend

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Articles (148)

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2024-03-05 No, I Won't Build That!
2024-02-16 Vision Pro
2024-01-16 Health and fitness data
2023-12-15 Backup Rotation Scheme
2023-11-10 Apple Watch as Phone
2023-11-01 And... there is light!
2023-10-14 Giving AI Training
2023-10-13 Hello, stranger
2023-08-23 The Same, Differently
2023-05-31 Impact of training
2023-05-08 Tablet as Tool
2023-05-03 Using AI to generate code
2023-05-01 Working Offline First
2023-04-20 Tips for Long-Distance Cycling
2023-04-05 Cutting Cloud Costs
2023-02-08 Back to the University
2022-12-22 Rolex DateJust 36
2022-11-01 Moving to the countryside
2022-10-23 MUSE in Carré
2022-09-15 The Ultimate Freedom Bike
2022-09-11 Computer says no
2022-07-30 CAPTCHA Alternative
2022-07-17 Offline Music
2022-04-18 Snake '97 High Scores
2022-01-14 Wearing WHOOP 4.0
2021-12-09 For the love of mini
2021-11-19 Escaping the flat tires
2021-10-25 Using Google Free Android
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2021-07-13 The birth of a child
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2019-11-26 Supernova E3 Pro 2 dynamo powered headlight
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2019-09-10 Fighting backscatter spam at server level
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2019-08-18 Creating a minimal road bike
2019-07-16 Limitations of sleep tracking using a wearable
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2018-04-18 Outside the comfort zone: amateur acting
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2018-03-07 Tablet as main computer
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2018-02-21 Updating Snake '97
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2018-01-08 Lessons from a takeaway plastic bag
2017-12-02 Commuting by bike
2017-11-15 Collecting health data with Biostrap
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2017-09-14 Saving a MacBook Air with exploded battery
2017-09-02 Climbing Mount Etna
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