MySmartBlinds Battery Case

This is a replacement battery case for the MySmartBlinds MSB-B014-00 battery pack. Since the company recently shut down you can no longer buy replacements. Mine are 8yr old and have begun to fail and the blind motors will not function without a working battery attached. The original case is factory sealed and to open it up to replace the batteries it gets mostly destroyed beyond repair.

The OEM pack has 2x LiFePo4 3.2v DC 1500 mAh batteries connected in parallel along with an on/off switch and a PCM (Protection Circuit Module) board with an extra data wire that is likely a temperature sensor. The particular PCM model that it comes with has the temp sensor built in, but those types of boards are hard to locate on Amazon.

Once I opened up one of the packs to find the specs I decided to just build myself new ones rather than trying to rebuild the existing ones. I found all the necessary parts on Amazon. I ended up with 8 new battery packs to replace all the old ones. All in, with filament and parts each pack cost me just under $40 each, with most of that cost being the batteries themselves.

• B0CCS5XY2Z - Jst 2.0 Ph 4 Pin Connector Plug

  • The wire from the battery pack to the motor, but repined to match the original 3-wire

• B0GZ3CWP8G - Mini Slide Switch 5mm 3 Pin 2 Position

  • The on/off switch

• B0G49B8R39 - NTC 10K Thermistor Wire

  • The temp sensor to connect to the extra wire going to the motor/controller so it can cut off charging if the battery is overheating

• B0BBW8N9PP - HQRP Battery LiFePO4 Compatible with Gama Sonic

  • The IFR18650 3.2v 1500mAh LiFePO4 batteries that match the originals and come with the PCM board pre-connected but no temp sensor

• B0GKPTTJPX - Battery Wrap PVC Heat Shrink Tubing 25mm Dia

• B0GW88MXRH - TP5000 Lithium Battery Charging Management Module

  • Not needed, but allows charging of batteries/packs separate from the motor. One of my motors works fine but it no longer able to charge batteries.

The original pack is made with some strong thermal plastic. My method for opening was to cut along the long thin top/sides as close to the battery as possible with some small snips. From there I was able to pry open/off the rest rather messily. The batteries themselves are glued in with some white thermal silicone along the back and bottom. Slowly prying down the sides with a thin plastic spudger will typically release the silicone as it does not stick well to the case. You can either reuse some of the parts or just use all new parts, but once you open the battery pack you won't be able to reuse the case.

I am printing this with Prusament PETG V0 which is seems well suited for printing something like this. Because of where this sits at the top of the blind header it is likely to have some degree of sun exposure so PLA is probably a bad choice.

I made the diameter of the battery cylinders just slightly oversized so it would be easier to manually slide replacements inside. The originals were 66mm x 18.5mm in size.

I stripped off the black shrink and label from the new batteries so i could add in my temp sensor and better control the wire management. I added back a clear shrink so I could see the underlying battery specs labeling rather than the generic Gama Sonic irrelevant label. I also cut off the original connector (1 at a time) in order to solder them into the new build.

For the original wires to the motor, the wire with the writing is the +(red), the wire furthest away is the -(black), and the wire adjacent to the + is the temp sensor. There is a close-up pic showing them side-by-side.

Once soldered together I glued together the new case with J-B SuperWeld with instant activated light curing I got at HD.

Since replacing, the motors function much more reliably. They don't loose time and drift schedules, don't fail to fully open/close periodically, can be easily controlled without stalling and rebooting.