Introduction
It is almost impossible to buy new ML2032 battery to replace old one.
Logitech support will not help you and the do not have this as a spare part.
Maxell - battery manufacturer answered me this: "Unfortunately ML type batteries are industrial batteries which we sell to OEMs only. Due to strict health and safety purposes we are not allowed to sell this type of batteries to endusers."
The claim from Maxell is also the reason why I do not believe buying this form eBay nor Amazon.
So I decided to modify my keyboard. If you disable solar pannels, there will not be any charging for the battery and then you can use regular CR2032 battery which is easy to buy.
And since I did not find any guide like this I decided to share the steps with you.
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The battery tray is near the top edge of the bottom side of the keyboard. It is designed to be easy to insert, difficult to remove.
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Once you get the "ears" past the edge, just slide the tray the rest of the way out.
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Note the battery type carefully: It is a ML2032, which is rechargeable. It is NOT the same as a CR2032, which is not rechargeable. Putting a CR2032 in here is a recipe for bad things to happen.
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Note the proper orientation (see picture), positive + symbol facing towards bottom. Negative side facing keys. Slide the tray with the new battery back in. The battery can be oriented incorrectly and NOT work.
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If you want to make it easier to remove the battery the next time, you could trim the ears slightly. Or slice some notches in the plastic "springs" to weaken a little.
easy enough to do. Newegg charges $7 for 2 of these.
Thank you. It was easy enough to do. Also can be bought at newegg for $7.00 for 2 of them.
Great tip! Everything worked fine. It was quite hard to get the battery tray out (was not designed to be user-maintained! I did cut off the “ears” for next time).
Very happy to keep this keyboard going; very happy not to purchase a new one (money saved); very happy that a (still usable) keyboard did not go in the trash (save the planet). Thanks!
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Steps are described in this guide Logitech K750 Keyboard Battery Replacement. Turn off the keyboard before removing the battery.
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This battery can be dangerous so be carefull. For more details read Maxell Product Safety Data Sheet.
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For more information about ML type bateries read this Lithium Manganese Dioxide Rechargable Battery.
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Trash old ML2032 battery in special container!
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Be careful to not crack the plastic deck. Don't pull it off hard.
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Remove the seven black Phillips screws.
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Remove the 22 silver screws.
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Put the screws somewhere into the bowl to not lose them and try to remember the position of the black ones.
My K750 only has 21 silver screws. There is no screw or screw hole at the lower right corner of the 'V' key. There is, however, what appears to be the remainder of a sprue from the injection molding process for the part. Just pointing out a potential error in your diagram.
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Unclip the back pannel from the front (keys) pannel.
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When you flip the (keys) pannel you can notice that both solar panels have a pair of cables.
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I have decided to desolder the long cable (red and green one) because they are far away from the logic board so I will not transfer heat to it while desoldering them.
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Tape desoldered cables so they do not come in contact with anything.
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To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
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37 Comments
How long did the CR2032 battery last in use?
I'm thinking not very long so I'm considering attaching a CR123 (big 3V photo lithium battery) holder to the underside and wiring it in.
Thanks for the guide!
Less difficult: I just covered the solar panels with thick 3M black tape. No charging according to the solar app and keyboard working fine with CR2032 (until replacement ML2032 comes in from China...)
Hey, thats a pretty good tip - I'll use that when battery in my mum's K750 keyboard goes away.
I would just ensure that Solar App is showing zero in under a direct light of your desk lamp.
Endrju -
Thanks. This tip helped me out of a jam.
Interesting. I just bought one of these keyboards, and in reviewing the ML2032 spec sheet, I can see why the battery would fail in about a year or two: 1000 cycles at 10% depth of discharge, and only 300 cycles at 20% DoD, and that at a 200 microamp discharge. That's pretty bad. No wonder there's no Caps Lock light! Total energy throughput of the battery ends up being 3900 to 6500 mAh. It would have been better to skip the solar panels and just use either two or four disposable lithium AAs for the same number of mAh in the end! Too bad Apple doesn't make a Bluetooth extended layout keyboard. Thanks for sharing the tutorial. This keyboard is going back. I think I'll just stick to Apple's USB wired keyboard... much better build quality anyway.
Hi covered just covered the solar panels with thick 3M black tape and buy a ML2032 charger in ebay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Quality-Cha...) and the keyboard working perfect. Regards from Chile / Southamerica
In Canada where the ML2032 are a pain to find, these might work and they are cheaper by a huge margin. http://www.powerstream.com/p/Lir2032.pdf
Found some online for 2.50$ CAD
Let us know if that battery works. It has a nominal voltage of 3.6V versus 3.0V for the ML2032. It might not charge well in a system designed for 3V.
grantday -
My keyboard decreases capacity when its off? Any suggestions what to do? I replaced 2 times the original ml2032.
When you switch off the keyboard with the on/off button you should really turn it off and therefore no battery drain should occur.
If I was you, I would check if the LEDs lights up When you press the button above to the Num-Lock button. If yes, tha maybe check if you have some dirt in the on/off switch that can cause it not working.
Or your ML2032 is some cheep fake battery :-).. Or it is in the end of its life..
Endrju -
Can you not achieve the result of disabling the solar panels by covering them with duct tape? Just curious.
In addition, I am curious about replacing the ML2032 with a couple of rechargeable AA batteries.
I think that it can work. Just be sure that not light is delivered to the solar panels, because CR2032 can not be charged. Shorting the leads is 100% safe.
Side note: I didnt replaced my CR2032 yet since I posted this guide... :-). I am pretty satisfied
Endrju -
A quick Google-izing shows multiple vendors of ML2032 batteries including Walmart. Are there different flavors of ML2032 that make this more difficult to secure than you've indicated?
I am not sure If I understand you question. When I was chating with the manufacturer of the ML2032 they said that this battery could be dangerous so they are not shipping it to the end customers.
Endrju -
Please tell me: "What happen if putting in K750 CR2032?"
I can't find ML2032 in my country.
Hey, if you short out the leads from solar panels or stick some realy dark tape, which will prevents that no light is delivered to solar panels (you have to be sure, because CR2032 can not be charged), than you should be safe.
I am running K750 with CR2032, but I have shorted the leads to solar panels.
Endrju -
Something must have changed. These ML2032 batteries seem to be readily available: https://www.amazon.com/Maxell-Rechargabl.... Even cheaper on ebay.
Cheerio !!! After replacement of the ML2032 - supplied by Amazon within one day - my keyboard is working smoothly again.
My Logitech K750 is the best of the 15 or 20 keyboards I've used in my life. I bought it 3 years and 2 months ago & was very disappointed when it went dead very suddenly yesterday. Replacement battery is approx. $18 locally (Canada), $12 from the US & about $6 on eBay from China.
So glad to find this post. I have a few dozen CR2032, non Maxell, batteries that were given to me to run some LED candles. I used Endrju's technique to remove the battery drawer, trimmed the ears so that taking the drawer in and out now is easy and covered the solar windows with black duct tape.
Works perfectly with the free CR2032's. I used a strong flashlight all around the black tape and the solar app showed no charging.
I'll order a ML2032 from China just because the keyboard looks better without the tape, but this tape alteration seems like a permanent solution.
Tks guys.
A year later & I just changed the CR2032 battery. This has become a permanent solution. No need for a rechargeable.
While it does seem easier to get the ML2032 now, for those wishing to just do the tape mod... you can get electrical tape in black or white (depending on the color of your keyboard) so it aesthetically blends better.
I would also not recommend duct tape, it's not necessarily light-proof against strong sunlight or even some bright indoor lighting, and as it ages it leaves an awful residue. Electrical tape leaves a residue too, but nothing that can't be cleaned up with a paper towel and rubbing alcohol (that WILL work on duct tape residue, but will take a lot more elbow grease to remove).
i found a rechargeable cr2032 for $8.99 at battery source. my local shop can have it to me in two day free shipping. any idea if the rechargeable cr2032 is compareable to the ml2032?
dwise@southeasterncu.com
My local dealer told me that sometimes CR2032 and ML2032 is the same (rechargeable) accu. But do not take this for granted, she was just some honk on the phone.
turned out that they printed CR2032 on the enclosing but ML2032 was etched into the battery.
I found the ML2032 batteries on this Dutch site, generally they have good prices all around. I have another problem, though, with my Logitech Solar Keyboard. My Solar App would not recognize the keyboard anymore. It is properly connected through a Unifying Receiver, the Logitech SetPoint app recognized the keyboard, but when I start Solar App it says No Solar Keyboard detected. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app, to no avail. Any Suggestions?
Sorry, I forgot to post the link above:
Great tutorial! I replaced my ML2032 with CR2032, and for the first time since long got 100% of charge in the Solar App.
The problem of K750 is its internal solar charger has never managed to bring the original lithium cell back to full charge. 85% was the maximum, regardless of the brightness of the light source. I guess this keyboard would be better off if it had no solar panels at all and was powered by a replaceable non-rechargeable cell.
A few hints on this keyboard:
- The top glossy cover is probably redundant, I decided not to glue it back and actually found the keyboard more convenient to use (less prone to dust, better feel of the matte surface).
- The white screws are redundant too :) Just used a few black ones over the edges, and that will do.
- You may want to apply a few long stripes of thick duct tape over the back of the keyboard, this would act as noise reduction - gets a softer feeling while typing, prevents the keyboard from kicking against the table when pressing keys.
Update 3 months later: the battery is still at 100% after a decent amount of casual typing and coding!
Andy -
Thank you all so much. The the tutorial is great and I got so much help from the comments too. I ended up going with electrical tape over the solar panel while I wait for a replacement rechargeable battery. I have two of these - both died at the same time. Unfortunately I broke the battery holder on one the first try getting the battery out but at least I have one useable keyboard.
Pam
LOL!!! these corrupt corporate sharks. Replacement rechargeable battery dangerous? How? Why? What utter nonsense. Just buy the ML2032 from eBay or Amazon and install it. I can't believe people are so stupid that they would destroy a $75 keyboard because some greedy fool told them the replacement battery is dangerous. *facepalm*
I can used cr2032 voltage 3.6v?
I just bought a ML2032 battery from Amazon for 8 bucks. It took two days to get to me. I used a putty knife to pop out the tray and a pair of pliers to pull it all the way out. I then replaced the old battery with the new one, recharged it in the sun (note that the battery comes uncharged), and GOOD TO GO! Took me all of five minutes to replace the battery, stuck the keyboard in the full sun all day, and done.
The battery can be replaced with a LIR2032H.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rechargeable-Ch...
Works a treat.
I used this guide to replace my Logitech battery with the CR2032. It immediately reconnected. Then put the old rechargeable back in and the keyboard continued to work. Also said the battery was charged to 85%. Now I’m wondering why it wouldn’t sync before,. I’m trying to cancel the order for the ML2032 from Amazon. I put in the cancel order about 10 min. or less after ordering and Amazon said it was already preparing the order and may not be able to cancel. Do the experts out there really think it is OK to use the CR2032 with the solar panels taped, or could there still be some problem with the battery starting fire? Sure don’t want that!
I bought a replacement ML2032 from eBay. Popped it in and the keyboard came back to life.
Unfortunately, it will not charge. After 1 hr I was down to 85% and by the next morning it was dead. The solar app does show there is enough light, but the red/green indicators to the right of the solar app button are dead and won’t flash at all. They didn’t work yesterday when the keyboard had power, which is probably a red flag.
My receipt shows my warranty expired two weeks ago. Sigh.
