Ember Mug Destructive Teardown

ID: 169250

Description: Due to an unfortunate incident with a microwave...

With a burnt spot on the bottom that gave my pipe wrench a place to anchor, I tried opening it using the wrench.
No luck at all; it simply would not turn left or right in any amount whatsoever regardless of how much muscle I put into it.
This could possibly be caused by the melted plastic from the microwave.

With no success whatsoever using the pipe wrench, it was time to go barbarian on the mug.
Jammed a screwdriver into the existing weakened burnt spot and made myself a pry hole.
After much grunting and cursing, the bottom piece finally gave way.
Note in the last picture that there's a ribbon cable I've obviously torn off that's supposed to connect the bottom of the mug to the rest of it.

So here we see the hooks that hold the base in place, marked with red arrows.
Obviously it would only take a very small degree of turning to get the clips to release.
I am suspicious of this little finger pointed out in green. Due to the condition of my mug, I am unable to tell if this is a locking mechanism or just some sort of guide pin.
If it is a locking mechanism, then it has been deliberately designed so that the mug cannot be opened again once assembled. I sincerely hope that isn't the case, but I can't tell either way for sure.

I've positioned the broken flex cable approximately where it should be on the mug's bottom assembly.
As you can see, there's very little room to maneuver, meaning it's going to be really easy to break that cable like I did when you open the mug.

Four 7.5 mm Torx T6 screws secure the circuit board/ battery assembly to the base.
Remove the shield.

Were the ribbon cable intact, this is where it would be connected at this point.
Here's what it looks like when it's unplugged.
I taped the connector onto the broken end of the cable to show you what it should look like.

Here we get our first good look at the battery itself. Given the shape and size, I'm guessing two 18650 batteries wired together with a BMS, but we'll see.

At this point these two components should just lift out; in my case they had to be pried out due to heat damage.
Likewise, the battery should be free now, but mine was fused to the circuit board.
One person noted that the battery is glued down to the circuit board; you couldn't tell it from mine, but I have no reason to doubt that.

Here we see the contacts for the copper rings on the bottom that transfer power to the mug.
You can see the pin that activates the button on the bottom of the circuit board.

Right about now you should be unplugging the battery from the circuit board. Unfortunately on mine the socket is melted to the connector so they cannot be separated.
I was forced to tear the connector off the circuit board to separate them. You can see here where it goes.

Here's what we find after removing the plastic jacket. Yep, as we figured, a couple of 18650's!
As if we needed any more proof, it's spelled out right there on the battery itself.

Flipping the battery over, we see a piece of tape over what is obviously the BMS. Let's look.
Yep, sure enough, there it is with connectors going to the batteries plainly visible.

Here we see the BMS connectors on the ends of the battery. These batteries are connected in series; here we see one positive and one negative lead going to the BMS.
And here is the other end where the two batteries are connected together to make a series circuit. It's also fed back to the BMS for charging purposes so each battery can be charged separately.
After cutting the BMS from the cells, here's what the other side looks like.

Let's see what else we can take apart, shall we?
The rubber seal that keeps water out of the mug and coincidently makes it very difficult to open the mug just lifts right out.

As it turns out, the metal shields separating the heating element from the battery just lift out once the seal has been removed.

Finally, the insulation material over the heating element also just lifts out.
I have to note that had I not torn the ribbon cable, the mug itself would have been salvageable assuming a replacement bottom could be obtained, but as it is, there's really nothing that can be saved on this mug.
Like my daddy used to tell me, if you can't serve as a good example, then generally you can be held up as a bad example!

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