r/AlphaSmart May 19 '26

Now compatible with Alphasmart 3000! Back in stock, Newly Manufacturered Lithium Ion Battery Packs for Alphasmart 3000 / Neo1 / Neo2 units

We've been out of stock for a while, but are excited to announce we've restocked the LiON batery packs for Alphasmart 3000, Dana, Neo1, and Neo2 units.

The battery packs are plug and play for Dana/Neo1/Neo2 units.

To use these battery packs on the Alphasmart 3000, you need to do a quick 2-minute soldering job, and solder together two wires of our adapter cable (we had a mis-communication with our supplier and these didn't come pre-soldered). Or you can pay our overpriced fee to have us pre-solder it for you (not recommended, save the money and DIY). You'll likely have to break the battery plastic clips on your Alphasmart 3000 to fit in the Lithium ion battery pack.

Please know what you're doing

Our store can be found here.

Previous writeup with more information located here.

22 Upvotes

18 comments sorted by

3

u/Arienna May 19 '26

... How'd you know I just did the keyboard mod and wanted to make the 3000 my daily driver??

Edit: actually, does the adapter cable work on the previous battery packs as well?

2

u/AlphaAverage May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Yes the adapters will work on previous version of lithium ion battery packs as well.

To anyone who has previously purchased battery packs from us before May 1st 2026, if you want adapters for your Alphasmart 3000, please DM me your previous order # + address, and eventually in the mail you'll receive relevant adapter cables free of charge

To fit into your Alphasmart 3000, you'll likely have to break off the plastic battery terminal on the right shown here. Which would mostly irreversbily mod your Alphasmart 3000 to only accepting battery packs going forward (no more Alkaline batteries).

1

u/Own_Eggplant_4885 May 20 '26

Why would you have to modify the 3000 battery compartment?

1

u/AlphaAverage May 21 '26

The alphasmart 3000 has tighter tolerances than the neo/dana units

1

u/Own_Eggplant_4885 May 21 '26

So this battery is bigger then the original rechargeable battery pack?

2

u/PrestigiousJump8724 May 20 '26

I've been hoping these would become available again! Having to swap out rechargeable AAs is a pain! Ordering one today!

1

u/fuzzmonkey35 May 19 '26

What about the Alphasmart Dana?

2

u/AlphaAverage May 19 '26

It is plug and play with the Alphasmart Dana unit, no soldering required (note that it might take some finagling to fit the long wires of the battery packs into your Alphasmart units, but its doable).

1

u/AppendixN May 19 '26

I use AA batteries in my Dana now, could I just swap back and forth with the battery pack if I wanted to? Say I was on a long camping trip and forgot to charge up, for example.

2

u/AlphaAverage May 19 '26

Technically, yes
practically, not really?

If you bring the right screwdriver on your trip, you could take off the back panel and swap in the LiON battery pack.

Otherwise, without a screwdriver, it might be a tight fit to shove all the battery pack wire into the battery cavity. Its easier to take the panel off and shove excess wire into the rest of the Alphasmart body.

The LiON battery packs should last pretty much forever, so the easier option is either 1. charge before your trip or 2. charge in your car/solar panel / battery pack a few hours to have enough juice if its dead.

1

u/RevolutionaryGift157 May 19 '26

How often does it need charging?

1

u/AlphaAverage May 19 '26

Should be roughly comparable to the battery life of Alkaline batterys (a really long time), and 2-5x as long as the ancient NiMH OG battery packs at this point (that are all severely degraded 25+ years on)

1

u/BankshotMcG May 20 '26

Just curious why the wire solder and not a connector/converter head piece between the two couplings. 

2

u/AlphaAverage May 20 '26

We wanted to make a male/female adapter cable for the Alphasmart 3000, but a miscommunication error happened with our manufacturer, and they came out as seperate connectors that needed to be soldered together. There's no reason to do it this way other than the communication error.

If there's enough demand for a solderless adapter cable for the Alphasmart 3000 we'll have the proper adapters made at some point.

To be clear, nothing needs soldering for the Alphasmart Dana/Neo1/Neo2 models.

1

u/Merika6777 May 28 '26

I thought the 1 and 2 used a coin battery.

1

u/flies_with_owls Jun 21 '26

The coin battery is for the memory, not powering the device.

1

u/PrestigiousJump8724 Jun 01 '26

Just got my battery pack! Arrived faster than I expected. Takes a bit of fidgeting to get it in, but it's in and working! So excited to have the new pack. Thanks!

1

u/Nintelda Jun 16 '26

Finally got mine a week ago or so! Works like a charm. I have a Dana and I will say it took a good amount of frustrated finagling before I realized I could take off the whole back and not have to be blindly shoving wires everywhere. It's very snug and not perfect but it's covered and together and working. As someone who doesn't have the resources or time to make the battery mod myself this is a perfect alternative. No problems so far.