I got a Gateway 4DX-33 recently and it had one of those old Rayovac Alkaline 4.5v black-box batteries in it... obviously dead.

I was wondering what was inside the box, just in case they had cleverly crammed a few AAA batteries inside. I couldn't find a single picture of the insides of one of these online, so I figured I'd crack one open and post it here.

Inside is a pretty nasty looking little clear plastic case filled with... I'm not sure what to call them... Alkaline cells? Not at all what I expected to find, but certainly interesting looking!

Sadly, the casing isn't really usable for AAA batteries... it's a little too shallow and wouldn't close. Plus, there's no contacts inside so you'd have to fabricate some or solder wires to your batteries. You might be able to get away with using AAAA or something slightly thinner than AAA, but this is certainly more complicated and probably no less expensive than simply buying a AAA battery holder and some batteries.

Anyway... not much to say here. Just wanted to post this to save anyone else the time of ever trying to bust into one of these with the intent of reusing it. 😀