Experiences with bulging battery on original Maestro

Phil M0VSE

Hi all

My Model A Maestro had started to experience the bulging battery phenomenon that seems quite common with older Maestros.

Being a computer service engineer, I have replaced lots of tablet batteries so was quite happy to approach this and I found that the batteries are readily available on both Amazon and Ebay.

Upon opening the Maestro, I did discover that the Micro USB connector that goes from the tablet to the Maestro mainboard was 'welded' in place. Not sure why it was so stiff but I was close to ripping the socket off the board so decided to leave it in place and disconnect from the tablet end.

After replacing the battery and putting everything back together, I discovered that the screen still had some marks on it at the bottom (I was hoping that this would fix itself after the pressure was released from the battery) so I decided to get a new screen as well.

Replacement screen and digitizer were ordered and I started to remove the screen. This is quite a tricky process which firstly involves removing the camera, connectors to the motherboard and various screws.

Then comes actually removing the screen which is attached with double-sided tape and I found that I had to destroy the old screen to remove it. It may have been possible to soften the adhesive with a heat gun but I wasn't too worried.

After scraping the old glass from the mounting, the new screen fits quite easily and should already have double-sided tape attached.

Once everything was put back together, I discovered that the digitizer vertical axis was reversed! This meant that the touch screen was effectively unusable...

The fix is actually quite straight-forward, plugging a USB-OTG adapter into the Micro USB socket on the top of the tablet, I was able to attach a keyboard and exit the Maestro app. The digitizer problem is related to there being 2 different models of digitizer available and a firmware update is required to fix this. The firmware is readily available and a search for 'dell venue 8 pro digitizer axis reversed' should help!

This certainly isn't for the faint hearted but quite rewarding that my Maestro is now as good as new.

73 Phil M0VSE