goTenna team
Any chance you might consider selling the goTenna Mesh as a parts kits? It’s a real pain to split the case open. It would be nice to be able to get a kit with a complete PCB board and outer shell so we could add our own tweaks to it. In my case I plan to add a larger battery and an external battery connection. To get mine apart I had to destroy the case. It would be nice to have a case to glue back together.
Click on the photo to see the entire photo
I think having the case sealed is likely a good way to discourage idle tampering that could affect the warranty or FCC certification. Note I’m not suggesting what you’re up to as being idle tampering. Far from it, I’m looking forward to your poking around in there, but manufacturing a mass market device tends to require building things to address mass market problems.
I understand your frustrations over the RF shield. Cracked mine open with the Land Cruiser, but that darn shield managed to protect the PCB while only breaking loose at a few places. Removing it be desoldering the numerous legs that hold it to the PCB somewhat aggravated an intermittent contact issue in the area of the Bluetooth antenna’s emergence from underneath the shield.
It’s probably also good to point out that your pics, although connected in your text with a desire to swap batteries, actually show the opposite, antenna end of the goTenna. This pic shows the reverse side of the whole enchilada with the battery connections at the opposite end from the antenna.
The red and black battery leads are soldered to the PCB in the second pic. They are easily accessible on the other side of the PCB to desolder – once you have the case open.
@MikeL is correct that we can’t sell bare boards without running afoul of FCC which would be disastrous for our business and therefore simply something we cannot do. That being said we are supportive of any/all hacking all of you do with your devices. 
Any chance we could get the outer case?
To quote John Ehringer from
http://www.5khz.com/2017/10/08/gotenna-mesh-teardown/
“The top and bottom of the case are ultrasonically welded together to provide a weather-resistant seal free of screws, gaskets, or clips. I recently heard of a method to separate plastics which are joined like this by giving them firm taps around the outside with a blunt object. I used the handle of a large screwdriver and applied many very firm whacks around the edges. A little to my surprise, the two halves of the case came apart very cleanly.”
lol, wish I knew that before I spent 20 min tearing mine up!
Running the unit over with the 33" tires on a Land Cruiser will also work pretty well to shuck them out – and quickly! Not too precise though…
