X41 vs. X41T battery Q

[mediasponge]

I have an X41 (2528-5FU) (non-tablet) I am trying to refurbish. The replacement MB is on the way. I have the battery that was in it when the MB smoked itself, and it has charge on it. I came up with some spare batteries, one X41, one X41T. I know the X41T battery will not physically fit in the X41 case, as they are different. Electrically, they appear to be the same: 14.4V, 4.5AH. The connector is the same. Is it safe to connect an X41T battery to an X41 for charging purposes? If either spare battery (X41 or X41T) is completely dead, is there a danger to the MB?

[topmahof]

this is probably gonna raise a couple of eyebrows as being unacceptable but yes, you can put an x41t battery in an x41 nontablet. the connector is the same, it will charge and the laptop will run off the battery. you have to grind off the 2 little tabs on the battery so the connectors will go into each other. if you look at both batteries you'll see that the tabs are in different places, but once you grind them off, the x41t battery will actually lock into place in the x41. there will be about a half inch gap between the battery and the laptop but it fits in there nice and tight. it looks a little weird but it works.

thinkpads are sometimes picky about dead batteries. so far, everytime i've plugged in a dead battery it works okay. but i've seen a lot of threads where the laptop won't start up with a dead battery.

[mediasponge]

Good info. Thanks. I thought as much. Since the X41 is completely apart right now (replacement MB just arrived), I was going to hook everything up to the bare MB without the upper and lower case. In that mode, the tabs don't matter. I'll do it with the known good battery first, then try the spares just to see if they will charge.

[mediasponge]

Just to follow up, this did work, but on those machines, connecting things to a bare MB is not so good, as the shield plate acts as a heat spreader, and the airflow from the fan also helps cool other things. They are certainly compatible.

[topmahof]

i bought a bunch of ac adapters on ebay and there was an x41t battery in the lot. so it sat around here for awhile and i had an x40 with a graphics chip acting up so i figured i'd see if it would work. and it did. that's the only reason i know it would work. i use it as a backup battery when i travel around. i take it your new motherboard works okay. that's good.