Reliable Batteries off of ebay

[codek]

I'm looking for a better cost effective alternative to the authentic lenovo batteries. It's painful to pay $150 for a battery for a laptop I got 200-400 used.

Are there any ebay retailers you trust? It doesn't have to be an authentic battery. But no horrific knockoffs that might cause a fire, etc.

I noticed people were buying non-lenovo 12cell batteries for the x6 series. Before that I would have never given ebay batteries a shot.
I wanted to know how the fellow thinkpad experts went about ebay battery buying.

I went to costcentral and they sell a brand called BTI which I thought might be another option.

I'm specically looking for batteries for x60s/x61s, z61t, t60/t61 and x200

I've had bad experiences with supposed authentic Dell batteries from ebay where I would feel a weird electric sensation while using the laptop. It was like an electric tingle

[Harryc]

The Dr. Battery Green series has a good rep. You can get them for your T60 and T61.
http://www.laptopcharge.com/category/no ... y/ibm.aspx
http://www.drbattery.com/boston-power-g ... ttery.aspx

You can also find genuine T60 batteries here -
http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/batteries.html?p=1

[codek]

I believe those guys have batteries for the x series as well. Wow, those green series batteries are awesome. Hopefully, they'll make them for the x series soon. 3 year warranty.. wow.

Laptopcharge.com has batteries for the x series. Just to let everyone know and they are really cheap. I'm going to get my batteries from there.

[deshun74]

got my 12cell series battery for my x61.
has been using it for 6months so far no problem and constant power.

[j-dawg]

Anyone ever re-celled a battery? How'd it turn out? I'm considering it for my Powerbook.

[schmaud]

My brother re-celled some older NiCd pack, which worked great. However I woudl advice against doing it on Li-ions packs: they requeire rather smart control electronics, likely you have to reset or adapt the controller to your new cells. Unless you have a good documentation on this, I would stay away.

[koray]

The Dr. Battery Green series has a good rep. You can get them for your T60 and T61.
http://www.laptopcharge.com/category/no ... y/ibm.aspx
http://www.drbattery.com/boston-power-g ... ttery.aspx

You can also find genuine T60 batteries here -
http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/batteries.html?p=1

Green Series sound awesome. I contacted them for future release date for X60-X61 Tablet batteries. Keeping fingers crossed.

K.

[cros]

I re-celled my T23 with new 2.4Ah Samsung cells about 3 years ago. This gave a 4.8Ah pack, versus the standard IBM 3.6Ah. It took maybe 10 cycles to recalibrate the meter and it's been running great ever since. 133% factory capacity reported by the battery gauge!

I re-celled my 20% capacity X61 4 cell with Sanyo cells from an otherwise useless 2008-vintage T60 pack a few months ago. It also recalibrated after about 10 cycles, but only reached 80% capacity. It worked fine for maybe 40 cycles but then started to die. The reused cells were past their prime.

Overall, it's a pain as you have to parallel-jumper a voltage to each point in the battery chain before you remove the old cells. Otherwise the embedded controller will permanently open a switch to disable the battery as a safety function. It's like open heart surgery. The cosmetic side of things is comparatively easy.

It's only worthwhile re-celling if a) you can't get genuine batteries anymore (T23) b) the genuine battery's cells have been surpassed by modern tech (T23) and c) you bother buy new cells (which are expensive).


There's unlikely to be Green Series battery for the X60/61 unless they redesign the outer casing. In mechanical and electrical terms, think of the Boston Sonata 4.4Ah cell as 2x 3.7v 2.2Ah cells in parallel, bound along their length.

The standard 4 cell battery is 4x 18650 3.7v 2.6Ah cells in series, in a U shape. So just two Boston cells would fit the 4 cell casing perfectly, but yield 7.2v @ 4.4Ah rather than 14.4v @ 2.6Ah. Wrong voltage. No more space.

The standard 8 cell is 3.7v @ 5.2Ah: 8x 18650 3.7v 2.6Ah cells in 4S2P arrangement. It's probably 4x inner cells in series in a U shape and 4x outer cells in series in a row, but I've never actually opened an X61 8 cell battery.

This is arrangement is more promising, but the protruding section would have to become half as long and twice as deep to hold the Boston cells or opt for some kind of wedge-shaped design like the eBay 12 cell batteries.

http://www.boston-power.com/products/sonata-4400

[koray]

...

There's unlikely to be Green Series battery for the X60/61 unless they redesign the outer casing. In mechanical and electrical terms, think of the Boston Sonata 4.4Ah cell as 2x 3.7v 2.2Ah cells in parallel, bound along their length.

The standard 4 cell battery is 4x 18650 3.7v 2.6Ah cells in series, in a U shape. So just two Boston cells would fit the 4 cell casing perfectly, but yield 7.2v @ 4.4Ah rather than 14.4v @ 2.6Ah. Wrong voltage. No more space.

The standard 8 cell is 3.7v @ 5.2Ah: 8x 18650 3.7v 2.6Ah cells in 4S2P arrangement. It's probably 4x inner cells in series in a U shape and 4x outer cells in series in a row, but I've never actually opened an X61 8 cell battery.

This is arrangement is more promising, but the protruding section would have to become half as long and twice as deep to hold the Boston cells or opt for some kind of wedge-shaped design like the eBay 12 cell batteries.

http://www.boston-power.com/products/sonata-4400

You are right, below is a quick reply I received to my inquiry from Boston:

Dear Customer

Thank you interesting DrBattery Product. Lenovo X60 tablet battery cannot produce on boston-power new li-ion technology.

Cheers,

K.