Main Battery - alternatives ?
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:01 am
Up until yesterday I had one excellent (2 hrs plus) 4200MaH battery, which is seldom used as I tend to run my 600's straight from a 12 volt accumulator (via an adapter made from an old battery case, with diodes, an over-voltage zener and anti-spike toroids inside).
Yesterday I tried to power-up via the main battery only to discover that it was 'dead'. Not surprising really, considering how little use it gets. Checking with a multimeter returned 10.25 volts. Assuming that this was just below the permitted charging threshold, I redirected some voltage from a 12 volt gel-cell (via a resistor and ammeter) until the battery registered 10.6 volts. When re-inserted, it then began to charge ..... until the 'green led' glowed, but with only 25 % capacity being indicated by the 'smart-stuff' inside.
Well, I've had enough of playing with Li-Ion cells - they may be great if you're using a laptop on a regular basis, but I don't ... They begin to deteriorate from the first day of manufacture, whether they are being used or not - so I'm looking for an alternative solution.
Can't do a useful Forum search for battery-related issues, as the common search-term "battery" is ignored.
Ok. I'm confident of fitting 8 x 2700 mAh NiHM's into an empty case (chargeable via an external charger) - which, although of a lower capacity, would be more appropriate for my style of use. But before trying anything radical like this - does anyone with the right equipment happen to know what information is conveyed via the 2 x central pins of a Li-Ion battery: an analogue voltage (simply 'sense pins' ?), or a stream of digital information ? Could be either.
Yesterday I tried to power-up via the main battery only to discover that it was 'dead'. Not surprising really, considering how little use it gets. Checking with a multimeter returned 10.25 volts. Assuming that this was just below the permitted charging threshold, I redirected some voltage from a 12 volt gel-cell (via a resistor and ammeter) until the battery registered 10.6 volts. When re-inserted, it then began to charge ..... until the 'green led' glowed, but with only 25 % capacity being indicated by the 'smart-stuff' inside.
Well, I've had enough of playing with Li-Ion cells - they may be great if you're using a laptop on a regular basis, but I don't ... They begin to deteriorate from the first day of manufacture, whether they are being used or not - so I'm looking for an alternative solution.
Can't do a useful Forum search for battery-related issues, as the common search-term "battery" is ignored.
Ok. I'm confident of fitting 8 x 2700 mAh NiHM's into an empty case (chargeable via an external charger) - which, although of a lower capacity, would be more appropriate for my style of use. But before trying anything radical like this - does anyone with the right equipment happen to know what information is conveyed via the 2 x central pins of a Li-Ion battery: an analogue voltage (simply 'sense pins' ?), or a stream of digital information ? Could be either.