ThinkPad 701c Battery and more

[Fezzler]

I own several 701c's. (One I think I may have purchased from a regular poster here.)

Can one disassemble and rebuild a 701c battery successfully? Are step-by-step instructions around?

So can the 701c do wireless? I'm confused by postings I've read.

All 701c users, what is the best set up for speed and near-modern usability? From what I gather it's OS2 WARP?

I love ThinkPads and the 701c size. But I'm out of work now and don't have large funds. What would be a good (older okay) ThinkPad model to move up to? I want small form-factor (and small budget too.) I have a 760ED already, so more modern that that even.

Look at eBay, an older Sony Picturebook seems to have the size I like.

[whizkid]

I would go with at least a Pentium II machine.

If you want small, the 240 or 240X may suit you. The 560X, 570 or 570E may work too.

If you want the option of a two-spindle (or two battery) machine with a little more weight, the 600 line is my current favorite.

And the older X series are serious options too.

Take a look in twbook and tawbook.

The 701C should well be able to do wifi. It doesn't have cardbus, so I think you're limited to 802.11b. At least, I haven't heard of an 802.11g card that is not cardbus.

[Bob Collins]

Fezzler,

I rebuilt the batery for my 600X, and figured the 701C battery would be relatively similar. They are quite different. The 701C has nine NiCad cells in it and therefore quite a bit more desoldering and soldering than I had for the 600X.

I do not recall seeing any step by step instructions, but I can assure you, the disassembly of the battery case is frought with breaks. My case came apart in about 8 pieces. It will be a real pain to put it back together when/if I find replacement cells.

The battery I have is a 10.8V at 1.5AH. So with nine cells, that is nine cells at 1.2V each. Those should be relatively simple to find.

Here is a good link for what might be involved. This refers to the 600 series battery, but should prove to be a pretty good starting point.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/milnoc/TP600Ba ... ening.html

Here is a link to purchase. I am not affiliated or the like, just found this and the price is not bad!
http://www3.sympatico.ca/milnoc/TP600Ba ... ening.html

As a side note, I made an external battery for the 701c using a Sealed Lead Acid battery, like from an APC ups. If you get the correct charger for the battery and the battery, it is trivial to make the cable to be quick released and able to go with you. Now the upside is that you can get a pretty large battery (AH wise) that is still pretty small. For example, I have a 2.1 AH SLA battery that is the same size except twice as thick as the internal battery. This beast will run the 701c with no problems for some serious time. The downside is that there are no smarts to talk to the system! So you really need to know what your charge state was when you connect and go.

Good luck.

[Fezzler]

Looking at eBay, new-to-me appealling models include:

240X
570E
600X
T-23
T-20
T-21
R-51

In general, I think a nice, affordable, workable, older model would have me looking for a great deal on a P-III, 300MhZ or better, 128 min. ram, 20 gig HD min., XGA w/ no dead pixels, power supply, CD (CD-RW/DVD a plus).

I guess those models cover it.

Fezzler