Rebuild a battery with new cells: Just break it open?

[Aristotle11]

Anyone have any experience or advice about rebuilding a T40 battery?

I have an old T40 battery that gets about 2 hours of battery life. I've replaced it and have no use for it, so I though I'd experiment by breaking it open and trying to replace the cells. I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron and tools, and noticed that other people had sucesfully tried this with other Lithium Ion laptop batteries. For example, see this site...
http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/28/how- ... p-battery/

I know a T40 battery can be rebuilt becasue there is a rebuilding service that costs $59 at http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/ib ... SAodRxtdkw

A number of other sites offer the same service. Also, http://sbworkshop.com/ offers some software and directions on how to build some simple hardware to reset the eeprom in the battery to read as "new" so it recharges all the way (and doesn't think it's a battery with little charge left).

So any advice before I try the experiment? I broke open by laser printer cartrage and refilled it for cheap, so why not the battery?

[tfflivemb2]

Personally, I wouldn't recommend opening and working on the battery unless you have experience with it, or have someone that can guide you through it. You can ruin all of the cells in the battery if they aren't running at the same specs.

If you are insistant on trying it, then I recommend selling your T40 battery, because there are several people that would love to get a 2 hour battery, atleast as a backup, as opposed to possibly seeing a "good" battery ruined. You could then try buying several "dead" T40 batteries off of eBay for next to nothing for testing.

There is a site out there that you can google for that shows how to replace the cells in a TP600E, so you might find one for a T40.

[LtTPfan]

Having personally messed with 770 batteries, I would recommend you follow tfflivemb2's advice and sell your somewhat working battery. It's not worth the time and effort unlees you can get "new" cells VERY cheap. You certainly want to avoid surplus cells, and even with new ones there is a chance of damaging the circuit board, which could damage your TP.

You might consider keeping it and using it when you plan on running off AC but want to have a two hour emergency backup.

That's JMAO.

PS> If you decide to try "refurbing" yours, keep in mind a small pencil soldering iron ain't gonna cut it, there's way too much material to heat up. You'll need some hefty wattage or a spot-welder like the big boys use.

[vincentfox]

I sent mine off to batteryrefill.com.

While their customer service is not so great, the battery does work well....

[mdarnton]

Somewhere on the web is a site that runs through the rebuilding operation. Now, I'm a violin maker and repairman, so my hands are OK, and I'm not afraid to dig into things without quite knowing what I'm doing, and electricity doesn't put me off, but after reading the instructions I decided I'd rather just buy a new one. some things just aren't worth the bother.

[GomJabbar]

Lithium cells can explode and/or cause a fire if mishandled. I personally would not put a soldering iron (or soldering gun) to one.

[carbon_unit]

Lithium cells can explode and/or cause a fire if mishandled. I personally would not put a soldering iron (or soldering gun) to one.

Same here.

[tfflivemb2]

I can tell you from personal experience that Li-Ion batteries explode with very little heat.

I tried spot welding contacts on a CMOS battery and while not paying attention, the soldering iron touched the CMOS battery. I heard a pop and saw a flash of light and then went immediately to the bathroom to wash the battery debri out of my eyes....live and learn.

[christopher_wolf]

I had that happen to me once; thankfully I was wearing goggles. The soldering iron accidentally fell out of my hands and hit both a large capacitor and a small button battery. It sounded like a loud, high pitched pop and sizzle. I later looked at my goggles and found corrosive debris on the side and front on a trajectory that would have hit my eyes were it not for the goggles.

Yet there is something even worse than that and far harder to detect until an explosion results. If you crack the outer casings of some LiIons and most NiMH batteries, a slow oxidation process will take place with no clear place for the reduction reaction to take place and leading to a buildup of electrons and radicals (Weak acid). While all of this is taking place, you don't notice anything other than te battery acting very strange and maybe smelling a bit. Eventually, that will eat through more of the casing and expose itself to more oxygen, leading to acid-base reactions and production of H2O; at this point, the reaction will speed up and become very exothermic if the products touch the Lithium or Nickel material in the battery, Li + H+ -> LiH is an example (Ever tossed Lithium into a bucket of water? ). A serious explosion will then result; more like an extremely fast burn with a pressure buildup. I have seen this happen only once to an old laptop battery pack and it was more powerful than I expected, even in a controlled environment.

One time, a Prof of mine had his laptop dropped by the security checkers at an airport; the battery casing was cracked. He immediately found a plastic bag and covered it up to smother the reactions that could have been taking place. Generally, an Airplane isn't a good place to take a cracked laptop battery anyway for obvious reasons.

[Navck]

18650s are pretty standard for modern laptops
18 = Width
65 = Length
0 = "Round"

Thats what I think IBM has put in the 380, 600E (Confirmed) and T43 (Looks like it) series.
I know people who sell them for 5 dollars each. But its better to go with a new pack

[AlphaKilo470]

To be a little more specific on what Navck just posted, the dead 600 battery I had handy had Panasonic CGR18650HM cells while the 380 battery I dissected had Panasonic CGR18650 cells. The difference between the plain and the HM is the power output and/or capacity, I think.

[jhonyl]

If soldering is dangerous, maybe this could be done without soldering? (clips, wedges, etc?)

Edit - From that linked site

Next, you need to get contact going. Obviously using metal. You can either solder them together properly with a metal strip on the front, or just try positioning the metal correctly inside the case with the cells. I did the 2nd method and it worked for me after some tinkering around.

So obviously soldering is not required.