T21 CMOS Battery

[iann070]

My T21 has started to lose time so I suspect the CMOS battery is on it's way out.
I know the IBM part number is 02K6572 but here in Austalia IBM want $20 for the battery plus about $15 postage.
So I thought of buying a CR2032 battery and soldering the wires on myself but I understand that soldering the wires onto these batteries is pretty hard and can damage the battery.
Someone has even said the battery could even explode if it's heated up too much.

Then I noticed that the CR2032 battery can be bought with the tags already soldered to it which would mean I would only need to solder the wires to the tags rather than the battery itself.
So would the battery fit inside the holder if it had the tags soldered to it ?

How long do these CR2032 batteries last ?
My ThinkPad is a T21 @ 800MHz (2647-4BA) so I'm not too sure when it was made, and if the battery is the fault as I'm guessing my T21 was made around 2000 which would make it 6 years old, but I thought these CR2032 batteries lasted about 10 years.

[tfflivemb2]

First off, DO NOT try to solder the leads the the CR2032 yourself. I can tell you from first hand experience that they DO explode with very little heat. I just accidentally touched my soldering iron to the CMOS battery and it exploded almost on contact. The original leads are spot welded.

Second, if you find the ones that have the leads, then that should work, if you want to solder the wires to the leads. The T23 has a little more play room than some, so you can most likely get it to work.

The life of the battery depends. I have some old 600/600Es from 1998/1999 that are still chugging away on the original CMOS batteries (CR2025). While I have absolutely NO facts to support this, I think that if the laptop is used on a daily basis the CMOS battery should last longer than if the laptop is used occasionally or stored for long periods of time.

Another possibility would be checking eBay if you are interested. Generally the CMOS batteries go for less than $20 shipped on eBay.

[betabily]

The leads on the system battery are spot welded, soldering will overheat it and most probably the fumes will make you feel like dying.

Got an old mainboard? De-solder the cmos battery holder and attach your old battery leads to it. A spot of silicone caulk will affix the two battery holders together.

3.3v batteries are quite cheap and plentiful.

[iann070]

Got an old mainboard? De-solder the cmos battery holder and attach your old battery leads to it.

You must have read my mind, I was just thinking of the same thing.
Just wondering if the battery holder would fit into the plastic battery holder in the thinkpad, I'm sure it would.

Cheers