Your Experience with ThinkPad Advance Ultrabay Battery?

[rknotes]

I'm planning to get an extra battery and so thinking about ThinkPad Advance Ultrabay Battery for my Z60t -- those of you having this one, whats your experience so far?

Much appreciated..
Thanks...

[ryengineer]

More hours of unplugged work.

[rknotes]

good for u mate

is it worth the buy? how many hours do you get out of it?

[ryengineer]

snip......is it worth the buy? how many hours do you get out of it?

Can't really remember now, been a while since I departed my Z-series thinkpad but as a whole ultrabay battery + 7 cell battery there was a significant change in battery life. The stated time given by lenovo is 1.5 hrs (Ultrabay battery only) under their battery testing environment, make it 1hr-50 minutes for an average user on optimized settings.

[davidspalding]

On my T43, the ultrabay battery is drained first, and you can't change that. A new one added 45 minutes or so to runtime, but since it gets a full cycle every time it's used, my 2005 Ultrabay Battery is now down to something like 28% of original capacity. I bought 2 more on eBay, and now used them when my first main battery is running low, so I can swap in a fresh main battery.

I wouldn't buy one now, knowing what I know.

[zhenya]

Big 2nd on that. In 1.5 years, my 2nd ultrabay battery (1st one replaced under warranty) is at 50% of original capacity, and adds about 1/2 hour of life to my z61t. Terrible design on the part of Lenovo.

[davidspalding]

I'm surprised you got a replacement under warranty. I considered it, but only after 12 months had gone by (it was down to 51% of capacity at 12 months). I presumed they would squawk that normal use and wear accounts for that, something the warranty wouldn't cover. "Bother," said Pooh.

[ZaZ]

I would have to agree with others, the ultrabay battery is pretty crappy. I've had mine for less than a year and it's under 40% capacity while the six cell battery that came with my system is still over 75% after more than a year. When it's time to get a new battery, I think I'll just get the nine cell and be done with the modular battery. If you don't already have the larger battery for the Z, I'd go that way.

[cj3209]

Considering the size of the ultra-bay battery, if you got around an hour extra charge, that's pretty good in my book. It costs around $50 via the 'bay.

An extended battery costs around $80. So do the math. I don't think it's a design flaw as using both 9-cell extended and ultra-bay should give you around 5+ hours of use.

CJ

[zhenya]

Considering the size of the ultra-bay battery, if you got around an hour extra charge, that's pretty good in my book. It costs around $50 via the 'bay.

An extended battery costs around $80. So do the math. I don't think it's a design flaw as using both 9-cell extended and ultra-bay should give you around 5+ hours of use.

CJ

The design flaw is that when using both batteries it will drain the ultabay battery first, and drain it 100% before transitioning to the regular battery. There is no adjustability to when that transition takes place, nor is there any built in protection for the battery. Hence why I was able to get a replacement under warranty - at 3 months of use, it was down to ~50% capacity from being entirely drained on a regular basis. After that I stopped using the battery regularly. Even so, the replacement one is down to 40% in ~10 months of use.

[cj3209]

True, my old ubay did always drain first. But then, I worked around it and only used it when I was on the road. I never used it at home when I was always connected to AC power.

You can always use the power manager to not charge the ubay battery until it reaches a certain point - like 25% before recharging. That will keep it relatively fresh; it is a disposable product.

Cheers,
CJ

[zhenya]

True, my old ubay did always drain first. But then, I worked around it and only used it when I was on the road. I never used it at home when I was always connected to AC power.

You can always use the power manager to not charge the ubay battery until it reaches a certain point - like 25% before recharging. That will keep it relatively fresh; it is a disposable product.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, how would that solve this problem, which is that the battery drains fully? If you were able to say, for example, 'never drain below 20%' (which you can effectively do with the main battery by setting it to shut down at that level) you would get much better life out of the battery. Yes, of course batteries are a disposable product, but this is a design flaw that causes these batteries to have perhaps 1/4 of the useful life they would have if a full discharge was preventable.

[cj3209]

I don't see draining the ubay battery first and draining it all the way as necessarily a design fault. IMHO, it should drain first and having it drain until the main battery is used works for me. Unless I'm missing something, why would you want it otherwise? Would you want your main battery to drain first?

In my old Dell 8200, I remember that when I had two batteries inserted, it would use one battery up to a certain point, and then proceed to use the other battery; I guess it tried to use both batteries equally. Is that what you want?

In any case, it's just an option and when you're trying to squeeze as much power as possible on the road, the ubay battery can be a godsend.

CHeers,

[zhenya]

I don't see draining the ubay battery as necessarily a design fault. IMHO, it should drain first. But, unless my memory escapes me as I haven't used a ubay battery in some time, you can prevent the notebook from recharging the ubay battery when plugged in until it reaches a certain point like at 25% - this will conserve the ubay battery.

In any case, it's just an option and when you're trying to squeeze as much power as possible on the road, the ubay battery can be a godsend.

CHeers,

I don't think you're understanding the problem...The option you speak of means that it won't start recharging the battery until it reaches a set discharge point. This is an attempt to prevent too many partial discharge/recharge cycles. However with current battery technology, numerous cycles are not problematic. Deep (full) discharges, however, are very bad for battery capacity. The Toyota Prius. for example, is able to provide 100,000 miles plus of use from its batteries by having more battery capacity than necessary, then, through software, only discharging the batteries to ~40% then charging to ~80%. A good battery will last almost indefinitely when used in this way.

With the ultrabay battery, there is NO way (short of manually monitoring levels and then pulling the battery out early) to stop the battery from discharging to 0. Each time this happens, the battery loses something like 1/2 wHr of total capacity - meaning that in very short order your battery that when new provides ~30wHrs and 1.5 hours of extra life, is now only capable of holding say 15 wHrs and provides just 45 minutes of life. This has happened to both of my batteries within the first few months of life, with as few as 30 cycles on them, while my main 9 cell battery has nearly 100 cycles and has lost less than 10% of its original capacity because it very rarely gets fully discharged.

[cj3209]

Ok, now I'm confused. My old ubay battery didn't have that characteristic of always going to full discharge before recharging. Maybe your power manager was the issue. If that's the case with your ubay battery, I agree; that IS a defect.

Sorry for the misunderstanding!

CJ



I don't think you're understanding the problem...The option you speak of means that it won't start recharging the battery until it reaches a set discharge point. This is an attempt to prevent too many partial discharge/recharge cycles. However with current battery technology, numerous cycles are not problematic. Deep (full) discharges, however, are very bad for battery capacity. The Toyota Prius. for example, is able to provide 100,000 miles plus of use from its batteries by having more battery capacity than necessary, then, through software, only discharging the batteries to ~40% then charging to ~80%. A good battery will last almost indefinitely when used in this way.

With the ultrabay battery, there is NO way (short of manually monitoring levels and then pulling the battery out early) to stop the battery from discharging to 0. Each time this happens, the battery loses something like 1/2 wHr of total capacity - meaning that in very short order your battery that when new provides ~30wHrs and 1.5 hours of extra life, is now only capable of holding say 15 wHrs and provides just 45 minutes of life. This has happened to both of my batteries within the first few months of life, with as few as 30 cycles on them, while my main 9 cell battery has nearly 100 cycles and has lost less than 10% of its original capacity because it very rarely gets fully discharged.[/quote]

[barrywohl]

I found the same issues as discussed in this thread: the Ultrabay battery drains first and the Ultrabay battery capacity drops too fast.

I have a six cell battery, a nine cell battery and an Ultrabay battery now for my T61p. The only uses I see for the Ultrabay are as follows:

Keep it out until I need to swap from one to the other main batteries and then put it in during the swap.

Use it while traveling to eek out a little more power.

Overall I'm glad I bought it, but I'm more disappointed in it than happy with it and, yes, I do think it is a design flaw in the battery or in the power manager software.