Don't discard your "dead" Laptop battery pack

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jkeny

Banned
Joined 2007
My story:
There are 2 Dell laptops in the house & when thebattery pack in the Inspiron 6000 would no longer charge, I swapped over the battery pack from the Vostro 1000 laptop but OF COURSE it would not work so I put it back. Hey ho I thought, I'm not buying yet another battery pack as I don't use this laptop way from mains.

Anyway, a couple of months later the Vostro battery pack stopped working also. Just last week I decided to crack open both of these packs :). What do I discover - in the official Dell pack all the Panasonic 18650 Li-ion batteries are fully charged & working fine (3 sets of 3 batteries in each set). The pack isn't working because there is an id chip in either the pack or laptop that is no longer working even though the batteries are fine.

I consider this a scam perpetrated by Dell to make money! Check it out here for other Dell models DELL AC power adapter not recognized | The Laptop Junction This ID chip stops the battery packs from being interchangeable between laptops also - what a scam!

The cheap battery pack I bought from ebay had 1 set of 3 batteries in the pack still fully charged & working, the rest not.

So I have 12 Li-ion 3.3V batteries in perfect working order.

I would recommend everybody to crack open their laptop battery pack before recycling it & checking them. I'll also be checking my local recycling center for free Li-Ion batteries when I need them :)
 
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Sch3mat1c

Sch3mat1c

Member
Joined 2003
seventransistorlabs.com/
Funny, my Inspiron 5160 is still running. I don't take it off power very often though (it's a bit of a secondary computer these days, just whiling away the CPU-hours with folding@home ;) ).

I had a problem where the charge light was blinking a funny color, like the battery was dead (no message, like "not recognized" though). I took it out for a while, put it back in and it worked, ran it from battery for a few minutes to make sure it didn't drop out super fast. I haven't ran it for hours, but that it still works is something of a miracle I suppose. That battery must be over 5 years old by now.

Tim
 
J

jkeny

Banned
Joined 2007
As somewhat knowledgeable in electronics we should all disseminate this info on the web so that the general public begin to put pressure on the laptop & phone manufacturers. This is the only way it will change. I consider it a scam operated by manufacturers!!!
 
iko

iko

Ex-Moderator
Joined 2008
There's a trick around here, they'll price a cordless drill very low but the kit battery is pretty much garbage and you need to get a replacement soon after the purchase, at, guess what, much higher price than the cordless drill was initially. But hey, I pulled the cells out of a few laptop batteries and fit them in the cordless drill battery pack. Behold, my $19.99 cordless drill just became a lithium-ion wonder :D
 
analog_sa

analog_sa

Member
Joined 2002
jkeny said:
This ID chip stops the battery packs from being interchangeable between laptops also - what a scam!
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It's not a scam, it's an opportunity. I would expect the ID of either batteries or charger to be sent over a simple serial communication link with no encryption. If this proves to be true it's quite trivial to program a microcontroller into replicating the ID. And voila - manufacture, repair, recycle Dell chargers and batteries. Not that i can see a point in maintaning a laptop more than couple of years old...
 
iko

iko

Ex-Moderator
Joined 2008
Magura said:
And no subtle explosions or the like so far? :D
Which voltage did you end up with and what's the nominal voltage of the drill?
Asking cause I've been pondering to throw some Li-Po cells in my power drill.
Magura :)
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The drill say 18V on it, the charger 25V at 500mA. The Li-Ion cells are 3.7V each, which measured more like 4V after being charged. I think I used six of them, but can't recall exactly, it was about a month ago that I did it. In any case, it's not ideal, but hey, whatever.

As opposed to the original NiCd cells which got hot while recharging, these Li-Ion don't even get warm. I still recharge them only during the day and while I'm home. Fine with me.

Edit: forgot to mention, it's got lots more juice than before; I can't completely stop the drill from turning with my bare hand. If I try to stop it from turning long enough it stops for about a minute. Probably some overheating or current limit protection mechanism.
 
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S

SoNic_real_one

Member
Joined 2008
The problem with the Li-Ion battery packs is that they require safety circuits - they can burst open with violent fire. Those circuits are not defective, this is how they are required to work. Even if cells look like there are holding the charge, the chip might deactivated the pack for a good reason. The producers are putting those circuits in there because liability issues and sue-happy people in the world.
Anyway, laptop producers DO NOT manufacture the battery packs.
Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Safety requirements
Li-ion batteries are not as durable as nickel metal hydride or nickel-cadmium designs, and can be extremely dangerous if mistreated. They may explode if overheated or if charged to an excessively high voltage. Furthermore, they may be irreversibly damaged if discharged below a certain voltage. To reduce these risks, lithium-ion batteries generally contain a small circuit that shuts down the battery when it is discharged below about 3 V or charged above about 4.2 V. In normal use, the battery is therefore prevented from being deeply discharged. When stored for long periods, however, the small current drawn by the protection circuitry may drain the battery below the protection circuit's lower limit, in which case normal chargers are unable to recharge the battery. More sophisticated battery analyzers can recharge deeply discharged cells by slow-charging them.
Other safety features are also required for commercial lithium-ion batteries:
shut-down separator (for overtemperature), tear-away tab (for internal pressure), vent (pressure relief), and thermal interrupt (overcurrent/overcharging).
These devices occupy useful space inside the cells, and reduce their reliability; typically, they permanently and irreversibly disable the cell when activated. They are required because the anode produces heat during use, while the cathode may produce oxygen. Safety devices and recent and improved electrode designs greatly reduce or eliminate the risk of fire or explosion.
These safety features increase the cost of lithium-ion batteries compared to nickel metal hydride cells, which only require a hydrogen/oxygen recombination device (preventing damage due to mild overcharging) and a back-up pressure valve.
Many types of lithium-ion cell cannot be charged safely below 0 °C.
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