Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:38:35 -0600 From: John Liu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: [LIB] Libretto Batteries - Rebuilding
That is very interesting. I did some reading about the Smart Battery standard used in most notebook batteries and concluded that my Lib's battery is so smart that it must have committed suicide from boredom during the year that the Lib sat in the closet.
Anyway, I bought a PA2503UR hi-cap battery from eBay for $54 and will use that to confirm that the DC power circuit of my Lib is actually working. Then I'll try rebuilding the old batteries. Listen for the BOOM.
9. RE: [LIB] Libretto Batteries - Rebuilding
Here is a little more information about rebuilding the battery pack.
I examined the circuit and got information about its function from
several vendors of batteries -
The circuit is there to optimize the power pack (battery) output during
it expected life time range. The circuit monitors the total charge
cycles, duration, discharge rate, and temperature of the batteries plus
calculates the expected cycle usage time. The calculation parameters are
given by the manufacture of the batteries. The cycle usage time is the
data is supplied to the computer.
In early battery packs when the circuit calculated the batteries were
exceeding the optimized cycle usage and the circuit reported a very low
usage time plus would automatically shut down the computer even though
you could measure the battery output with load and see the batteries
were good. To reset the battery required disconnecting the circuit,
waiting 5 minutes and reconnecting the circuit and it indicate 100% user
time. Note there is one or two cell directly connected to the monitoring
circuit.
Now, if you check closely, the battery monitoring circuit has a crystal
device which mean a clock and a memory chip which mean the circuit does
not reset when disconnected.
Additionally if the battery manufacture and the manufacture of the
computer are "friends" both have the possibility to communicate the
cycle and charge frequencies of the battery, so just replacing the
"dead" cells may not bring the bat pack back to life for the computer.
Ever notice the ID of the battery pack indicated in the control panel?
Reg- McClanahan
