Hi all, contrary to normal practice, I am looking for batteries to put INTO a laptop battery. I can’t seem to find any reasonably priced tabbed batteries. I’m looking for around 2600mah range, with a decently reliable manufacturer. I can’t find any priced anywhere near sites like fasttech have batteries. The only ones I seem to find are the tenergy ones at around 8 bucks each.
Ultrafire BRC are often some of the worst we see. Counterfeit 18650s, more
You know 18650s simply do not exist at 4000mah, right? When they start off with a clear, well known lie across each label it tells you those batteries are targeted at people marks who can’t even use google. The seller knows they can put any trash in those labels.
Sorry, thought you might have been considering those.
Don’t know of any good cells with tabs but the battery pack strips are available.
I understand the battery monitor chip in many laptop packs can cause problems when trying to replace the cells. Power must be maintained during the swap & it may not acknowledge increased capacity of new cells, won’t let the capacity be used.
If I go the DIY route that will be useful, thanks.
It seems it can be, but there’s not really enough information I can find to say for sure or not. Some people don’t have a problem or it goes away after a few cycles. Some people seem to be stuck with it. I’m willing to risk it since worst case scenario is I have extra 18650’s for my lights. 8)
I’ve only seen those online and your choosey as to capacity. That would be an expensive rebuild. Are the third party laptop batteries not up to your specs?
Isn’t it kind of tough to find third party laptop batteries w/ good cells in them? Maybe he wants Sanyo/Sony/LG/Panasonic/etc?
I’d solder them in personally. Even with tabs you’ll still end up soldering, you can probably squeeze-em in there with solder for 100% of the connections rather than 50%. The only way to have the tabs end up like the originals is to wield all of the connections (which OP is certainly unable to do or he wouldn’t be asking for cells w/ tabs).
I was referring to the full NEW 3rd party packs. I have bought a couple for Dell and Asus. You can find the Pana’s with tabs but ones I saw were not cheap, then again neither are the originals. Some of my laptop pulls would be a feat as they are welded, not just solder and tabs that would fit.
I don’t trust 3rd party packs to have good cells either. Those companies don’t have enough of a reputation to protect IMO & very few people would ever open a pack to see if its Panasonic,Sanyo,Samsung,LG,Sony.
I’ve heard that BAK is better than terrible, so with the better 3rd party packs I’m thinking that’s probably what’s in there. With the worst ones of course we’ve all heard the stories of recycled cells…
At the lower prices I would not expect them to have name brand cells so yes, they are a gamble. However my Dell replacement has out lasted my originals while I’m on the fence with a 12 cell Asus. Amazon and a few laptop battery supply houses would be your better third party source.
No mater what brand laptop with whatever battery, 1 year is the max warranty and not covered by extended warranty.
As far as the battery blowing up in your lap, well just look at what happened to Sony…
Exactly. :bigsmile: If the big names can screw up their quality control like that then I’d rather stay away from the no-names that have less to lose & no reputation to protect.
Which side are you on again? How do you see the sony fires? An example of how they all suck so we might as well get whatever?
But yea, official packs are massively overpriced.
As to the original OP, I did try to solder and rebuild 1 (each) pack. I did not think of the home brew welder Warhawk suggested. I was not able to properly refit cells into old case which had been mangled a bit to remove old cells and save the safety/monitor boards for reuse. The monitor boards were most likely designed for one type of cell so this was a non BLF mod. This was for my old E-1750 Dell.
The battery monitor chip wouldn’t care or even be able to tell if its different brand cells.
The issue seems to be if the chip ever loses power during the battery swap the pack may become useless. Chip needs to be reinitialized. A second issue with some packs is the chip may only accept the progressive decrease in capacity as cells age as valid & ignores a significant increase in capacity, will not recalculate capacity. The laptop obeys whatever the chip says.
was doomed to fail, lol. There were many videos, during that vintage, where there were some successful rebuilds but others talked of failure because of the “digital chips”. Probably just as well for the safety standpoint.
Looks like the best deal I’ll be getting is on the Tenergy 2600mah from allbattery. I like their service, and the price is pretty darn good.
Thanks for the advice though.
I’m not sure whether I am gonna go through on the battery upgrade due to fear of chip not recognizing the new capacity of the batteries.
I’ll post the process if I go through with it and people are interested. (Any recommendation on where I would post?)
I’m looking to sell the laptop, and don’t wanna be screwing over the customer so it’s either I attempt the rebuild or buy a factory battery from dell for 150!!!
Have you considered selling it without a battery? You could advise them against purchasing low quality third party batteries and let things fall as they may.
Used laptop is typically only worth a couple hundred dollars. A new first-party battery often costs around half the value of a used laptop. I figure having a first party battery adds very little value compared to a third party battery, and the market is flooded with “refurbs” [done by yokels] with third party batteries. Buying a first party battery seems like a certain way to reduce your profit, even compared to the hit you take for “no battery”. Rebuilding a pack without a tab wielder seems like it might not work. $50-60 invested in tabbed cells only to be back at square one.
If you are selling a used machine that’s worth $500-1000, the situation may be a little different.
EDIT: The laptop works fine as a computer with no battery. Tons of people use laptops that way. They want a small and/or inexpensive computer, battery is immaterial to those folks. Think about rolltop desks - laptops fit but desktops typically do not. There is definitely a market for laptops with no functioning battery.
How do you see the sony fires? An example of how they all suck so we might as well get whatever? 