Can you rebuild a wallstret's battery?

Seeing as you're going to need to cut the dead battery open to replace the cells anyway, you might as well do it now, and find out what kind are already in there.

Make sure you replace the cells with ones of the same chemistry, and the same or higher capacity (measured in Ah or mAh usually)

I.e, putting Li-Ion cells in to a battery pack charged by an Ni-Mh charger (for example) is a bad idea as lithium cells need to be charged (carefully) by a lithium cell charger (or they can explode, catch fire etc)

apparently, that battery has decided to charge

I now get about 1-1.5 hours out of it, so with my other battery I cant get 4 hours!!

Thanks anyways,

John

i need to rebuild my batteries. they're just not starting to show signs of a 10 minute charge and then suddenly dieing without warning. anyone know of good cells to put in before i even start? i already have a first generation wallstreet with the liion batteries, and want something that lasts longer. the stories i've heard about expensive replacement batteries failing have scared me away from that option, so what's good?

You should find out how many cells are in your battery pack. Then, once you know what type of cells to get you can figure out the price for just the cells, then add on some to cover your time & frustration from doing the job. Then decide if that total cost is a better value than just buying a new battery with a warranty. After that, you might look into actually making the purchase. You don't want to be up to your ears in battery parts and have the cost of 9 $5-6 cells and hoping you can make it work.

At $139 for a Tecra 8000 batery, I think I can justify the cost of re-celling. For other machines the math may be much closer to the parts cost and you'd likely end up with a better product to the cost by buying new(ish).

i was thinking of just having my batteries rebuilt somewhere as soon as i find good cells. i think the wallstreet batteries have the cells welded in, and i'm just a bit scared to mess with that and liion cells. either way, i think it'll still be cheaper than a new battery.

If they use welded cells, you can probably buy tabbed batteries that already have some lead tabs welded to them by the manufacturer. Otherwise, you are right in thinking of going to a specialist to get the pack redone. If you find one, let us know of the priuce. if they can do it reasonably it may open a market for them.

If the battery is not recognized as being in the computer via the menu bar or the control strip, then can it be rebuilt, or is the circuit board in the battery fried? I have a dead battery that has not responded to either an Open Firmware reset, or the Battery Reset utility (it DID recognize that there was a battery in the left bay, however, and it did "sucessfully" reset it).

(Sorry for the cross-post; I didn't realize the last thread had been dead for two or so months...)

when i first got my wallstreet, the batteries were completely discharged and didn't have indicator lights or pick up on the menu bar or control strip. evantually, they got a charge back after being plugged in for several days and worked fine for a few years up until they just now started to malfunction. i'm assuming that your circuit is probably still okay.

I purchased a PowerBook 1400cs with 15 minutes of battery charge.

I left it charging overnight accidentally and when I woke up, it had 2 hrs 20 mins of
battery charge.

By the way, this is my first post here. Already see some familiar screen names.

Welcome!

Wow, that's a little late.

Submitted by iMac600 on January 26, 2006 - 8:06am.
Submitted by DrBunsen on January 4, 2007 - 4:20pm.

D'OH!

I tend to forget whether I'm looking at the active threads page or doing a search.

Meanwhile, back on topic: I've always wondered if you could replace the guts of a battery with standard AA or AAA battery holders.