Refurbish laptop battery

bigred177

bigred177

Cleared for Takeoff
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bigred
I just bought a new to me HP TC4400. The battery only holds a charge for about an hour before it starts yelling at me. I know I could just buy a replacement and throw it in there but I was wondering if I could take it apart and replace the Li-ion cells that are in there with smaller/more cells or higher capacity cells. I am trying to get extended capacity out of the same size battery pack. I didn't pay attention very much in circuits so I don't know how much trouble this would be to rig up or if it would be cost effective. I have a soldering iron and can somewhat use it but don't have any special electrical stuff.

Thoughts on something like this?

EDIT: The cells are li-ion, not Li-po
 
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I was surprised to see that my usual "go to" place for batteries (AtBatt.com) doesn't carry internal batteries for the TC4400 tablet. There are some external batteries, and chargers, but not internal. Are they usually "field replaceable" on this model?
 
bigred177 said:
I just bought a new to me HP TC4400. The battery only holds a charge for about an hour before it starts yelling at me. I know I could just buy a replacement and throw it in there but I was wondering if I could take it apart and replace the Li-ion cells that are in there with smaller/more cells or higher capacity cells. I am trying to get extended capacity out of the same size battery pack. I didn't pay attention very much in circuits so I don't know how much trouble this would be to rig up or if it would be cost effective. I have a soldering iron and can somewhat use it but don't have any special electrical stuff.

Thoughts on something like this?

EDIT: The cells are li-ion, not Li-po
Click to expand...

Have a look -- this is what you're getting yourself into:

http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/Li_Ion_reconstruct/How to rebuild a Li-Ion pack.pdf

Personally, I wouldn't try it. Too much chance of damaging a cell or the protection circuitry inside (which is super-important!).
 
I went ahead and bought a cheap Amazon battery for now. I may try the recell one day when I'm bored. There is the potential to take the capacity from 4400mAH to 6600 mAH and I would have a second battery. I'll do some pricing and pull it apart after finals.
 
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