Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

swichd · Dec 10, 2004, 11:22 AM

Great, now that my iBook is back from the dead, the battery is quickly dying. Every time I charge, I lose about 5 minutes of charge. Now it's on reserve power at 75% charge. I don't want to buy a new one, so I will try to rebuild it. Has anyone here tried it? How do I get it open

? Old ones snapped open, but I can't get it open. TIA

MARINEOSX · Dec 10, 2004, 04:39 PM

I would not suggest rebuilding a Li-ion battery. This could be very hazerdous. If you make one simple mistake you could actually cause your battery to explode. Look at this link.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000350.htm

Wiskedjak · Dec 10, 2004, 05:41 PM

Which OS are you running? It's been my experience that 10.3.5 kills batteries on old iBooks.

swichd · Dec 10, 2004, 05:52 PM

Originally posted by Wiskedjak:
Which OS are you running? It's been my experience that 10.3.5 kills batteries on old iBooks.

10.3.5...

swichd · Dec 10, 2004, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by MARINEOSX:
I would not suggest rebuilding a Li-ion battery. This could be very hazerdous. If you make one simple mistake you could actually cause your battery to explode. Look at this link.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000350.htm

Thanks for the warning, but I work with hazardous technologies more often than I'd like to. Would Apple service an iBook if I made it explode

?

macaddict0001 · Dec 11, 2004, 12:01 AM

The best way to do this is to remove the board(the part that tells the computer how much charge it has left and such)then permenantly mount it in the ibook, then get a smaller battery with the same specs, and connect it to the board.
And about the dangerous part: it is still safer than working on a nimh or nicad battery.

tooki · Dec 11, 2004, 01:23 AM

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
And about the dangerous part: it is still safer than working on a nimh or nicad battery.

Uhhh, what?!? NiCd and NiMH batteries can be charged with "dumb" chargers. If they get overcharged, they just dry out, which is damaging but not hazardous.

LiIon batteries literally explode if mistreated. NiCd and NiMH don't come anywhere close to being that dangerous.

tooki

macaddict0001 · Dec 11, 2004, 12:13 PM

Nimh and nicad, contain dangerous metals, I would consider them more dangerous than a lithium-ion battery.

tooki · 08:27 PM

NiCd batteries do contain toxic metals, but they are completely contained within the battery. Even if one of those cells vents from overcharging, it's hydrogen and water that's being vented, nothing else. NiMH batteries do not contain the toxic metals.

Lithium Ion batteries will, in the most literal sense, explode and/or catch fire if overcharged.

There is no question that LiIon batteries are not suitable for uneducated tinkering -- or even educated tinkering, if you ask me.

NiCd and NiMH batteries are safe even in the hands of idiots. Unless you break open a NiCd battery and inhale or eat the contents, you're safe.

tooki

KianD · Dec 12, 2004, 09:03 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
NiCd batteries do contain toxic metals, but they are completely contained within the battery. Even if one of those cells vents from overcharging, it's hydrogen and water that's being vented, nothing else. NiMH batteries do not contain the toxic metals.

Lithium Ion batteries will, in the most literal sense, explode and/or catch fire if overcharged.

There is no question that LiIon batteries are not suitable for uneducated tinkering -- or even educated tinkering, if you ask me.

NiCd and NiMH batteries are safe even in the hands of idiots. Unless you break open a NiCd battery and inhale or eat the contents, you're safe.

tooki

I really need to stop surfing the net at night. Despite having Li-ion powered laptops and cellphones for years, I now feel really edgy and have moved the iBook off my lap and onto the table beside me...

MARINEOSX · Dec 13, 2004, 01:41 AM

The nice thing is that as long as the regulator that tells the iBook it is charged is not damaged and the same in the battery you are fine. The Li-ion use the actual Ions from certain gasses based with lithium. This makes them much safer because the energy density is not as grate as the lithium batteries that have the metal in them, so no need to worry. Except for those new 15" PB, they are having some problems right now.

https://depot.info.apple.com/batteryexchange/index.html

tooki · Dec 13, 2004, 01:53 AM

Originally posted by KianD:
I really need to stop surfing the net at night. Despite having Li-ion powered laptops and cellphones for years, I now feel really edgy and have moved the iBook off my lap and onto the table beside me...

That's why LiIon batteries all have thermal cutoffs inside, and they use "smart" chargers that charge the battery in exactly the right way.

All the stories about cellphone batteries catching fire were with knockoff and counterfeit batteries. Laptop batteries catching fire or exploding has been documented a total of something like 3 times, and that's including Apple's earliest LiIon laptop, which only ever caught fire in a lab.

tooki

KianD · Dec 13, 2004, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by tooki:
That's why LiIon batteries all have thermal cutoffs inside, and they use "smart" chargers that charge the battery in exactly the right way.

All the stories about cellphone batteries catching fire were with knockoff and counterfeit batteries. Laptop batteries catching fire or exploding has been documented a total of something like 3 times, and that's including Apple's earliest LiIon laptop, which only ever caught fire in a lab.

tooki

I use a knockoff battery in my cellphone because a replacement Nokia one was way to expensive :-)

macaddict0001 · Dec 13, 2004, 11:36 AM

Dude you get what you pay for, nomatter what anyone says knockoffs aren't as good.

TubaMuffins · Dec 14, 2004, 08:29 PM

somewhat in relation to this, does anyone remember or know of a site that sells batteries that hold longr charges? I remeber reading about one a few weeks ago. Are they as safe as the packaged battery? thanks

swichd · Dec 15, 2004, 06:39 PM

Originally posted by TubaMuffins:
somewhat in relation to this, does anyone remember or know of a site that sells batteries that hold longr charges? I remeber reading about one a few weeks ago. Are they as safe as the packaged battery? thanks

Other World Computing sells them here. They have one with 45% more power than the Apple one. That's like 9 hours runtime (ideally)? I think they are safe as OWC has been around for about 20 years.