laptop repair battery

[ayante505]

Hi, I'm from Guatemala in central america, south of mexico. Our country is poor and usual care and repair equipment. For some time now I have tried repairing laptop batteries, on videos I've seen that change or damaged batteries that are ICR18650, separately charged batteries, the being installed does not work. I have seen that the batteries have a EEPROM memory and a circuit I think that stores information for the set of batteries do not work and can not be repaired. The problem I've had with batteries of various brands, please help, I really want to repair my battery, I have no money to buy new computer so I buy used computers from the United States and generally have unable to load the battery. thank you for your help.

[wraper]

There is not just eeprom, but controller IC with internal eeprom. Once battery elements become bad, controller locks. AFAIK it is possible to reprogram them in most cases (reason why ebay is full of crap batteries pretending to be new and original). However you won't get software for free, will cost more than a lot of new batteries + it would need some hardware too. Not worth it if you are not running battery repair business of course.

[ayante505]

THANK YOU REALLY KNOW THAT HAD NO PROGRAM, this is the link,

http://be2works.com/Hardware.aspx

 and you say hardware costs only four doleres this is the link.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pcs-CH341A-programmer-USB-motherboard-routing-BIOS-LCD-FLASH-2425-burner-/301477280275?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4631723a13

 Thank You.

[Skimask]

...Then there's the whole burning down your house and half the neighborhood because you really have no idea what you're doing with LiPo batteries and such.
But, go ahead.  I'm sure we'll all see it on the evening news eventually...

[Fraser]

The BQ controller chips come in several types. Some lock when a cell fails others do not. The greater issue is that many of the controllers require a PIN number that you will be unlikel to find out as even official service techs do not have it. It's all about anti piracy and safety protocols.

The battery management can also be clever enough to spot a cell that has characteristics different to others and will once again lock down the battery so that it cannot be used.

To show how bad things are getting.... I have an expensive binocular video headset that runs from a single easily replaceable 18650 cell. The battery management IC contains a PIN number that is read by the headset at switch on....no pin = refusal to start. Fine except the pin is deliberately held in volatile memory and is erased if the cell fails or is disconnected to replace it. I have two good battery packs and two where the management chip shut the Pakistan down and erased the PIN number. Those two battery packs are now scrap unless I manage to re program the PIN number into the management chip. The chip has no other defenses and can be reset but the reset kills the PIN number anyway. The battery packs are something like $700 each for an 1850 cell, $10 of electronics and a fancy case. It's a medical headset so they can charge what they like and also protect against unauthorised re celling. These are the times in which we now live.

In the case of a laptop, consider building an external power supply pack and run the laptop via its charge socket. Not great but better than nothing.

Aurora

[eas]

I'm interested in harvesting cells from laptop batteries, and have done some work to read out useful data from packs. I'm not really interested in rebuilding packs, but I have some across some information.

In addition to B2Eworks, there is also this software: http://sbworkshop.com.  It seems to have some relationship to B2EWorks, but I don't really understand how they are connected/related, and why the prices are so different.

I also came across http://www.1bu8.com/en/, a Chinese site that specializes in stuff for battery rebuilding.

My impression is that some companies are more aggressive about locking down their laptop batteries than others. At one point, Apple used TI's default for the password to "unseal" their packs. I also get the sense that in many cases, the unseal codes are set not by the laptop makers, but by the "packers," the companies that assemble the packs from cells. They may use the same code across brands of laptops, and they leak out. It seems like a lot of this battery pack rebuilding happens in China and Russia, and eastern europe, so you may have the best luck searching for pack part numbers, and even the specific models of battery management ICs you find inside, then using google translate.

As for safety, people seem to love to tell scare stories about lithium ion batteries. They definitely need to be treated with caution and respect, but the scare stories are overblown. (Also, I really doubt that Skimask is checking the TV news in Guatemala) Rebuilding packs is definitely seems worthwhile if you are somewhere where wages are low and can figure out the unseal code and get the needed software/hardware. Even in the US, if you know where to look and what to look for, you can find new battery packs from old unsold laptops to use as a source of cells for ~$2/cell on ebay. They should have near their rated capacity, a healthy amount of life in them, and they will be well matched for internal resistance. You can probably also scrounge together some decent cells if you go through enough used packs. Definitely make sure the internal resistances (google on how to measure) are well matched, otherwise you will end up wearing out the cells prematurely, not to mention risking a fire or other nastiness.

[wraper]

THANK YOU REALLY KNOW THAT HAD NO PROGRAM, this is the link,

http://be2works.com/Hardware.aspx

 and you say hardware costs only four doleres this is the link.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pcs-CH341A-programmer-USB-motherboard-routing-BIOS-LCD-FLASH-2425-burner-/301477280275?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4631723a13

 Thank You.

The issue is that cheaper old versions of program will work only with VERY old controllers, and I mean VERY old. Therefore you likely would need to buy which cost $300 and you would need to check if it supports your controller at all. http://be2works.com/Buynow.aspx If I remember correctly, those cheaper obsolete versions were already obsolete 4 years ago and do not support anything made after approximately 2005.

[wraper]

and you say hardware costs only four doleres this is the link.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pcs-CH341A-programmer-USB-motherboard-routing-BIOS-LCD-FLASH-2425-burner-/301477280275?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4631723a13

 Thank You.

Are you so sure? from be2works website:

Adapters based  on CH341A and CH341T chips. FOR DEMO VERSION ONLY Very cheap. Starting from $4 depending on designe at ebay.com or aliexpress.com Just enter "CH341" or "USB to I2C/IIC TWI" in search string. 

That means you would be able to partially read eeprom with it but nothing more.

[Skimask]

They definitely need to be treated with caution and respect, but the scare stories are overblown.

Agree about overblown.  I've done silly things to LiPo batts over the years, up to and including throwing packs right in the bon fire to watch the fireworks.  But knowing the limitations of LiPo's in general, have never had one light itself up in my pocket or on the bench.

(Also, I really doubt that Skimask is checking the TV news in

Nope, don't have too many Guatemalan TV channels up here.

Definitely make sure the internal resistances (google on how to measure) are well matched, otherwise you will end up wearing out the cells prematurely, not to mention risking a fire or other nastiness.

That's basically what I'm talking about.  It's the clowns digging in without doing any research, relying on one clown on youtube for all their information, giving the rest of the world a bad rep.

[amyk]

LiPos (pouch cells) are the ones you have to really watch out for - they are easily damaged and burn quite energetically. 18650s and other hard-cased cylindrical cells are not quite as scary, and good ones will withstand a lot of abuse. There's with no fire However they can "vent with flame", which is a good reason to keep flammable things away from their vent holes.

If you want to know more about the battery management chips and their unlock codes, Vietnamese would probably be the best language to learn... it seems the most interesting information is found on sites written in Vietnamese.