Are battery connectors universal?

I'm rebuilding a laptop into a home server, mainly because it was overheating unless it was stacked on books all the time. Now with all the plastic gone it works much better and will serve the rest of its days as file server for my home network.

Now for my question, the battery from this machine, an Acer, also fits on another machine I own, so I would like to keep it as a spare, but still I'd like my server to have built in emergency power. I've noticed that several of the spare batteries I have from other laptops use the exact same connector, while being unable to fit into the actual laptop. What are the chances of breaking the motherboard by taking apart one of these batteries to make it fit? Do they all use the same pinout and controller?



The connector has 7 pins, with the first two on one end being slightly longer than the rest.

Also, how much current can I draw from the DVD connector? I won't be using the actual drive, but the connector would be a good place to get 5v for a active USB hub.

 

I would advise against this.

Even if the pinouts are the same, the voltage (in/out) and charging amperage will not be (neither will the electronics inside the battery).

...

 

Pretty much this. I'd image that at best, trying this would fry the computer parts, and at worse you'll probably be filing a claim with your home insurance for fire damage.

 

Why? They are pretty much the same generation and the laptops was probably assembled in the same Quanta factory. If the cells are arranged in the same way, voltage and amperage is the same, and if the control signals are the same too (and according to the internet, they pretty much are), the only way to damage the laptop or battery would be by connecting it the wrong way around. There isn't a lot of information about OEM laptop battery pinouts out there, but I figured which connections there usually are, so I guess the next step is digging out my oscilloscope and see what's what.

By the way, the two batteries that do fit, one is rated 10.8 V and 4400 mAh, the other 14.8 V and 4800 mAh, so the laptop supports both S3Px and S4Px configurations, even though it the only S4P2 battery I have. But it makes me confident I won't fry anything using 3.7 V cells instead of 3.6 V. How picky is the SMBus? Will it lock me out from using the battery? I have another Acer battery, probably produced the same year, rated 11.1 V and 4400 mAh. I know the pinout is different, but I'll try to map both of them out and see if they'll match up. With the risk of burning my house down in mind.

 

It seems that you know (much) more than I initially assumed, however, please take ALL necessary precautions when you're doing your testing...

I'm sure you know: but the materials, charging rate and safety electronics all depend on the matching power supply too - that is why having only the power storage side (the battery) is risky...


Keep safe!

 

I know. But the batteries are pretty good at taking care of that themselves, and I'm not tinkering inside the battery.

I've done some progress. I'm able to charge the battery (the laptop registers it and turns on charging), and there seems to be SMBus communication going on, but I can't get any battery information through software, and the battery won't hold up the voltage when the charger is disconnected.

The pinouts so far seem to be (looking at the battery with the connector on the bottom, left to right) :

AS07B31/AS07B32 (the originals):

1: GND
2: GND
3: Data
4: Clk
5: Thyristor
6: Vcc
7: Vcc

TM00741 (the replacement, from a Acer extensa):

1: Vcc
2: Seems to be floating/unused.
3: Havent figured this out. Tried tying it to GND to make the battery run, but it didn't work.
4: Thyristor
5: Data
6: Clk
7: GND

I could really use a hand, if someone with good electronics knowledge sees this.