Battery upgrade - CF-28

Hello again,

I recently experimented with upgrading my power supply for cf-28, results : 12A Li-Po battery, without memory effect.
28's running on this pack about 10 Hrs with wifi and gps enabled.
I didn't think that effect will be so good, so I decide to share idea

cost: 20 bucks for 4A version,

charger:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-3-Cells-Li-Po-7-4v-11-1v-RC-Battery-Balance-Charger-B_W0QQitemZ260372225902QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_ToysGames_RadioControlled_JN?hash=item260372225902&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

battery pack:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2x-11-1v-4000mAh-15C-LiPo-3-Cell-RC-Battery-11-1-WF_W0QQitemZ270341183577QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_ToysGames_RadioControlled_JN?hash=item270341183577&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

in my cf I've 3 pack of this kind of battery, they're very light, small and.. cheap
Only things that I've to add is a discharging module, to allow switch between battery's depending on voltage.

When I'd have some more free time, I'd try to make module to charge batteries directly from cf, not from external charger.

SqrlCt.

 

I'm a little confused... Both links are the same...

Are you talking about an internal or external battery pack?

 

First link is for battery charger, second for battery.
Idea was to put out original battery pack and replace it by battery with more amps, cause i'm getting bored by flashing battery chips. Finally, even 6,6Amps Panasonic batteries won't gave me as much power as batteries from rc toys.

Those ones won't fit inside cf-28, because of their dimensions, but there's batts with the same params and fits perfectly.

 

Yeah, but for these, you need to carry external chargers, not the built-in circuitry in the laptop, right? And how would Wibblows be able to monitor non-existent ACPI circuitry to provide battery life projections for your battery meter?

Sounds like a bit of a ghetto-fab job to me... you could get a week's runtime on a charge if you hacked a 140AH Golf-Cart battery to it, but you'd look silly carrying your ToughBook with a hand truck...

mnem
When the going gets Tough, Toughbooks are on point.

 

THAT'S what I need... The golf cart battery and the hand truck!

<Starts bidding on ebay...>

 

I though that was the idea of the Lind 12V / 24V adapters - the car or truck is just a self-propelled battery pack

 

Mmmhmmm... hard to take your "self-propelled battery pack" into a board meeting... LOL

mnem
Just need to be SLIGHTLY more portable...

 

Now there is another idea... Build it into the handlebars of a Segway... The worlds first laptop that transports itself!

 

Hey wait... that SegWay's propulsion already IS computer-controlled...

*Has visions of Borg-like assimilation of the Segway.... careening down halls, deliberately running over people's toes & occasionally stopping to do that stupid "drinking bird toy" thing they showed it doing in the prototyping video, only now it's bashing into people's heads & knees... and once it assimilates the first one, it can use our WWAN Network to take over EVERY SegWay.... soon there'll be Segway border skirmishes with mopeds, and massive Segway revolts where yuppies & management-types are whisked away from board meetings and hurled en masse off of cliffs and bridges like lemmings...

All hail our new BorgWay overlords!!!

mnem
Okay... I'm finding it hard to see the downside here...

 

Depends on the size of the conference table....

 

I don't suppose there would be any way to put these Li-po guts into a dead battery, is there. Pretty sure that is a no, but just had to ask.

Isn't there some sort of issue with replacing bad cells in a panasonic battery? The brain can't recognize that new cells are in place or something like that?

 

Well, no... there is a way to reprogram the smart chip in the battey pack; there's a battery rebuilding company that does it. But is there a CHEAP way of doing it? None that I know of.

mnem
Cha-CHING!

 

Sorry to take this a little further off-topic....

But who has a segway or even has access to one, and more importantly, somewhere to use one? I know they're rather savvy at uni's, and tech-friendly workplaces in the US, but I've never seen or heard of any being here in Oz. Still a nice idea - strap a CF18 or CF19 to one and it'll self-propel, and maybe to a degree even self-charge if there are solar cells mounted on the segway somehow.

Craig.

 

We see them all the time in the city. A lot of the city police departments have them. I've never driven one but I hear they are a blast. It would be one of those "If I hit the Lotto" buys for me. $3k -$4k for a toy is a little much.

<Suddenly thinks about the $25k in PC stuff he has in the shop>

 

That's inventory and retained profits, not toys!
CAP

 

Yeah -what HE Sed!

mnem
That's j-u-n-q-u-e... pronounced "zzhyoonk"... cuz his junk's got class!

 

I have access to one, its alright I wouldn't say its the coolest thing in the world, but once you get used to it, its a pretty snazzy way to avoid walking, it would be hard to mount a toughbook on it tho

 

Reading this made me read up on battery rebuilds.

I have read that sometimes, the battery circuitry will refresh itself gradually over up to ten charge/discharge cycles. If anybody has a battery they rebuilt and its still on a shelf somewhere, why doncha try it again. Charge, Discharge until shutoff and repeat five or so times to see if there is any improvement.

I know that toughbooks are different, but there is an off chance this might work.

 

This site is a how to. PAge three, outlines the charge/discharge stuff.

http://www.summet.com/blog/2007/02/17/laptop-battery-refill/

 

Everybody hates double posts

 

Someone posted a link of a place in the USA that rebuilds laptop/notebook battery packs to be as good as or better than new. Never come across a similar place here in Oz but there probably is such a place around.

Craig.

 

The U.S. company I know of is batteryrefill.com. I don't know if they are still in business, but if they are my experience with them was not that bad. I had 2 of 5 batteries that did not take, and they took 4-5 weeks to deliver. I got one of the 2 replaced, but the second I was supposed to see a refund but never got it. Stopped calling/writing after 3 months.