CF-25 Building second batt but I need pinout

Hey everyone, I have a CF-25 Toughbook, and I am building a second battery pack for it. I just need the pinout for the Multi-Media Bay. Does anybody have a secondary battery pack that they could test for the power pins? If so, that would be greatly appreciated. I'll be using a second floppy drive as the batt case so the connector is not a problem.

Thanks,
Matt

 

If I had it it would be here: http://www.robsnetworks.com/toughbook/SERVICE MANUALS/CF-25/ I looked in the schematic folder and it's empty though ... That's all I got :/

 

Matt,
If the CF-25 has the same media bay as the 27, 28, & 29, good luck. I just opened up a secondary battery pack and found 14 leads from the pack connector to the circuit board on the battery. Also remember the secondary battery will not work on MKI CF-28s, only the MKII and MKIII. This leads me to believe there is something on the mother boards of the later models which is required for the secondary battery. I can't think how I could determine the pinouts with a meter, I might be able to find the power out pin but the power in and the control circuits would have to be found on the computer side and you would need a plug with a ribbon cable attached to use a meter. Finally, it is very likely that there is no 11.5-12.5v available to the media bay plug as the drives would probably use 3-5v. Let us know how you make out.
Cap

 

They did offer a second battery pack for the CF-25 I believe it was model CF-VZS252. You may be able to find one cheap on Ebay or online I would not reference a CF-28 schematic as they have completely different pinout on the media bay connector. Chances are you may be able to buy a new one cheaper than building one. But it sounds like a fun project for the good ole 25.

 

Unfortunately, NOTHING is compatible between the 25 and the 27/28/29. Well, the AC adapter is the same.

 

Sorry, it took me a bit to get back to the forum. I found a pack or two on ebay, but it's $90 for a new/old stock battery. I would perfer to buy the cells and pack them into my extra floppy bay. That'd be only $20-$30.

I also thought of just putting standard AA NIMH batteries in there, matched set of course. I'm thinking 3000mA should do nicely. This laptop has very low power consumption.

I opened up the laptop and surprisingly there are test point type holes on the board, and I was able to read voltages on the pins, but my results are inconclusive as to where the power/charging leads are. The main NIMH batteries only have 4 pins connecting to the mainboard. 2 for the battery and two for the temperature sensor.

I am planning on using NIMH batterys, as they are simple to charge, and the laptop supports it. I also opened up a 'main' NIMH battery and there isn't any special circuit inside, the only thing I would need is a temp controller resistor to keep the batteries from getting too hot. That is what they used in the main packs, and I'll probably just steal that one.

 

Does anyone know for sure that there was a media pocket battery for the 25? I've never seen one.

 

CF-VZS252, actually found a few places on the web who claim to have them.
$90 on fleaBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-Toughbook-CF-25-CF-45-Secondary-Battery-NEW_W0QQitemZ120047315606QQcmdZViewItem
And $82 here:
http://www.impactcomputers.com/cf-vzs252-rb.html
And $60 here:
http://www.hammerheadtech.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=16844
Hypercoffeedude, what's your time worth, or do you really drink too much coffee?
CAP

 

I have plenty of time to tinker with it, but I doubt I'll get anywhere...

And, yes, I do drink a little too much coffee...

 

Matt

I didn't mean to imply that tinkering was bad, just that if you really needed a second battery pack for some task there was a relatively cheap solution. I'm all for trying to solve problems just for the satisfaction of solving the problem.

A lot of us here obviously drink too much coffee and some are rumored to drink too much of beverages considerably stronger than coffee. Good luck.

CAP