CF-52 battery question

Hey Guys.

I picked up a spare battery for my CF-52GUN and I'm wondering if it's OK to "hot swap" them; i.e. leave it connected to A/C power and pop the current (charged) battery out and install the second one for charging.

I just wanted to check before I tried it.

Thanks!

 

I can't see why. I have done it many times on other models.

 

I have hot swapped batteries on CF 52's many times.
Try and keep it the same model of battery though.

 

OK Cool.

I'm pretty sure it's the same model battery. Panasonic brand CF-VZSU29AS (11.1V 7.8Ah) with a yellow tab is the "new" one- the one in the book is also a yellow tab but I haven't pulled it out to confirm. I guess I'll do that now!

EDIT=> The label is slightly different, but specs and part number are the same.

Thanks guys!

 

FWIW ...
i have hot swapped different models of batteries ... if it fits .
there is a list of batteries that fit each machine .
the batteries and machines talk to one another and the correct voltage/charging rate is figured out .
this is one nice thing about the more advanced smart batteries .

 

I made a thread about that..
You can swap different model batteries but the charging things in the OS get confused.

Here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/cf-vzsu71-cf-vzsu46-batteries.773146/

 

Blair,
Can we put a link or copy my battery info post into the commonality thread?
maybe the CF30 thread as well

 

heh ...
no surprise with windows .

yes , i noticed that it takes some time for the stuff to update .
at least nothing grenades itself .

the charging circuitry is self-sufficient .
otherwise , when running a 'nix OS things could get way out of hand .

i picked up a few batteries from the local sheriff's office to check out for them .
over the last three days i have been charging several batteries for a '30/'31 and a '19 .
i have them set up and hot swap the batteries when the orange light turns green .
the next step is to run the re-calibration so i can better define the true condition of the batteries and give the SO a report .
(one is totally toast)

 

fyi--RECALIBRATION DOES NOTHING TO THE ACTUAL BATTERY.

sorry for caps lock.
Recalibration just sets the OS/bios to match the battery.

 

I like

Code:

acpi -bi

in Linux.

Code:

jula@jula-CF-53JULA21M ~ $ acpi -bi
Battery 0: Charging, 34%, 01:13:36 until charged
Battery 0: design capacity 8014 mAh, last full capacity 7459 mAh = 93%
jula@jula-CF-53JULA21M ~ $

Running it six times in a row the mAh changed but percentage stayed the same. So not "rocket science" but a pretty good /quick battery checker.

 

hmmm ...
that has got to be better than the stock stuff in mint .

 

You guys go over my head pretty quickly.

I charged the "new" battery and all seems well.

But the bit of code got me thinking: can you do a refresh on a battery like I used to to for my camera battery? It had a refresh button that would (I think) fully discharge the battery and then recharge it. It did seems to improve the batteries. This was a Canon EOS 1v-HS film camera and EOS 1d digital. They use the same battery. Still have the cameras but never use them.

 

Done...If you want me to open that thread let me know.

 

panasonic has the battery recalibration program, run that and it will charge,discharge,charge and reset the usable time.

 

that is the program i am running on those/these SO batteries ...
so far there is one dead one and one that will run a '31 for about an hour !
the others are in mid-cycle .

i personally do not know of a "reconditioning" program that will *rejuvenate* these (or many other) batteries .
lithium ion batteries can be/are pretty fussy when it comes to charging ... more so than NiMH and NiCd .

 

Ohhhhh.... how do I go about doing that? That seems very useful.

And today I received my ICOM clone from China. Pretty heavy package and some serious stuff inside. I'm looking forward to playing with that.

Oh, and I patched up the Win 7 OS with a visit to the Microsoft site. That was pretty painless. As a side note I think it is pretty cool they are patching XP and other old OS's. They are obviously not obligated to support that ancient stuff. Very "Apple" of them.

 

Go to the start menu and look for the Panasonic folder. In there you should see a battery folder. Click that folder and you should see battery recalibration. The best time to do that is over night. By morning it should be done. It will charge you battery full then will discharge it and then change it again. It will be done then . Could take up to 10 hours if your battery is in good shape. This is why I say run it over night. You can not use it while it's running this.

 

Ok great thank you.

I'll check that out tomorrow. The machine is in work and I'm going to sleep now.

This is the first time I've heard of such a function on any computer. Is it a Panasonic thing or do all laptops have it and it's just well hidden?

 

No laptop that I have ever owned had this option. Just the Toughbooks I have owned.

 

yeah ...
the battery "stuff" in the panasonic machines requires a bit of hardware support from the batteries and the machines (built in) .
some outfits such as motorola and ICOM offered chargers that would discharge a battery and charge it back up ... this did prolong the life of the batteries .
however ... it was not a fix-all for the memory problems of NiCd and NiMH .
these were and still are susceptible to loss of capacity by repeatedly partially discharging and charging .

the care and feeding of lithium batteries is a special story ... there are a few different chemistry types and each has it's own particular set of charging/discharging *rules* .
this is one reason why the "smart battery" was developed .
the battery lets the charger know what type it is and a few other parameters and the charger handles this information and safely charges the battery .
with some types , during the charge cycle if anything starts to go off the rails , the charger and/or the battery itself can terminate the cycle , effectively disconnect the battery and shut down the charger circuitry .

 

Very cool.

I'm going to process the first one tonight.

Can I see where it's at and where I thought ends up to see if I did any good?

 

Another thing, Toughbooks tend to drain the battery if left sitting for a number of days, in that case charge the battery or any spares to 80% and put them on the shelf, use the crappy 1 hour battery for daily use plugged in. Blue tab batteries are garbage in my experience, I refuse to use them.

 

Ok. My batteries are yellow tab. I'll take that advice and look for a beater battery.

I didn't find the battery utility but I might have time to look again tomorrow.

 

All programs,Panasonic,battery. If it's not there it's not recovered correctly.

 

Yeah, no Panasonic folder...