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    Dealing With a Stubborn Laptop Battery

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by computerwiz_222, Dec 21, 2013.

  1. computerwiz_222

    computerwiz_222 Newbie

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    I had some trouble with my aftermarket CF-28 battery and was able to resolve it after a bit of careful poking around inside the pack.

    I thought I would share a link here about how I fixed it since there seems to be a decent community surrounding the Toughbooks here.

    Dealing With a Stubborn Laptop Battery
     
    computerwiz_222, Dec 21, 2013
    #1
  2. toughasnails

    toughasnails Toughbook Moderator Moderator

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    Thanks for the link, I think I might try this on my CF-M34 battery...can't hurt.
     
    toughasnails, Dec 21, 2013
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  3. Shawn

    Shawn Crackpot Search Ninja and Options Whore

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    Be careful charging Li-Ion cells with a power supply. Exploding Lithium cells CAN hurt.
    This trick was tried before with little luck. The battery would hold a charge for a few days/weeks then fail again. I hope it works this time.
     
    Shawn, Dec 21, 2013
    #3
  4. computerwiz_222

    computerwiz_222 Newbie

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    You must of course exercise caution of you do attempt anything like this.

    In my case, the pack was in under-voltage protection mode, but just barely. I am hopeful that this will be a permanent fix assuming that I keep the battery charged.
     
    computerwiz_222, Dec 21, 2013
    #4
  5. Toughbook

    Toughbook Drop and Give Me 20!

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    Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the CF-28 battery use NiMH cells? All mine did. I still have a box of new cells in the shop that I never used. Since you can't rebuild the batteries... I have used them periodically for other things as they have come along.
     
    Toughbook, Dec 22, 2013
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  6. ADOR

    ADOR Evil Mad Scientist

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    If I remember right Springfield rebuilt some M34 batteries. I got some dead ones from him to rebuild. They don't have a chip in them. I still have the ebay link to the cells he used, they are Panasonic cells too if I remember right.
     
    ADOR, Dec 22, 2013
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  7. Arkor

    Arkor Notebook Enthusiast

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    Unless there is a problem with one of the three sets of cells doing that I don't think there is much of a reason to split the battery apart.

    When a Lithium Ion battery drops below 3V per cell most computers I've used (both my CF-28 and all my ThinkPads) will trickle the batteries at a quarter of a watt until the voltages go up to a certain point and then it is charged like normal. I have one battery pack that's nearly dead (6Whr) that does this constantly. With a program that monitors the battery controller's voltage it starts at 0.042V, goes to 4.5V and slowly climbs until about 8.8V when it takes the normal 10.5W load (1Ah). Of course I know since the CF-28 only measures the external controller it isn't going to realistically admit it's probably only charging it at 4 watts.

    Bear in mind this climb, even if that poor of a cell, takes about 2 hours.

    Cheers.
     
    Arkor, Dec 27, 2013
    #7
    Shawn and UNCNDL1 like this.