Looking for W86CU replacement battery. Are they extinct?

So my W860bat-3 went cablooey. It looked like it was about to explode. I need a replacement, as my computer will not run for more than a minute without a battery in even with the power cable connected. I can't find a battery anywhere. Does anybody know a place I can find one that is actually in stock or if anybody has a used one for a computer they don't use anymore I could really use some help tracking one down.
Thanks very much,
Gas

 

Oh, and I have tried amazon, ebay, newegg, random google searching. No luck and it has been a couple months.

 

This issue, presumably:

Spoiler: W870CU battery

This was quite common with the W870CU series as well. Replacements of these are still available somewhere, but won't fit the W860CU, unfortunately. Cost is outrageous anyway, but that's the result of them being quite different from every other battery out there. The bulk of the non-ultrabooks use 18650 cells, which is a standard Li-ion encased in aluminium, same as used in a Tesla (~6,000 of them). These won't bulge either, they just fail to work properly; the hydrogen build-up still happens, but you'd never notice. The W8*0CUs used pouch type (Li-ion polymer), so no container to keep the pressured hydrogen in check.

Now, if it were a normal 18650 design then it'd be a simple matter of soldering in new cells. With these Li-ion packs it isn't that simple because the pouches aren't standardised, so availability of a properly sized pouch is severely limited. Another issue is that you'd have to dremel open the pack. In itself no biggie; the same applies to most new 18650 designs (because they're all glued together). The tricky bit is that all cells and pouches are stuffed right against the edge of the casing, so dremeling a bit too far means merely scratching an 18650, but it'd mean shorting the Li-ion pack, which results in a cause for recall, were it a Samsung tablet ...

Opened the W870CU pack once, penned down the specific pouch it needed and searched without avail because very few sellers list the actual dimensions. Since the original run-time was only 45 minutes anyway and aged quite rapidly, it didn't make a lot of sense to put more effort into this project. It is possible, mind, provided you're willing to put in a fair bit of work and don't mind soldering.

Far easier is to get the system working without a battery at all; mine's been like that for four years or so. I'm wagering your adapter, its cable or DC connector is defective, causing a momentary power-loss, which the battery could still bridge for a little while. If it's the adapter or cable; replaced mine with a 180W Asus model (due to upgrading to a 100W 7970M), but still have the original 120W adapter somewhere. If you want I'll open a For-Sale thread, $20 ex. shipping is fine. Could also buy a universal (premium model) or dirt-cheap knock-off, of course, but ... well ... it is very doubtfull the latter can actually pull 120W continuously without generating smoke or causing severe voltage spikes. If the DC connector is loose then you'll have to re-flow the soldering joints with an iron.

 

To add to what t456 said, replacing the cells inside the battery won't work even if you find the exact same dimensions. The chip on the battery board inside the battery that contains the capacity information gets reset or corrupts itself once you cut out the connection to the cells. Tried it with two batteries just for fun and both times got the same result.

To answer your question, a replacement battery even if you can find one now, is definitely not worth the money. They suffer from the puffing which will happen again eventually, especially if you use the laptop on battery a lot. If you absolutely need a solution, an external power bank that can output 18V or so and can be connected to the AC input is probably the cheapest solution, although I don't think it is a very portable solution also considering the weight of the W860CU.

 

Hmm, odd. Didn't have that firmware-reset issue with any other battery ... do you mean actually zero'ed or that it still said ' wear level = 99%'? The latter can be fixed, of course. Without a backup firmware somewhere, the zeroed-on-disconnect would be disastrous. Never heard of any eeprom design that does this, but who knows ... should still have the pcb, I'll read it out and report back.

 

Please check with our Sales Team - we should have them in stock [email protected]

 

Don't want to be off topic, but what I experienced with both my batteries is that upon reconnecting the new cells and booting the laptop back, the monitoring software was showing some crazy values for capacity (checked with other software as well), voltage reading was off and the battery wasn't being charged by the motherboard. Both my batteries did the same so I assumed Clevo was programming them at the factory and relying on the cell power to keep their settings. This is also a very good measure against user cell replacement if you ask me so it made some sense at the time. I probably still have the battery boards but unfortunately, my w870cu is as dead as it can be right now.

 

Cool. Thank you so very much for your reply. So you are saying that it probably has to do with my adapter? I was wondering why I couldn't just have it plugged in and still have it work. I would like to pursue this option if that's what you're saying. If you do still have your original adaptor, I might be interested in getting it off you

 

There's a trick to this, you have to connect the new cells in parallel with the existing array to ensure no powerless to the control board, when the controller doesn't get fed, it goes kaput.

 

Still had it, so here's the battery firmware (BR24L02-series eeprom, TSSOP8):

Spoiler: W87CU battery firmware

See Khenglish's guide for the values; wear level 56.5%. It's a 3-cell design, so each had to be 3800 mAh ([email protected]). Seems the battery firmware was overcharging them a bit, claiming 3900 mAh per cell. Could re-assemble and have it reset to 0% wear, but finding pouches of the proper size is still the main issue and haven't written down their dimensions.

It might have simply shorted, too. Try to make sure to drain them to 0.00%, but even then they'll hold a powerful charge, lacking any protection beyond the pcb. Shorted one the pouches during disassembly as well (knife slipped), causing minor sparks, a little smoke and such. Anyway, here's a 0% wear binary, in case it did get wiped: Clevo W870CU, Simplo SMP-COS39, no wear.bin.

It's either the adapter or the DC plug on the motherboard, these can get loose due to the frequent (dis-)connects. Found my old adapter, but have used it once to power a Samsung 9-series which had a faulty charger:

Spoiler: Clevo W870CU 180W adapter, LiteOn PA-1131-07

Not sure if you can notice form the picture, but the plug is different from the Clevo type. Still have the original and can swap it back, soldered and heat shrink wrapped. Thing is, looking closely you may spot it has been modified. If that is not a concern then let me know and I'll create a FS thread after swapping back the Clevo plug (and testing it, of course).

 

Ran into an old post of mine and it mentioned the size: 100x50x7mm. Ordered three of these 10mm-tall 5000 mAh cells. The 25% capacity is decent enough and it should be possible to make them fit one way or another.

 

Lithium battery technology has come quite a long way and companies make smaller cells with more capacity. But there are some things to consider, such as that the company may exaggerating on the capacity rating and that the quality is good enough for our use (well it can't be worse than what Clevo used on their batteries back then anyways). Hopefully they won't start puffing like the Clevo ones did. Good luck on the project, and don't forget to post an update of how it ends up working

 

To say the least ...

It's 45% taller and 17% shorter, so think the +25% capacity can't be far off. Seller appears reputable, too. The protection circuit has to be stripped, of course (the pack's pcb handles that), but the real trick is getting it to fit and still put it together half-way decent.

 

Hey, sorry for the long interval from last reply. Thanks, t456. The holidays were pretty hectic. Yeah, I bought the battery from the member in the thread a little further up, but it still isn't working. I am thinking it will probably be the AC adapter now. I would def still be interested in scooping up yours. What were you thinking price-wise?

 

Bit late, but if you're still interested; $20 is fine. Will have to resolder the original plug, but can extend the cord then at the same time and add +1m, for instance. Will drop in a link once it's in the FS section.

Update on the battery front:

Spoiler: W870CU, 5000 mAh LiPo test

Testing the 5000 mAhs will take some time, obviously. Only made one dummy battery, so will have to do one pouch at a time, hence the other three cells.

Spoiler: SkyRC MC3000 - 3x Li-Ion refresh, 1x NiMh refresh

Heh, that GTL 2300 mAh was just finished; actual capacity = 43 mAh. After opening it up it'd probably look like this:

Spoiler: It should be packed to the brim ...

 

FS thread for the 180W adapter

Update on the battery test:

Spoiler: 3x 5000 mAh LiPo test result

This a very good result, to be sure. The 4446/4556/4666 values may appear to be a little below the rated 5000 mAh, but that is because they are rated at 3.0V discharge and I've only tested them down to 3.3V. This limitation is due to the laptop's battery pack; its safety margin is usually set to 3.3V (x3 ≈ 10V when charge level is 0%) because too low a voltage may cause it to become unchargeable by normal means. This ebay seller only deals with pouch types, but has a lot of them, so it's great to have a trustworthy source of these things; cell phones, tablets, apples and ultrabooks all use these and there's tons of scammers selling used/underperforming items.

Will set the firmware to 4450x3 = 13,350 mAh. If one cell is empty then there's only 6.6V left, which'd be insufficient for the system to run.

For fun, dismantled the 2300 mAh 'Li-Ion' cell:

Spoiler: LiIon GTL 16340, 2300 mAh (or not)