A search of the forums reveals just a little discussion here and there about re-celling the battery packs of various H/PCs, but no thorough discussion. I'd like to hear people's experiences - good and bad - with re-celling battery packs. This can be helpful in two ways: 1
) by giving users here a general idea which packs can be rebuilt successfully; and 2
) giving those with the right tools and skills how-to guides for rebuilding specific packs.
The idea for this thread came from my own experiences attempting to rebuild a few packs. After successfully rebuilding a dead pack for my Hitachi ePlate
(which uses four 14650 cells in two-by-two configuration
), I've had less luck with LG Phenom Express and NEC 900 packs, both of which use the more common 18650 cells. I'm getting better at soldering connections, and was able to solder the cells' tabs successfully to the packs' PCBs
(much more difficult in the case of the Phenom, where the PCB runs the length of and is affixed to the three cells, which are connected in series
). But so far the 900 pack and the two Phenom packs are all running down within 30 seconds. I'm hoping that they just need to be recalibrated, but since neither device has a battery calibration utility, is there a faster and more reliable way to fully discharge the batteries than just letting them sit in the device
(which may take days
)?
(BTW, I've also tried re-celling the dead pack in a Sharp Mobilon Pro PV-5000 that I recently picked up - again three 18650s in series - but so far it doesn't even seem to be taking a charge.
)
Edited by CE Geek 2009-07-04 1:17 AM