Universal laptop battery

bhds

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Anyone have any experience,info etc on universal batteries for laptops? I need to buy a second battery for mine and was thinking about going to a universal battery. Have found a few on the net but doesnt seem to be much of a market for them?
 

idleprocess

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Just hope that the laptop manufacturers aren't greedy like the cell phone manufcaturers.

Many handsets use patented serial I/O between battery and phone. In theory, this lets it charge better since it can talk to sensors in the battery. In reality, it means that the phone can misbehave if you use a generic battery that doesn't have the patented I/O. Common "misbehavior" with generic batteries includes not charging the battery, not charging it fully, and depleting the battery as fast as possible.

No wonder OEM batteries "perform" better.

Greed, greed, greed, and patent lawyers are all you need sometimes...
 

bhds

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Washington(the state)
Thanks for the link iddibhai. Waiting on email reply from manuf. about my laptop and batt. Would be cool if someone figured out a way to make a batt. pack using standard batteries. I know that people have done it for their pda's.
 

idleprocess

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Pry open the battery housing and see if you can get enough rechargable cells in there to meet the voltage requirements.
 

bhds

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Nooooo! The battery is still good. I need a second one for added runtime on airplane flights /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I dont think it would be doable anyways. The laptop uses 19v from the ac converter. The battery itself is 11.1v
 

Brock

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Yes, I would go with an external battery pack. For my last laptop I used 2 8 packs of NiMH's. It would actually charge the internal battery for about an hour, then act as if the pack wasn't there anymore. The internal battery only lasted about 30 min.
 

gadget_lover

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A co-worker used one of the thin batteries that velcroed to the bottom of his laptop. He removed the internal battery to save weight and avoid the inefficiency of charging the internal battery from the external. He got 8 hours easily, allowing him to commute from SF to Atlanta without having to power down.

I don't remember the brand of his external battery.

Daniel.
 
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