Rebuilding iBook Battery Pack (project is done)

good: i have a stronger battery than what apple sells, saved $100.
Jef Atkinson wrote on :

thanks to all that replied to the below question... as promised i said i'd pass along notes / photos for others to follow...

the good news: the rebuild is complete and I still have my fingers, toes and eyes!

I've posted some general steps to my .mac page, it will be up for quite awhile so use it as a reference.

http://homepage.mac.com/amcintosh/PhotoAlbum38.html

bad news: apple's power management doesn't see it correctly, so it reports 0% charge even though it goes for 3+ more hours. I've reset the PMU, but still no change... if anyone knows a trick into getting the iBook to see the stronger battery, let me know.

the stats:

8 Li-lon 2000mAh Batteries (apple used 1350mAh in original pack) $39.90 off ebay, www.batteryspace.com time: about 2 hours problems: hard to solder to smooth battery terminals, 0% charge error. good: i have a stronger battery than what apple sells, saved $100.

I'm not responsible in anyway for these instructions, do this at your own risk of life, limb and your Apple iBook/Powerbook. Li-Lon has a way of exploding if handled incorrectly. :) (but that seems more related to if you try and charge them in a traditional battery charger) but you have been warned none the less...

enjoy!

here's a challenge for the electronic minded...

i would really like to rebuild my 14" iBook's battery pack... i've opened it up and it has Eight, 3.7 volt sony lithium ion cells. They are rated at 1350mAh. universal size/name of the cells are: CGR18650

http://www.techfreakz.org/pcgabp52/?slide=21

The Question: can I put in Eight 2000mAh and have it not screw up the iBook??? or is it best to put in Six 2000mAh cells and have it still work?

lastly, how dangerous is it to work with lithium ion cells? is the risk of explosion low, medium or high? hummm...

jef

Tom Stiller replied on :

In article cHlzc.92$eH3.56795@redacted.invalid, Jef Atkinson ja@redacted.invalid wrote:

thanks to all that replied to the below question... as promised i said i'd pass along notes / photos for others to follow...

the good news: the rebuild is complete and I still have my fingers, toes and eyes!

I've posted some general steps to my .mac page, it will be up for quite awhile so use it as a reference.

http://homepage.mac.com/amcintosh/PhotoAlbum38.html

bad news: apple's power management doesn't see it correctly, so it reports 0% charge even though it goes for 3+ more hours. I've reset the PMU, but still no change... if anyone knows a trick into getting the iBook to see the stronger battery, let me know.

I read of a procedure for "recalibrating the battery's microprocessor".
The procedure is to allow the computer to run on battery until it shuts itself down, then charge it fully. I used the procedure to extend the "apparent" life of my aging clamshell iBook's battery.

the stats:

8 Li-lon 2000mAh Batteries (apple used 1350mAh in original pack) $39.90 off ebay, www.batteryspace.com time: about 2 hours problems: hard to solder to smooth battery terminals, 0% charge error. good: i have a stronger battery than what apple sells, saved $100.

I'm not responsible in anyway for these instructions, do this at your own risk of life, limb and your Apple iBook/Powerbook. Li-Lon has a way of exploding if handled incorrectly. :) (but that seems more related to if you try and charge them in a traditional battery charger) but you have been warned none the less...

enjoy!

here's a challenge for the electronic minded...

i would really like to rebuild my 14" iBook's battery pack... i've opened it up and it has Eight, 3.7 volt sony lithium ion cells. They are rated at 1350mAh. universal size/name of the cells are: CGR18650

http://www.techfreakz.org/pcgabp52/?slide=21

The Question: can I put in Eight 2000mAh and have it not screw up the iBook??? or is it best to put in Six 2000mAh cells and have it still work?

lastly, how dangerous is it to work with lithium ion cells? is the risk of explosion low, medium or high? hummm...

jef

Laurent Daudelin replied on :

In message cHlzc.92$eH3.56795@redacted.invalid, Jef Atkinson ja@redacted.invalid wrote:

thanks to all that replied to the below question... as promised i said i'd pass along notes / photos for others to follow...

the good news: the rebuild is complete and I still have my fingers, toes and eyes!

I've posted some general steps to my .mac page, it will be up for quite awhile so use it as a reference.

http://homepage.mac.com/amcintosh/PhotoAlbum38.html

bad news: apple's power management doesn't see it correctly, so it reports 0% charge even though it goes for 3+ more hours. I've reset the PMU, but still no change... if anyone knows a trick into getting the iBook to see the stronger battery, let me know.

I did a rebuild of a Pismo battery and had the same problem: the Pismo wouldn't charge it. I ended buying a new one for $109. Later, somebody mentioned that if you restart, boot in OpenFirware and do, if I remember correctly, "nvram reset-all", then that would also clear the battery's memory. I didn't try it since I got 2 new batteries and I thought I had wasted enough time with that rebuild...

-Laurent.

Martin Trautmann replied on :

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 10:00:16 GMT, Laurent Daudelin wrote:

I did a rebuild of a Pismo battery and had the same problem: the Pismo wouldn't charge it. I ended buying a new one for $109. Later, somebody mentioned that if you restart, boot in OpenFirware and do, if I remember correctly, "nvram reset-all", then that would also clear the battery's memory. I didn't try it since I got 2 new batteries and I thought I had wasted enough time with that rebuild...

probably cmd-opt-o-f (booting in open-firmware for new start) reset-nvram set-defaults reset-all

How the PMU reset is done will depend on your machine. For a PowerBook 500 it was e.g. cmd-opt-ctrl-power (5-10 seconds).

For the iBook it might (!) be shift-ctrl-opt-power in the switched off state and a removed battery. Resetting the PMU inccorrectly might damage your iBook! Thus check www.apple.com before...

Kind regards Martin

Jef Atkinson replied on :

Martin Trautmann t-use@redacted.invalid wrote:

probably cmd-opt-o-f (booting in open-firmware for new start) reset-nvram set-defaults reset-all

How the PMU reset is done will depend on your machine. For a PowerBook 500 it was e.g. cmd-opt-ctrl-power (5-10 seconds).

For the iBook it might (!) be shift-ctrl-opt-power in the switched off state and a removed battery. Resetting the PMU inccorrectly might damage your iBook! Thus check www.apple.com before...

I'll try the reset-nvram and post in a few days what happens...

For some reason it is working much better... I get about a 2 hour charge, Apple's power management now seems to be working... It took about 2-3 days though...

Jef Atkinson replied on :

Tom Stiller tomstiller@redacted.invalid wrote:

I read of a procedure for "recalibrating the battery's microprocessor".
The procedure is to allow the computer to run on battery until it shuts itself down, then charge it fully. I used the procedure to extend the "apparent" life of my aging clamshell iBook's battery.

I did what you suggested and it seems to be MUCH better... not sure if that was the trick or just waiting until the new batteries acclimated themselves... hope to post final results to my web page in a few days...

David C. replied on :

Jef Atkinson ja@redacted.invalid writes:

thanks to all that replied to the below question... as promised i said i'd pass along notes / photos for others to follow...

the good news: the rebuild is complete and I still have my fingers, toes and eyes!

I've posted some general steps to my .mac page, it will be up for quite awhile so use it as a reference.

http://homepage.mac.com/amcintosh/PhotoAlbum38.html

bad news: apple's power management doesn't see it correctly, so it reports 0% charge even though it goes for 3+ more hours. I've reset the PMU, but still no change... if anyone knows a trick into getting the iBook to see the stronger battery, let me know.

the stats:

8 Li-lon 2000mAh Batteries (apple used 1350mAh in original pack) $39.90 off ebay, www.batteryspace.com time: about 2 hours problems: hard to solder to smooth battery terminals, 0% charge error. good: i have a stronger battery than what apple sells, saved $100.

I'm not responsible in anyway for these instructions, do this at your own risk of life, limb and your Apple iBook/Powerbook. Li-Lon has a way of exploding if handled incorrectly. :) (but that seems more related to if you try and charge them in a traditional battery charger) but you have been warned none the less...

You say that you need to pry the cover off. You don't have to. You can buy triwing screwdrivers. Do a web search for a set of security screwdriver bits. Here's one such set from Sears:

    http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?pid=00947486000

Otherwise, it looks good.

-- David

Bob Wilson replied on :

Jef Atkinson ja@redacted.invalid wrote:

I've posted some general steps to my .mac page, it will be up for quite awhile so use it as a reference.

http://homepage.mac.com/amcintosh/PhotoAlbum38.html

bad news: apple's power management doesn't see it correctly, so it reports 0% charge even though it goes for 3+ more hours. I've reset the PMU, but still no change... if anyone knows a trick into getting the iBook to see the stronger battery, let me know.

I could not tell from the photo but are there active electronic circuits in the battery pack? From the edge on, it looks like there may be some sort of surface-mounted componets on a card. If so, do you have any detailed photos of them?

The WallStreet NiMH battery pack apparently contains some sort of "smart" logic. Apple sent out a battery 'reset' program that was supposed to address a problem with batteries needing a reset and I notice they also mention 'iBook."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60655

One problem serial battery packs can have is one cell or in this case cell-pair, could be weak and they would prevent getting the full charge from the other cells. Did you do any initial cell measurements of open or some form of loaded voltage before starting?

Thanks, Bob Wilson

ps. Congratulations on an excellent project!

JonesR replied on :

I read of a procedure for "recalibrating the battery's microprocessor".

The procedure is to allow the computer to run on battery until it shuts

itself down, then charge it fully. I used the procedure to extend the "apparent" life of my aging clamshell iBook's battery.

When I did this with an iBook replacement battery, the battery was no longer seen... thus it would not charge.

Battery Reset 2.0 also did nada in making it visible.

I am a bit afraid to buy yet another battery for my first gen clamshell iBook.