Laptop Batteries - Fantasy and Reality
5 years ago we started selling batteries for laptops.
Then we had little idea what problems of Chinese architecture we would have to face.
I want to tell you what to look for when buying a laptop battery, and indeed batteries for mobile devices.
An article about laptop power supplies is here.
A standard laptop battery is made of lithium cells, for example:
')
The main brains of the battery is the controller:
What are the problems with lithium cells and how it affects battery performance:
1. Cheap items, sometimes obviously already used items were found, it was possible to find out after analyzing the battery, which was simply returned after 2-3 months under warranty.
There were signs of soldering on the element. It is soldering, which is not permissible in the factory manufacture of batteries.
The problem here is that lithium batteries are very sensitive to elevated temperatures. Allowable soldering of similar elements, but very short term and without overheating the element.
The usual way to connect lithium cells is spot welding, when the cells are connected by conductive plates through spot welding, which is very reliable and important, and quickly and without overheating the cell, they are interconnected.
Several times there were batteries, which, because of cheap lithium cells, could melt after 2-4 months of storage in the warehouse, we fortunately did not reach the fire).
This happens again due to the fact that the elements are of poor quality, and when there is a closure, most likely, the lithium plates inside the cell or the protection against the circuit that should be on each cell does not work. It looked awful, the limp plastic of the battery, almost completely melted body.
2. The problem of the battery electronics controller -.
Since lithium cells are charged in a special mode, a charge controller is built into the battery.
This controller allows you to control the process of charging for more efficient use of batteries.
I will not go into the subtleties of charging, I will say that this affects the service life of the battery, the working capacity and its level during operation.
The main problems that can be with the controller:
- incompatibility with a laptop, it often happens that the battery model exactly matches the part number of the laptop, but the batteries have a modified, newer, older controller. As a result, we have a dead battery.
- Some manufacturers, such as Sony, make the battery protection at the controller level against fakes. They do it in order that it was impossible to use the accumulators made not at official factories from Sony. But the Chinese people), figured out how to get around this. With such left-handed batteries, a program is bundled that needs to be launched before installing the battery, as a rule, and it will release this lock from the manufacturer.
- it happens when small, nimble Chinese knobs just stupidly mix up wires when connecting the controller, and here it's just no comment ... It all ends up just like the lack of the ability to charge the battery, or a broken laptop. There was a case when I was confused with plus and minus for batteries already at the output.
- A problem with the firmware of the controller itself. Since we had a battery tester, we could also see additional information about the battery. Which was sewn up in the controller (for example, the date of production of the battery, the current capacity, the number of charge-discharge cycles, the voltage on the elements and a bunch of other technical information). Honestly, most of this information can be changed, it is enough to assemble a simple controller working on the LPT port. It so happened that the information on the date of production of the battery was indicated by a future date, for example, six months in advance. They probably do this in order to sell the batteries that have been lying for a long time. By the way, if a lithium battery is stored for a long time, and the minimum charge that the controller always leaves to store the battery at zero, the cell simply dies, such cells can be reanimated, but this will be a completely different quality and as a result, the cell's reduced service life.
What to look for when buying a laptop battery:
- quality of manufacture of the battery, its appearance, quality of plastic, quality of stickers and their readability on batteries.
- if possible, always come with your laptop and power supply and check if the purchased battery is working, charging and discharging.
- if you have a problem laptop, where only original batteries work, then take only the original, otherwise you will dance with a tambourine or throw a cheaper fake into the trash after a few months.
- All the elements are now produced by China for laptop batteries, and there is no need to buy into what you will be talking about elements produced in South Korea, in Japan, as a rule, the seller argues that the battery price is too high. Yes, there are elements that are produced in South Korea at the LG factories, but the percentage of that they will stand in the battery that is bought to replace the new one is 5%. About 100-150 batteries passed through my hands, which I disassembled and threw out because of a breakdown and never once did the elements produced in these countries, except China, fall. Only once such a miracle happened when the buyer himself gave away the battery that came with the laptop when it was sold.
I’m asking you for permission to bow out, if the review was interesting, I can make a more serious review about the problems of charging, problems of returning the guarantee of such batteries,
And, the topic of power supplies)) is a completely different topic, where Chinese manufacturers simply shine with fiction and creativity of the approach))).
Then we had little idea what problems of Chinese architecture we would have to face.
I want to tell you what to look for when buying a laptop battery, and indeed batteries for mobile devices.
An article about laptop power supplies is here.
A standard laptop battery is made of lithium cells, for example:
')
The main brains of the battery is the controller:
What are the problems with lithium cells and how it affects battery performance:
1. Cheap items, sometimes obviously already used items were found, it was possible to find out after analyzing the battery, which was simply returned after 2-3 months under warranty.
There were signs of soldering on the element. It is soldering, which is not permissible in the factory manufacture of batteries.
The problem here is that lithium batteries are very sensitive to elevated temperatures. Allowable soldering of similar elements, but very short term and without overheating the element.
The usual way to connect lithium cells is spot welding, when the cells are connected by conductive plates through spot welding, which is very reliable and important, and quickly and without overheating the cell, they are interconnected.
Several times there were batteries, which, because of cheap lithium cells, could melt after 2-4 months of storage in the warehouse, we fortunately did not reach the fire).
This happens again due to the fact that the elements are of poor quality, and when there is a closure, most likely, the lithium plates inside the cell or the protection against the circuit that should be on each cell does not work. It looked awful, the limp plastic of the battery, almost completely melted body.
2. The problem of the battery electronics controller -.
Since lithium cells are charged in a special mode, a charge controller is built into the battery.
This controller allows you to control the process of charging for more efficient use of batteries.
I will not go into the subtleties of charging, I will say that this affects the service life of the battery, the working capacity and its level during operation.
The main problems that can be with the controller:
- incompatibility with a laptop, it often happens that the battery model exactly matches the part number of the laptop, but the batteries have a modified, newer, older controller. As a result, we have a dead battery.
- Some manufacturers, such as Sony, make the battery protection at the controller level against fakes. They do it in order that it was impossible to use the accumulators made not at official factories from Sony. But the Chinese people), figured out how to get around this. With such left-handed batteries, a program is bundled that needs to be launched before installing the battery, as a rule, and it will release this lock from the manufacturer.
- it happens when small, nimble Chinese knobs just stupidly mix up wires when connecting the controller, and here it's just no comment ... It all ends up just like the lack of the ability to charge the battery, or a broken laptop. There was a case when I was confused with plus and minus for batteries already at the output.
- A problem with the firmware of the controller itself. Since we had a battery tester, we could also see additional information about the battery. Which was sewn up in the controller (for example, the date of production of the battery, the current capacity, the number of charge-discharge cycles, the voltage on the elements and a bunch of other technical information). Honestly, most of this information can be changed, it is enough to assemble a simple controller working on the LPT port. It so happened that the information on the date of production of the battery was indicated by a future date, for example, six months in advance. They probably do this in order to sell the batteries that have been lying for a long time. By the way, if a lithium battery is stored for a long time, and the minimum charge that the controller always leaves to store the battery at zero, the cell simply dies, such cells can be reanimated, but this will be a completely different quality and as a result, the cell's reduced service life.
What to look for when buying a laptop battery:
- quality of manufacture of the battery, its appearance, quality of plastic, quality of stickers and their readability on batteries.
- if possible, always come with your laptop and power supply and check if the purchased battery is working, charging and discharging.
- if you have a problem laptop, where only original batteries work, then take only the original, otherwise you will dance with a tambourine or throw a cheaper fake into the trash after a few months.
- All the elements are now produced by China for laptop batteries, and there is no need to buy into what you will be talking about elements produced in South Korea, in Japan, as a rule, the seller argues that the battery price is too high. Yes, there are elements that are produced in South Korea at the LG factories, but the percentage of that they will stand in the battery that is bought to replace the new one is 5%. About 100-150 batteries passed through my hands, which I disassembled and threw out because of a breakdown and never once did the elements produced in these countries, except China, fall. Only once such a miracle happened when the buyer himself gave away the battery that came with the laptop when it was sold.
I’m asking you for permission to bow out, if the review was interesting, I can make a more serious review about the problems of charging, problems of returning the guarantee of such batteries,
And, the topic of power supplies)) is a completely different topic, where Chinese manufacturers simply shine with fiction and creativity of the approach))).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/139170/
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