Laptop Battery Question

[Haunted360]

Hi. I have a very old IBM Thinkpad 380D laptop.

Now, the battery is of course gone as it is from 1997 and just does not hold its charge AT ALL.


My question is, can I crack it open and change the battery technology from Ni-Mh (Nickel metal hydroxide) to Li-Ion (lithium ion)?

Some general knowledge I have about batteries, is that if I do change the batteries from Ni-Mh to Li-Ion, it can cause issues in the way it charges right? Because there is a special way to charge them and the laptop will try to charge them like Ni-Mh. What will happen if I do this?

Let us know what I can do. I mean, I can just replace the Ni-Mh with the same type but Ni-Mh batteries SUCK...

Here is the battery
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Battery-IBM-Thin ... 1e61d30d31

Wiki Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Thinkpad_380

Image 1
http://pchistory.ru/wp-content/uploads/ ... d_380d.JPG

Image 2
http://www.recycledgoods.com/product_im ... 2_zoom.jpg


Thanks

[hailrazer]

No it's not possible to just pop in Li-Ion's.

DON'T DO IT.

[marshallh]

Get NiMH cells and put them in there.

Retrofitting it with Li-ion is going to be a HUGE mess

[vskid]

Not only will it not work/be insanely difficult, but why? Do you even use the laptop?

[Haunted360]

Get NiMH cells and put them in there.

Retrofitting it with Li-ion is going to be a HUGE mess

How. Explain please! Do I need to change the protection circuit parts etc?

Not only will it not work/be insanely difficult, but why? Do you even use the laptop?

Yea, I kind of use it. I mean, I need it for PS development at the moment as it has the original parallel port interface and comms.

A new battery would help so I dont have to have it plugged in all the time.


Does anyone also know how to get Windows 95 installed on a 160GB HDD?

I installed Windows 98 on a gigabyte P1 mainboard etc, but SO MANY DRIVERS NEEDED! "Please insert the Windows 98 SE CD" ... Skip file, blue screen, restart, unknown device found! HOORAY!, files missing, restart, safe mode, blue screen, restart, turn into hulk, punch bill gates...

[hailrazer]

How. Explain please! Do I need to change the protection circuit parts etc?

You would need to add an external charging port. You would need to bypass the charging circuit in the laptop.

Forget about it.

[blaze3927]

there should be a serial or product id on the side of the actual cells, search google or ebay for a compatible cell/cells and you should be set.

[Haunted360]

Oh ok. Thank you.

[Snow_Cat]

^- - ^ I guess I've been lucky that I've never had a laptop that didn't have a serial port.
^ - -^ If you don't want to make the expansion card from scratch you could buy one (this is supposedly an actual parallel port, and not that 'compatible only with printer' nonsense)
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/pcmcia-par ... -card-6187" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/serial-rs2 ... -card-5572" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

^_ _ ^ ... people do change their avatars from time to time.