Refurbished Batteries, Good or Bad? 33
TheMadReaper asks: "I recently had to replace my laptop battery and couldn't decide whether to go for a new battery or a refurbished one. The refurbished ones are sold at a lot of places, but then I ran across this article that claims that refurbished batteries suck. For sure a bunch of you out there have tried refurbished batteries. So tell me, are they a good buy or a scam?"
As a reseller ..... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a reseller ..... (Score:1, Informative)
The problems with refurbs are... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are handing them a black box that doesn't work, and getting back one that does. This leaves a great deal of room for them to use cheaply available surplus cells to refurb. the pack. The fact is, if your battery is more than a year old it's very likely cells of the same dimensions and voltage are available with even better amp-hour ratings than the original. But it's hard for companies to compete who sell a product with the improved batteries as the metrics buy which their competition, and the original manufacturer are rated are nebulous, fakeable and often unavailable. I've had good luck with the people at PrimeCell [primecell.com].
Having played with Li-Ion charge circuits (yes, just the reference design from Atmel) I can see that calibration might be an issue. I don't however think it will be a critical one. Very smart chargers can in fact compensate for the changing characteristics of aging batteries. That the people replacing them would insert cells with characteristics within the "acceptable margins." of the compensating code doesn't sound impossible either.
Nothing wrong with recycled batteries here. (Score:5, Funny)
[NO CARRIER] (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, no cigar for you.
Re:[NO CARRIER] (Score:1, Flamebait)
You were right up until "if you include your sig."...
That "no carrier" joke really doesn't work.
Period.
How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:2)
Re:How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:2)
If you replace the cells and circuitry, what's left other than the casing? That is, what makes it worthwhile?
Re:How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:2)
Re:How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:2)
Re:How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:2)
I'd bet this already exists, but I haven't personally seen it. A service where you bring in your old battery, case and all, and they swap out the cells for you, for a fee. That'd be neat.
Re:How do you "refurb" a battery? (Score:2, Informative)
Sure, it works, but ... (Score:5, Informative)
Laptop battery packs generally will have a certain number of cells, of a certain type and electical specification. Replacing them (imagine that rectangular box filled with a bunch of AA cells) with the correct ones, and you may have a perfectly fresh batt-pack.
There are also some solid-state components in many battery packs; either replace them (if they're bad) or re-use them (if the refurbisher bothered to test them; most do). A common problem is somebody cutting or damaging these parts when taking the thing apart.
The cells need to be soldered, usually, and to metal, not wires. You need to know what you're doing when soldering batteries (heat can make 'em explode, or fail).
I've done a few myself; they work fine. The only reason I went that route, however, was because I had an old laptop I got for free and wanted to play with it, not spend a hundred or more bucks on it. I ended up spending about $50 for cells.
Having said that, I prefer fresh (newly manufactured) batteries over refurbished ones; a refurb is only as fresh as the cells the guy used to make it.
If you buy from a reputable refurbisher, I don't see a real problem; especially if he does enough volume to have fresh cells in the battpack. But, like anything, it's buyer beware; there are plenty of ways to screw it up, and you need to be able to trust your supplier.
Depends on the reseller's idea of refurbishing. (Score:4, Informative)
Question I had before (Score:5, Interesting)
X-ray of a PowerBook says you're right on the $ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:X-ray of a PowerBook says you're right on the $ (Score:1)
Re:Question I had before (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo. I think that's the majority of the reason. There are other things to think about though. First of all, the type of battery is a concern. NiCads are very heavy for the amount of capacity they give. Second only to Lead Acid, I think. NiCad batteries put out a very low voltage compared to other types of cells. I don't think they are very good at handling massive output, high-drain devices such as a laptop. They are also not very environmentally friendly -- cadmium is an extremely toxic metal. Given the number of problems we already have dealing with computer waste, I think it's good to try and avoid NiCad batteries.
Moving on to Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries instead: They're certainly feasable to use as laptop batteries, I think the major problem is that the way that the standard AA/C/D cells are laid out, you get a much much lower amount of energy storage for a given amount of space when you combine the roundness of the cells, plus the packaging and terminals, etc. And space in laptops is at a premium -- battery life is already too short, no need making it shorter.
With that said, I'm all for settling on a few standards for laptop batteries. And while we're at it, some standards for expansion bay equipment would be really nice... okay, okay, I'll quit my dreaming now.
Re:Question I had before (Score:2)
As an aside, the battery pack for my cordless phone is just three AAA NIMH batteries packed together with a connector. o_O
Performance and charging circuitry (Score:3, Interesting)
Charging circuity designed for Li-Ion is totally unsuitable for laptops.
Putting out a battery pack that accepted arbitrary Li-Ion cells is currently illegal - In order to purchase bare Li-Ion sells you apparently have to have some sort of a license. (If you look for bare Li-Ion cells online, they are ALWAYS sold in packs, even if they might be advertised as a "pair of cells", reading the fine print often reveals that they're in a pa
Re:Performance and charging circuitry (Score:1)
It still would be nice though, to have an option. Like I have three older but still useful laptops now, none of which have decent batts in them that will hold a charge (couple minutes basically, then flat), just getting one replacement each is very expensive, getting two apiece for 6 total would almost cost as much as another low end laptop
What about 2nd Hand batteries (Score:2, Interesting)
But then I bought an older model laptop (Toshiba 410-CDT) for parts from an online auction, it came with a battery that luckily suited my new laptop and that battery has been very good. This method is however hit and miss.
Psi
Is it like refurbished printer cartrages (Score:3, Informative)
Batteries face the same problems. The contacts get beat up and the batteries loose their memory if your blessed with a Nickel Cadium(NiCd) battery. Even if a NiCd is cleaned and refreshed it still lacks the physical ablitly to retain power for as long as a new one. The new type of rechargable battery (Nickel Platinum) is better at it but I've been hearing some bad things about them from some friends.
Best bet is to avoid them unless you want a spare or you get a really good deal.
Good luck.
Re:Is it like refurbished printer cartrages (Score:3, Interesting)
Couple of notes (Score:4, Informative)
Li-Ion charge cycle: Constant current, up to a maximum charging voltage. Constant-voltage at either 4.1 or 4.2 volts/cell depending on cell chemistry. (There are two different classes of Li-Ion cell, depending on the makeup of one of the electrodes.) It's not that hard. NiCd and NiMH need fancy charging schemes such as reverse slope detection. (Once fully charged, a NiCd or NiMH battery will actually REDUCE its voltage as it accepts more charge - "smart" NiMH chargers detect this.)
Battery meters (gas gauges) do need recalibration, and I admit that cell matching is reasonably important. Replacing a single cell in a pack is a no-no. Replacing all cells at once with new ones should be fine.
As to refurb printer cartridges: It's not the contacts on the HPs that are the issue, it's the method that HP uses to drive the ink droplets out. HP's inkjets are "thermal inkjets" - Each nozzle in the head has a small resistor in it. When the printer wants to shoot an ink droplet out, current is run through this resistor, and it vaporizes some of the ink. Needless to say, these resistors start burning out soon after the design life of the cart.
Canon and Epson printers are different - They use piezoelectric drivers which have near-infinite life. As a result, both Canon and Epson don't have nozzles and drivers in the cartridge, the cartridges are merely tanks of ink and nothing more. These can be refilled safely many times. (One just has to be careful about residual dried ink.) Some companies sell kits that allow you to do away with the cartridge and draw ink directly from a bulk ink bottle.
Depends on the refurb method (Score:5, Informative)
Charge/discharge "reconditioning" - REALLY BAD
Replacement of all cells - You should be fine. The pack will be nearly as good as the OEM pack, sometimes better.
An example of a good pack reconditioner is Raymond Sarrio's business (www.batteriesamerica.com) - Although his selection of laptop batteries is limited, his specialty is in amateur (ham) radio batteries. Sarrio is well known as an excellent dealer in ham circles. Many of Sarrio's repacks are regarded as BETTER than the original packs. (The NiCd ones are only slightly better, but Sarrio offers NiMH repacks for equipment that was originally NiCd and never had a NiMH option.)
I did a NiMH repack myself in my Alinco DJ-580T's pack, with excellent results. I now have close to twice the battery life I had before, and that's using dirt-cheap super-low-capacity (1200 mAh) NiMHs.