Very much as it says anyone any recommendations for decent laptop
battery suppliers?.

Seen prices for the one i want from 12 odd quid to 108! Must be a decent
price performance medium in there somewhere, so any suppliers
recommended please?

Cheers..

--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:

Very much as it says anyone any recommendations for decent laptop
battery suppliers?.

Seen prices for the one i want from 12 odd quid to 108! Must be a decent
price performance medium in there somewhere, so any suppliers
recommended please?

It's a crapshoot, since many of them are fake and die after a short while.
Can you buy an official one from the manufacturer direct?
A lot of the online battery vendors are actually fronts for Chinese
companies, dressed up as UK sellers (so good luck with returns).

If the battery is thick (ie it's not a flat pouch cell like phones) it
probably contains 18650 cells. I'd be tempted to consider re-celling the
battery with decent brand 18650s (Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Sony), since at
least you know where they came from.

Theo

On 02/04/2018 23:09, Theo wrote:
tony sayer wrote:

Very much as it says anyone any recommendations for decent laptop
battery suppliers?.

Seen prices for the one i want from 12 odd quid to 108! Must be a decent
price performance medium in there somewhere, so any suppliers
recommended please?

It's a crapshoot, since many of them are fake and die after a short while.
Can you buy an official one from the manufacturer direct?
A lot of the online battery vendors are actually fronts for Chinese
companies, dressed up as UK sellers (so good luck with returns).

The HP laptop is probably made in China with Chinese sourced batteries.

Avoid any battery that claims to have greater capacity than the original.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 02/04/2018 23:26, alan_m wrote:


The HP laptop is probably made in China with Chinese sourced batteries.

Avoid any battery that claims to have greater capacity than the original.


HP battery test and calibration - see the video on the following page.
https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04700771

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

alan_m wrote:
On 02/04/2018 23:09, Theo wrote:
It's a crapshoot, since many of them are fake and die after a short while.
Can you buy an official one from the manufacturer direct?
A lot of the online battery vendors are actually fronts for Chinese
companies, dressed up as UK sellers (so good luck with returns).

The HP laptop is probably made in China with Chinese sourced batteries.

Indeed, almost all lithium batteries are made in China. The distinction is
between branded batteries which have a well-controlled chemistry and last
for 1000 cycles, and poor construction/chemistry that last for 200 cycles.
Or fakes (rejects, bad materials, poorly tested, etc) which last for 100
cycles and possibly lie about capacity.

Avoid any battery that claims to have greater capacity than the original.

....unless it's substantially larger (eg you can get 9 cell batteries that
project underneath a laptop that previously took a 6 cell battery). However
these can confuse the BIOS/battery management.

Agreed in general though. There's a limit to how much more you can squeeze
in, and a certain tendency for 'hyperinflation' as vendors of fakes try to
one-up each other - eg the '300,000mAh' power banks that are only as large
as 4x 3000mAh 18650s.

Theo

On 03/04/18 13:04, Theo wrote:
The distinction is
between branded batteries which have a well-controlled chemistry and last
for 1000 cycles, and poor construction/chemistry that last for 200 cycles.
Or fakes (rejects, bad materials, poorly tested, etc) which last for 100
cycles and possibly lie about capacity.

Er no. It's a lot more complicated than that. There are issues like peak
discharge rates and peak charge rates and self discharge rates, as well
as size and weight and capacity and lifetimes.



--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone.

Al Capone

In article , Theo theom+news@chi
ark.greenend.org.uk scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

Very much as it says anyone any recommendations for decent laptop
battery suppliers?.

Seen prices for the one i want from 12 odd quid to 108! Must be a decent
price performance medium in there somewhere, so any suppliers
recommended please?

It's a crapshoot, since many of them are fake and die after a short while.
Can you buy an official one from the manufacturer direct?

Nope discontinued item they say now.

A lot of the online battery vendors are actually fronts for Chinese
companies, dressed up as UK sellers (so good luck with returns).


Humm .. the existing HP branded one was made in you know where;!..

If the battery is thick (ie it's not a flat pouch cell like phones) it
probably contains 18650 cells.


Bloody hell theres a website for them now!.

https://18650.uk/

I'd be tempted to consider re-celling the
battery with decent brand 18650s (Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Sony), since at
least you know where they came from.

Theo

Yes expect battery will look a mess when I've done that

--
Tony Sayer

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 03/04/18 13:04, Theo wrote:
The distinction is
between branded batteries which have a well-controlled chemistry and last
for 1000 cycles, and poor construction/chemistry that last for 200 cycles.
Or fakes (rejects, bad materials, poorly tested, etc) which last for 100
cycles and possibly lie about capacity.

Er no. It's a lot more complicated than that. There are issues like peak
discharge rates and peak charge rates and self discharge rates, as well
as size and weight and capacity and lifetimes.

Indeed - every manufacturer has a range of cells: a laptop is different from
a power tool is different from an electric car, and there are models to suit
each application. You need the right part for the job, like any other
product.

That is entirely orthogonal from the fact that there are fake batteries out
there, which pretend to be the real thing but don't obey the datasheet, and
low quality manufacturers who don't have a datasheet in the first place.
Both kinds you want to avoid.

Theo

In article ,
Theo wrote:
If the battery is thick (ie it's not a flat pouch cell like phones) it
probably contains 18650 cells. I'd be tempted to consider re-celling the
battery with decent brand 18650s (Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Sony), since at
least you know where they came from.


How easy is it to use 18650 cells as replacements? Can you solder to them
easily without damage, or whatever?

--
*A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 03/04/18 15:33, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

How easy is it to use 18650 cells as replacements? Can you solder to them
easily without damage, or whatever?

I just wanted to salvage the OK cells in an expired netbook battery pack
as there is usually one cell letting the pack down. Getting the pack
container open proved impossible without wrecking it beyond re-use.

Soldering the cells is possible if you have a powerful soldering iron so
that you don't heat the cells for too long.

Frankly, it's not worth the effort.

Another Dave

--
Change nospam to techie

On Tuesday, April 3, 2018 at 5:41:25 PM UTC+1, Another Dave wrote:
On 03/04/18 15:33, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

How easy is it to use 18650 cells as replacements? Can you solder to them
easily without damage, or whatever?

I just wanted to salvage the OK cells in an expired netbook battery pack
as there is usually one cell letting the pack down. Getting the pack
container open proved impossible without wrecking it beyond re-use.

Soldering the cells is possible if you have a powerful soldering iron so
that you don't heat the cells for too long.

Frankly, it's not worth the effort.

Another Dave

--
Change nospam to techie

Inspired by this thread I just popped a zoostorm battery pack apart to reveal the batteries. It would go together again, and took me about as long to type this as the disassembly took.

tony sayer wrote:
In article , Theo theom+news@chi
ark.greenend.org.uk scribeth thus
If the battery is thick (ie it's not a flat pouch cell like phones) it
probably contains 18650 cells.


Bloody hell theres a website for them now!.

https://18650.uk/

18650 is a size like AA. There are a variety of manufacturers of batteries
to that size, and many sellers of those manufacturers.

I don't have any experience with buying, but a couple of reasonably priced
vendors I turned up that seem to be well regarded:

https://eu.nkon.nl/
https://www.fogstar.co.uk/
and for wholesale quantities:
https://batterybro.com/

('vaping' seems to be a useful source of 18650s, if you ignore the ones
which are re-wrapped in artistic vinyl wraps to appeal to the vaping market)

Yes expect battery will look a mess when I've done that

Maybe. Just presenting it as an alternative option. (I had a netbook where
third party replacements kept failing - after spending a lot of effort to
find a UK seller, on the second warranty replacement I got rather fed up
with low quality aftermarket batteries)

If you're buying a ready-made battery, look at the whois information on the
domain. Most likely batterysomething.co.uk is actually a Chinese seller who
has a UK VOIP phone number and a UK forwarding mailbox, but will ship from
China and expect you return their faulty product to China too.

Theo

In article , Another Dave
scribeth thus
On 03/04/18 15:33, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

How easy is it to use 18650 cells as replacements? Can you solder to them
easily without damage, or whatever?

I just wanted to salvage the OK cells in an expired netbook battery pack
as there is usually one cell letting the pack down. Getting the pack
container open proved impossible without wrecking it beyond re-use.

Soldering the cells is possible if you have a powerful soldering iron so
that you don't heat the cells for too long.

Frankly, it's not worth the effort.

Another Dave


You wouldn't think its such a palaver buying a decent laptop battery!.

So we did a further look around and 2-power parts came up website
registered to psaparts in London seems a large ish UK based supplier.

Seems that 2-power aren't that bad according a couple of reviews so in
the end did a search for the larger capacity battery several suppliers
came up from around 75 to 54 inc vat so went to this lot;

thelaptoppowersupplyshop.co.uk

Registered to a cottage in Welsh Wales so we'll see what becomes on that
then!.

It really isn't possible to cut the battery case open and now I've got
me magnifying glass from ye shed it seems the original battery, its a HP
6930P, was dated 3/2010 so way past its use by date!. Nice chunky
machine goes very well with a solid state hard drive used out in the
field quite a bit.

So we'll see how we get on with this one then.

Thanks to all who helped

--
Tony Sayer

k

In article ,
Theo wrote:
('vaping' seems to be a useful source of 18650s, if you ignore the ones
which are re-wrapped in artistic vinyl wraps to appeal to the vaping market)

Yes. I have what they call a 'mod' (don't understand the jargon) which
uses a single 18650, and which gives a day's use on one charge. The
battery is getting on for 3 years old and still fine. Most impressive.
Made by Sony. And they've come down in price recently. Now better value
per mA.hr than NiMh.

--
*If tennis elbow is painful, imagine suffering with tennis balls *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 02/04/2018 23:09, Theo wrote:
tony sayer wrote:

Very much as it says anyone any recommendations for decent laptop
battery suppliers?.

Seen prices for the one i want from 12 odd quid to 108! Must be a decent
price performance medium in there somewhere, so any suppliers
recommended please?

It's a crapshoot, since many of them are fake and die after a short while.
Can you buy an official one from the manufacturer direct?
A lot of the online battery vendors are actually fronts for Chinese
companies, dressed up as UK sellers (so good luck with returns).

If the battery is thick (ie it's not a flat pouch cell like phones) it
probably contains 18650 cells. I'd be tempted to consider re-celling the
battery with decent brand 18650s (Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Sony), since at
least you know where they came from.

Theo

After re-celling, surely the battery management IC will need
re-initialising via a serial link? And it may have been 'finalised' to
prevent this, unless the flash memory is removed from the board and
wiped before replacing?

I investigated an old HP laptop in which I had replaced the battery.
Probably not a good one as after the first charge it failed. The
supplier replaced it suspiciously quickly without question, but the
second one only lasted a couple of years.

After it would only hold a small charge, I tried reprogramming the chip
and got a bit more life from the battery. I did this a second time but
fell into the trap of setting a lccking flag which I was surprised to
find was unset by the manufacturer, but this prevented it from being
unlocked again.
--
Dave W

Dave W wrote:
After re-celling, surely the battery management IC will need
re-initialising via a serial link? And it may have been 'finalised' to
prevent this, unless the flash memory is removed from the board and
wiped before replacing?

It depends on the battery - the management IC may store parameters in SRAM,
so they're cleared when you disconnect the cells. Or it may provide a means
to reset it. You should check this up before ordering replacement cells.
(the chip may well be a standard one from TI etc)

I investigated an old HP laptop in which I had replaced the battery.
Probably not a good one as after the first charge it failed. The
supplier replaced it suspiciously quickly without question, but the
second one only lasted a couple of years.

That seems to be a not-uncommon aftermarket battery experience

Theo

In article , tony sayer
scribeth thus
In article , Another Dave
scribeth thus
On 03/04/18 15:33, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

How easy is it to use 18650 cells as replacements? Can you solder to them
easily without damage, or whatever?

I just wanted to salvage the OK cells in an expired netbook battery pack
as there is usually one cell letting the pack down. Getting the pack
container open proved impossible without wrecking it beyond re-use.

Soldering the cells is possible if you have a powerful soldering iron so
that you don't heat the cells for too long.

Frankly, it's not worth the effort.

Another Dave


You wouldn't think its such a palaver buying a decent laptop battery!.

So we did a further look around and 2-power parts came up website
registered to psaparts in London seems a large ish UK based supplier.

Seems that 2-power aren't that bad according a couple of reviews so in
the end did a search for the larger capacity battery several suppliers
came up from around 75 to 54 inc vat so went to this lot;

thelaptoppowersupplyshop.co.uk

Registered to a cottage in Welsh Wales so we'll see what becomes on that
then!.

It really isn't possible to cut the battery case open and now I've got
me magnifying glass from ye shed it seems the original battery, its a HP
6930P, was dated 3/2010 so way past its use by date!. Nice chunky
machine goes very well with a solid state hard drive used out in the
field quite a bit.

So we'll see how we get on with this one then.

Thanks to all who helped


So said battery has turned up via DHL from an address in London i think
its where 2-power are based. Well packed lots of info sheets and safety
information and charging and use info. Has a few stickers quoting the
original HP/Compaq part number on the battery and box.

Decided to get the 9 cell higher capacity version which did exist its
just that HP don't make them or the 6 cell anymore. It does look very
original and on the box says celled with Samsung batteries. Anyway has
charged up and we'll see if it does do the claimed discharge times and
as to longevity we'll see about that in a whiles time but all good thus
far!.
--
Tony Sayer