Tips for Discharged Nokia BL-5J 1430 mAh 3.7 Battery?

Have a fully discharged Nokia BL-5J 1430 mAh 3.7 Battery that would like to safely test for charge retention.

Did some forum searching and found some general info.

Did not find anything concerning:

  1. how to test if the battery fuse and protection circuit is intact. Just g uessing that if infinite Ohms something is blown but have no idea what the normal Ohms should be.

  1. Use another battery to try to charge the Nokia to get it above the charg er cutoff point?

Hope someone has solved this problem and would like to share any tips.

Googled and found "Li-ion should never be discharged too low, and there are several safeguards to prevent this from happening. The equipment cuts off when the battery discharges to about 3.0V/cell, stopping the current flow. If the discharge continues to about 2.70V/cell or lower, the battery's prot ection circuit puts the battery into a sleep mode. This renders the pack un serviceable and a recharge with most chargers is not possible. To prevent a battery from falling asleep, apply a partial charge before a long storage period."

Also found by another Ken who does not want to share his method "On Februar y 4, 2011 at 2:21pm Ken wrote: The article mentions how dangerous it is to attempt charging cells that hav e been @

Reply to
KenO
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No idea about your battery, but here are some of the issues. It probably has a protection circuit. If it has been discharged below threshold, it's turned off and cannot be turned on externally. You'll see zero volts and high ohms.

Disclaimer: What follows is for educational purposes only. DO NOT DO IT! IT's unsafe.

IF you take the battery apart, you can get past the circuit board and connect directly to the cell, you can charge it. If I were to ever do this unsafe procedure, I might start with

100 mA charge current voltage limited at about 3.7V depending on the exact chemistry involved. Do NOT get in a hurry...do not set it up and go away...watch it, through your safety glasses, for any signs of overheating. You need a laboratory supply with precise control of the current and voltage limits. DO not rely on some marking on a wall wart. NEVER, EVER TRY TO CHARGE ONE BATTERY FROM ANOTHER BATTERY! You risk setting yourself on fire. The protection circuit is there for a reason. I'd put it in a metal pot with a lid so I'd have a handle to use to carry it outside if it catches fire. THIS IS NOT A SAFE PROCEDURE.

At this point, I might try charging it in the phone.

Sometimes, the protection circuit will NOT reset. If it's still dead, give up, you've done all you can do.

Even if you're successful, you are still at risk. Maybe your phone will catch fire weeks from now.

Bottom line, go buy a new battery. They're much cheaper on ebay than the cost of a hospital visit or a burned-down house.

Reply to
mike

I came across an interesting thread on a flashlight battery explosion.

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(CR123-Explosion-during-use-firsthand-account)

Read down to page 5, where the delayed effects of HF poisoning hit the victim. I understand he has never recovered fully.

Reply to
Tim R

mike,

"educational purposes only" have you taken a cellphone battery apart?

"I might start with 100 mA charge current voltage limited at about 3.7V depending on the exact chemistry involved." Agree it is best to start very conservatively.

Do you know of any websites that give reliable info concerning cellphone battery protection circuits?

Thanks

Ken

Reply to
KenO

Tim R,

Read "I came across an interesting thread on a flashlight battery explosion .

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(CR123-Explosion-during-use-firsthand-account)"

While it shows what can happen to Li cells this is different from my cellph one battery.

This was 2 primary CR123 lithium cells.

SilverFox said "The most likely cause is that one battery was drained more than the other one. As things warm up, the fuller charged cell tries to re verse charge the under charged cell and things heat up fast. Hydrogen gas i s vented and when ignited, blows up. Once one cell is burning, it doesn't t ake much to ignite the other cell."

Believe the Nokia BL-5J Battery is 1 cell and different chemistry.

Googled "Nokia BL-5J" Battery explosion but did not find anything. This was quick search.

Totally agree you can not be too careful with Li Batteries!

Ken

Reply to
KenO

My usual salvage source sometimes gives up the odd mobile phone - in every case so far, the battery has been discharged dead flat.

Most were revived by "tickling" the contacts with the leads from an old fashioned car battery charger.

The next stage involves a universal lithium charger from the Lidl discount store - it has automatic polarity sensing, so it won't start charging the cell till you've put a spark of life into it. When that indicates fully charged, its time to see what the phone makes of it.

The only failure so far was was a dodgy Motorola knock-off from Ebay.

Reply to
Ian Field

Yes, in virtually every used cellphone I've bought. Protection board is usually held on the end of the cell by the plastic over-wrap.

Problem is that there are many different types of protection circuits/chips. Individual battery details are usually not available to the public. Check the numbers on the protection chip. bq29311 is one such chip. There are others in the BQ series.

Another thing that happens with laptop batteries is the fuse. The fuse has a heater in it. When the protection chip decides that you should no longer have use of your battery, for whatever reason, it activates that heater and smokes the fuse. You're dead in the water until you replace the fuse. Never seen one on a cellphone battery, but all mine are OLD.

If the cell is completely discharged, you can't measure the volts to determine which is the + terminal. It's probably not the one you'd expect by looking. Make SURE.

I can't overstress the safety aspect. You cannot assume that the designer of the system followed reasonable design procedures. I had a Dell laptop that had nothing but a fet between the charge port and the battery. Current limit was in the wall wart. Charging it from a voltage source burned a hole in the motherboard. I got lucky. If the FET had failed shorted, it would probably have exploded the battery.

I had a battery start sizzling. Got it out the front door before it exploded. I never found the guts of the cell that went boom.

Nothing drives it home like asking yourself, "Hey, what are those drops of hot electrolyte doing on my glasses?"

What's a battery cost? What's the value of your eyesight? Does your kid ever use your phone? It's just not worth it.

Reply to
mike

Ian,

"Most were revived by "tickling" the contacts with the leads from an old fashioned car battery charger."

Did you check what the Voltage was for "Revival"so you could use universal lithium charger?

Do you know the output specs for the "universal lithium charger from the Lidl discount store"?

Also what does "LiDl" mean? Googled and found

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but do not think this is it.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Ken

Reply to
KenO

Mike,

Since asking the "taking cellphone battery apart?" found some good views for the Nokia. Seems like mine is an early version that has small screws holding the end plate on.

If you (or anyone else) are interested would post photos but need to be told how.

Thanks again for the help.

Ken

Reply to
KenO

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