Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer charging

I've got a laptop with a shagged battery and I'm damned if I'm gonna spend nearly 150 quid on a new battery. I don't seem to be able to find anyone who'll sell me the lithium ion cells to rebuild the pack myself so I've been considering replacing the pack entirely using a stack of lithium polymer cells. Is the charging regime the same for both lithium ion and lithium polymer?

Thanks

Chris

On Sun, 17 Apr 2005 16:48:15 +0100, Chris Eilbeck wroth:

For all intence and porposes, yes.

However.... Most laptop batteries are "smart". That means that they have voltage and current monitors built in. Those monitors "talk" to the laptop and provide it with vital information about battery "health". If you don't provide a substitute for those monitors, then the laptop may "decide" that the batteries are either not present or defective. In which case the laptop may try to "protect" its self and refuse operate on your sham battery pack.

If you could retain the monitor circuits from the original battery and simply replace the original LiIon cells with LiPoly cells, that would be a superior plan of attack.

There are a couple of other "gotchas". All in all, your best bet would be to bite the bullet and purchase a compatable, commercial, battery.

Good luck, Jim

laptop

try

Which is about half the price of a bottom of the range laptop. Reminds me of why I stopped being a biker and got a car. The rear disc on my Honda 900 seized, went red hot and buckled. I then discovered that the cost of a new disc from Honda was about 10x what I would pay for that on a car. So I sold the bike and got a car.

Thanks for the link. I'm not in the US but the £/$ exchange rate is very good for us at the moment and I may take advantage of this.

Chris