Good experience with this battery rebuilder

[Mikeyy00]

Hi all,

Found a local (to me) battery rebuilder. They're located in London, Ontario.

Sent my Pismos battery off, and they got it back to me in a few days. Total cost was $70 (CDN) including return shipping. http://www.chansbattery.ca/ Cheese website, but they were nice enough when I emailed back and forth.

Can't speak to how USPS will handle a battery back and forth, but figured I'd mention them. If you're in Canada, they charge almost as much as it cost me to get cells (and I hamfisted the install on my previous attempt to rebuild myself).

They seem to be willing to repair almost any Li-Ion based product.

Couple glue spots on the returned battery, but after sliding it back in, you can't tell and I get 3-4 hours now.

 

[beachycove]

I think I put you on to them, three or four weeks ago when I was about to get mine done (like you, I suspect, I've been waiting on Irina saying that the cells had come in). I just picked mine up on Saturday, however, and I was going to post on here about it once the batteries had been cycled a few times -- you beat me to it. My batteries now seem to work perfectly and also do look really good cosmetically, but I still haven't cycled them properly.

The cost is just $49CAD if you can do local pickup, which I can. I  had two Pismo batteries rebuilt for $98 and am probably going to get at least one more done so as to sell a spare Pismo with it in, along with a Wallstreet battery -- assuming I can get my Wallstreet's screen fixed, I'd like to get that machine operational.

What Chan's Battery appear to do is to replace the original cells with cells of the same rating, so as I started with a dead set of 4800MAh batteries, I now have two working  batteries with that rating.

The tech is Russian, and speaks little English, so contact is through his partner/ wife. Nice people, prompt service, and frankly I think they'd appreciate any business we could drum up.

As I understand it, LiIon batteries can still be shipped domestically in Canada by surface mail, and to the US at least by the same means, so this is a mail order solution for someone on the continent looking to have an old battery re-packed, but not knowing where to look for that.

What I haven't managed to do yet is to see what the cycle count is in my batteries, not having a Tiger installation on my Pismo (I seem to recall that the count is available in System Profiler under Power in Tiger). Mine runs OS9.2, and I don't really want it for OSX, better options being available to me there, but when I get a moment, I'll pop Tiger onto my spare Pismo and see what I can find out. Are you able to check yours for the cycle count, by any chance? I'm interested to know whether the counter has been reset somehow.

 

[Mikeyy00]

I think I put you on to them, three or four weeks ago when I was about to get mine done (like you, I suspect, I've been waiting on Irina saying that the cells had come in). I just picked mine up on Saturday, however, and I was going to post on here about it once the batteries had been cycled a few times -- you beat me to it. My batteries now seem to work perfectly and also do look really good cosmetically, but I still haven't cycled them properly.

The cost is just $49CAD if you can do local pickup, which I can. I  had two Pismo batteries rebuilt for $98 and am probably going to get at least one more done so as to sell a spare Pismo with it in, along with a Wallstreet battery -- assuming I can get my Wallstreet's screen fixed, I'd like to get that machine operational.

What Chan's Battery appear to do is to replace the original cells with cells of the same rating, so as I started with a dead set of 4800MAh batteries, I now have two working  batteries with that rating.

The tech is Russian, and speaks little English, so contact is through his partner/ wife. Nice people, prompt service, and frankly I think they'd appreciate any business we could drum up.

As I understand it, LiIon batteries can still be shipped domestically in Canada by surface mail, and to the US at least by the same means, so this is a mail order solution for someone on the continent looking to have an old battery re-packed, but not knowing where to look for that.

What I haven't managed to do yet is to see what the cycle count is in my batteries, not having a Tiger installation on my Pismo (I seem to recall that the count is available in System Profiler under Power in Tiger). Mine runs OS9.2, and I don't really want it for OSX, better options being available to me there, but when I get a moment, I'll pop Tiger onto my spare Pismo and see what I can find out. Are you able to check yours for the cycle count, by any chance? I'm interested to know whether the counter has been reset somehow.

Correct, you lead me to them. So props to you! (sorry I didn't mention above).

But yes, anyone with a dead battery.. for the price they charge, why fiddle-*uck around with it?

 

[Mikeyy00]

I think I put you on to them, three or four weeks ago when I was about to get mine done (like you, I suspect, I've been waiting on Irina saying that the cells had come in). I just picked mine up on Saturday, however, and I was going to post on here about it once the batteries had been cycled a few times -- you beat me to it. My batteries now seem to work perfectly and also do look really good cosmetically, but I still haven't cycled them properly.

The cost is just $49CAD if you can do local pickup, which I can. I  had two Pismo batteries rebuilt for $98 and am probably going to get at least one more done so as to sell a spare Pismo with it in, along with a Wallstreet battery -- assuming I can get my Wallstreet's screen fixed, I'd like to get that machine operational.

What Chan's Battery appear to do is to replace the original cells with cells of the same rating, so as I started with a dead set of 4800MAh batteries, I now have two working  batteries with that rating.

The tech is Russian, and speaks little English, so contact is through his partner/ wife. Nice people, prompt service, and frankly I think they'd appreciate any business we could drum up.

As I understand it, LiIon batteries can still be shipped domestically in Canada by surface mail, and to the US at least by the same means, so this is a mail order solution for someone on the continent looking to have an old battery re-packed, but not knowing where to look for that. 

What I haven't managed to do yet is to see what the cycle count is in my batteries, not having a Tiger installation on my Pismo (I seem to recall that the count is available in System Profiler under Power in Tiger). Mine runs OS9.2, and I don't really want it for OSX, better options being available to me there, but when I get a moment, I'll pop Tiger onto my spare Pismo and see what I can find out. Are you able to check yours for the cycle count, by any chance? I'm interested to know whether the counter has been reset somehow.

(oh, and the cycle count is 0 under Tiger).

 

[beachycove]

Excellent!

 

[tendim]

Reached out to these folks to see if they could rebuild a Powerbook 1400 battery but they said they didn’t have the cells. Reading above someone (beachycove?) said that Irina was able to order the cells for them. Any idea if I asked the wrong questions?

 

[beachycove]

They only do LiIon cells, not NiMh for some reason.

 

[tendim]

They only do LiIon cells, not NiMh for some reason.

Ahh, that explains it.  Thanks.

 

[Daxeria]

But their FAQ says they can rebuild 95% of all Li-ion, Ni-Cd, and NiMH batteries. Is there something unique about the 1400's battery that would place it in the other 5%?