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PowerBook 500 Series Battery Rebuild Failure (Oops, all dead EMMs!)
- Thread starter 3lectr1cPPC
- Start date
I picked up this 15V 1A charger. It's for charging those portable battery packs for jump starting cars.
I again figured the battery voltage is 9.6V and while charging, I remember only seeing it get to 12V or so. I believe as long as the current is good and the voltage is higher than the battery, it should work to charge the battery.
I received it today and measured the voltage, it's putting out 14.99V. So I took a shot, disassembled the charger (it's small), and wired it up as my VBATT. It's working thus far. It's not cutting out and EMMpathy shows it's delivering about 1.02A to the battery during the charging process. My battery is charging. The battery was down at about 60% according to EMMpathy. It's currently at 67% after charging for a little bit. I'm going to let it fully charge and watch the temperature to see if there's any change charging at 1A vs 2A.
Also received the caps for my stock charger. Will recap the stock one this weekend and see if that one works and try the same thing with that stock charger as well.
Lastly, I received the new NIMH size "A" cells today. I test fit them into the case and all 8 of them fit - it's a super tight fit. I've got really thin battery tabs so will try spot welding these cells together this weekend and check the results of that to see if there's any material difference in temperature, capacity, etc.
I again figured the battery voltage is 9.6V and while charging, I remember only seeing it get to 12V or so. I believe as long as the current is good and the voltage is higher than the battery, it should work to charge the battery.
I received it today and measured the voltage, it's putting out 14.99V. So I took a shot, disassembled the charger (it's small), and wired it up as my VBATT. It's working thus far. It's not cutting out and EMMpathy shows it's delivering about 1.02A to the battery during the charging process. My battery is charging. The battery was down at about 60% according to EMMpathy. It's currently at 67% after charging for a little bit. I'm going to let it fully charge and watch the temperature to see if there's any change charging at 1A vs 2A.
Also received the caps for my stock charger. Will recap the stock one this weekend and see if that one works and try the same thing with that stock charger as well.
Lastly, I received the new NIMH size "A" cells today. I test fit them into the case and all 8 of them fit - it's a super tight fit. I've got really thin battery tabs so will try spot welding these cells together this weekend and check the results of that to see if there's any material difference in temperature, capacity, etc.
Ok, interesting.
The battery did charge. It hit 100% and measured temperature was around 38C, which is much lower than what I saw charging at 2A. But it didn't stop charging there... it kept going and the 100% dropped to 98% and then worked back up to 100% then dropped to 99% worked back up to 100%, etc. Went like this for around 5-10 minutes. The temperature climbed to around 41C (which is a far cry from the 59-60C I saw at 2A) and then it finally dropped out of 'Bulk Charge' mode, went to "Wait EMM", then switched to "Calibrate", then switched to "Maint Charge".
This is different from what I saw under 2A charging where the charge % usually goes up and then at some point around 70% it sometimes jumps to 100% and stops charging.
I need to do this a few more times to see if this behavior is consistent. But looks like battery temperature is more controlled under 1A (which is logical) and I'm curious now if more charge went into the battery. I ran out of time today but tomorrow I will use Battery Amnesia to drain the battery and see if that takes longer than what I saw before. The other curious thing is that I had charged this battery to 100% about 5-6 days ago. I don't believe I have seen it drain fast before but today EMMpathy was reporting around 60% when I started charging it. I don't understand how it determines the % (perhaps based on measured voltage?) but I'm curious now whether the 60% was correct and I never got a full charge due to the temperature cutoff under 2A.
Note that the measured capacity did not change from 1752mAH though. It's still sitting at 1752mAH. We'll have to see if that changes at all after a full discharge and recharge cycle tomorrow.
Anyhow, it does look like this 15V 1A charger works.
The battery did charge. It hit 100% and measured temperature was around 38C, which is much lower than what I saw charging at 2A. But it didn't stop charging there... it kept going and the 100% dropped to 98% and then worked back up to 100% then dropped to 99% worked back up to 100%, etc. Went like this for around 5-10 minutes. The temperature climbed to around 41C (which is a far cry from the 59-60C I saw at 2A) and then it finally dropped out of 'Bulk Charge' mode, went to "Wait EMM", then switched to "Calibrate", then switched to "Maint Charge".
This is different from what I saw under 2A charging where the charge % usually goes up and then at some point around 70% it sometimes jumps to 100% and stops charging.
I need to do this a few more times to see if this behavior is consistent. But looks like battery temperature is more controlled under 1A (which is logical) and I'm curious now if more charge went into the battery. I ran out of time today but tomorrow I will use Battery Amnesia to drain the battery and see if that takes longer than what I saw before. The other curious thing is that I had charged this battery to 100% about 5-6 days ago. I don't believe I have seen it drain fast before but today EMMpathy was reporting around 60% when I started charging it. I don't understand how it determines the % (perhaps based on measured voltage?) but I'm curious now whether the 60% was correct and I never got a full charge due to the temperature cutoff under 2A.
Note that the measured capacity did not change from 1752mAH though. It's still sitting at 1752mAH. We'll have to see if that changes at all after a full discharge and recharge cycle tomorrow.
Anyhow, it does look like this 15V 1A charger works.
Ah good. I'll buy that one and hopefully then will finally have a working battery that charges. Thanks for the excellent testing!
I recapped my stock power adapter and it's still working. Great! So I have two working ones now, a recapped stock one and the frankenstein (16V 4A VMAIN and 16V 1A VBATT).
The stock power adapter is putting out 975mA when charging (reported via EMMpathy). Whereas the 1A frankenstein is putting out 1020mA. I haven't had a chance to drain the "AA" NIMH pack and recharge to see if I get a non-1752mAH measure capacity. Still need to do that.
I have a date with the spot welder and my "A" NIMH cells tomorrow.
The stock power adapter is putting out 975mA when charging (reported via EMMpathy). Whereas the 1A frankenstein is putting out 1020mA. I haven't had a chance to drain the "AA" NIMH pack and recharge to see if I get a non-1752mAH measure capacity. Still need to do that.
I have a date with the spot welder and my "A" NIMH cells tomorrow.
15V supply came in today. Let’s see if the Jank-O-Tron V3 will work.
There we go.
I’m running off the battery now. It jumped from around 50 to 100% so either these cells are defective or there’s a calibration problem. So far so good though on the drain test.
Just finished rebuilding a 500 series battery. Using a Sanyo EMM board with new "A" size Sanya 2100mAH NiMH batteries. Got the individual flat top cells from OnlyBatteries. I measured the voltage on each cell individually and they were very close to each other which is good.
The spot welder was easy to use, I had it on the strength 3 setting which worked fine. I used 0.1mm nickel tabs.
With the "A" size cells, it's a super tight fit. But I was able to get it all in there with a 70C thermal fuse too. Everything fit neatly inside and closed it up using kapton tape for now (will seal the battery later if everything looks ok after a few charges).
The PowerBook detected the battery and it's charging now. I'm using EMMpathy to monitor progress. EMMpathy reports dT/dt values and EEPROM status is good (which it should be since the EMM board was working). But given it's new cells, the battery thinks it has no charge. But it's charging now, at 5% now with 975mA of current. Temp is at 32.5C. It was 31C when I first inserted the pack (ambient temperature here is a little warm today). The cells did have some charge so I expect it will jump to 100% at some point as the temperature peaks.
At the moment I have this built "A" pack and I have two built "AA" packs.
Will try some comparisons between the two types of cells. If I noticed any advantage to the "A" cells then I will probably buy some more and rebuild another "A" pack as I still have a Panasonic EMM board sitting around.
The spot welder was easy to use, I had it on the strength 3 setting which worked fine. I used 0.1mm nickel tabs.
With the "A" size cells, it's a super tight fit. But I was able to get it all in there with a 70C thermal fuse too. Everything fit neatly inside and closed it up using kapton tape for now (will seal the battery later if everything looks ok after a few charges).
The PowerBook detected the battery and it's charging now. I'm using EMMpathy to monitor progress. EMMpathy reports dT/dt values and EEPROM status is good (which it should be since the EMM board was working). But given it's new cells, the battery thinks it has no charge. But it's charging now, at 5% now with 975mA of current. Temp is at 32.5C. It was 31C when I first inserted the pack (ambient temperature here is a little warm today). The cells did have some charge so I expect it will jump to 100% at some point as the temperature peaks.
At the moment I have this built "A" pack and I have two built "AA" packs.
Will try some comparisons between the two types of cells. If I noticed any advantage to the "A" cells then I will probably buy some more and rebuild another "A" pack as I still have a Panasonic EMM board sitting around.
My 540c battery just died and I think it lasted around 40 minutes - it should have gone longer. I’ll give it another couple cycles and see what’s up. I could always go your route and do an A cell rebuild.
Yeah that’s not great…
None of the tools I run correct those so I’m not sure what’s up.
None corrected mine so I removed the memory and replaced it and that solved it. I think I put the part number in this thread earlier. @croissantking made the change as well and it also worked for him. Two of my batteries needed the new memory. One did not.
I cycled it again and same results. This was after running Apple’s calibration tool which reset the EMM’s mAH reading again. This time I ran it through BatteryAmnesia and it went about 40 minutes. I’m guessing it’s the cells but I suppose it could be the EMM cutting charge to early, not sure.
It passes all tests in LIND and EMMpathy so if the d/t issue is what’s causing this then it shouldn’t be something to do with that memory chip, at least not something these tools check for.
It passes all tests in LIND and EMMpathy so if the d/t issue is what’s causing this then it shouldn’t be something to do with that memory chip, at least not something these tools check for.
I think the memory chip is related to the "uncorrectable errors". I both tools attempt to write something into that chip (the values are different between the two tools so if you switch back and forth between them, each time you correct an issue in one tool, the other tool will then complain). If after writing it re-reads it and it's not the same, it complains that the error is uncorrectable. I tried 10 times to correct the error and it didn't work. With the new memory chip, both tools were able to correct it (albeit again switching between the tools causes complaints).
I completely drained the new "A" pack (2100mAH) with Battery Amnesia this morning and it's still charging. It reached what EMMpathy thought was 100% at 47C but then it didn't stop... kept going at Bulk Charge state pumping in charge at around 960mA for another 15 minutes. Temperature reached 57.5C and then it finally stopped and is doing the Maint Charge thing now. EMMpathy is still reporting 1752 measured total capacity.
Running Battery Amnesia again now... but as of now, I see no difference between this "A" pack and the "AA" packs I had. I didn't get a good read on discharge time because the "A" pack wasn't fully charged last time. Lets see how long it lasts under Battery Amnesia this time since it had a "full" charge.
I don't have an external charger for these batteries but I do have a dead PB 500 series motherboard (something's wrong with the display chip on it) so I may try pulling off the battery connector on that motherboard and building an external charging holder and then charge it using a smart NICD/NIMH/LIPO charger I have (it uses delta peak charging) and see if I see a capacity difference in terms of how long it takes for Battery Amnesia to drain it.
I completely drained the new "A" pack (2100mAH) with Battery Amnesia this morning and it's still charging. It reached what EMMpathy thought was 100% at 47C but then it didn't stop... kept going at Bulk Charge state pumping in charge at around 960mA for another 15 minutes. Temperature reached 57.5C and then it finally stopped and is doing the Maint Charge thing now. EMMpathy is still reporting 1752 measured total capacity.
Running Battery Amnesia again now... but as of now, I see no difference between this "A" pack and the "AA" packs I had. I didn't get a good read on discharge time because the "A" pack wasn't fully charged last time. Lets see how long it lasts under Battery Amnesia this time since it had a "full" charge.
I don't have an external charger for these batteries but I do have a dead PB 500 series motherboard (something's wrong with the display chip on it) so I may try pulling off the battery connector on that motherboard and building an external charging holder and then charge it using a smart NICD/NIMH/LIPO charger I have (it uses delta peak charging) and see if I see a capacity difference in terms of how long it takes for Battery Amnesia to drain it.
thing is - my battery doesn’t report any uncorrectable errors. And yes, the two tools disagree but it all seems normal. When I run one it says that it’s successfully repaired the battery, it just never corrects that d/t value.
Actually, you know now that I think about it... when I mentioned my AA packs were lasting over an hour (around 75 minutes) that was a "regular use" -- this was while I was coding something on the PB. This was not under Battery Amnesia -- I think that tool claimed it would drain the battery fast so I assume it's taxing the CPU? So it's possible my packs will also last only 40 minutes on Battery Amnesia.
Oh I see, I misunderstood. I thought the errors weren't correcting. Ok, then that's weird, not sure why yours show that "standard dT/dt value" issue... I wonder where that's coming from.
Yours doesn’t drop to under 700mAH in capacity though.
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