Jim Rees
Thinkpad battery packs
For my Thinkpad x40. Both are fakes (or "third party"). The one in the foreground is so badly engineered that there is no way it could possibly even fit. I expected to open it up and find lead weights where the cells should be. But it has real Li-ion cells and circuitry. I'm not sure what to make of that, just bad engineering I guess.
The one in the background worked fine for about a month but then just quit for no reason. The chip must have failed because the Thinkpad doesn't even recognize it as a battery pack.
I didn't really want to do this the hard way, but after two failures I ended up attempting a cell transplant to my genuine IBM pack that had worn-out cells. It went just fine until right at the end. I was trying to be careful but shorted a cell terminal to some of the circuitry and got a nice blue arc.
You can't buy the genuine packs any more so it's back to the aftermarket guys.
Thinkpad battery packs
For my Thinkpad x40. Both are fakes (or "third party"). The one in the foreground is so badly engineered that there is no way it could possibly even fit. I expected to open it up and find lead weights where the cells should be. But it has real Li-ion cells and circuitry. I'm not sure what to make of that, just bad engineering I guess.
The one in the background worked fine for about a month but then just quit for no reason. The chip must have failed because the Thinkpad doesn't even recognize it as a battery pack.
I didn't really want to do this the hard way, but after two failures I ended up attempting a cell transplant to my genuine IBM pack that had worn-out cells. It went just fine until right at the end. I was trying to be careful but shorted a cell terminal to some of the circuitry and got a nice blue arc.
You can't buy the genuine packs any more so it's back to the aftermarket guys.