[jacquesm]

Do your homework before ordering that battery, there is a ton of trash out there that is unsafe to use. Make sure there are quality cells in there (Samsung, Sanyo, LG) and that the original BMS is in there with all of the protections enabled. This is not something you want to take any chances with, and aftermarket counterfeit batteries with incredibly dangerous guts abound.

[ho_schi]

If the manufacturers only provide batteries for at least ten years, don't lock it with dongle chips and provide specification requirements for third parties.

Well. Lenovo doesn't sell new batteries after fives years, uses dongle and doesn't provide any specs for third party manufacturers.

It is not possible to get an battery for X220/230, T420/T430 which is manufactured after 2017. At least I don't get anyone but Lenovo prints on the label "2020" :angrysmilie:

[jacquesm]

I've successfully refurbished batteries for items that were no longer supported, it's a bit of work but doable and dirt cheap ($5 / cell, and about an hour of work).

[metters]

How do you refurbish batteries? I mean, you are not only cleaning the outside, are you?

[jacquesm]

You open them up, carefully document how they are put together, remove the cells, put new cells in and then put the whole thing back together. I've done this now for laptops, cameras, a couple of drills and a vacuum cleaner and they all work 'better than new' because the new cells have far more capacity than the cells that were in there originally.

[deng]

> remove the cells

I was under the impression that laptop batteries usually have on-board memory for holding charging parameters and such, and if you remove the cells, the memory contents gets lost and you cannot charge the battery anymore?

EDIT: More questions: Do you need a spot-welder for this? And how do you get the battery pack open, since they are usually glued shut?

[jacquesm]

> I was under the impression that laptop batteries usually have on-board memory for holding charging parameters and such, and if you remove the cells, the memory contents gets lost and you cannot charge the battery anymore?

Some do, most don't. I've yet to see one that was that tricky, though I would suppose there must be manufacturers paranoid enough to put that in.

> Do you need a spot-welder for this?

If you want you can buy cells with strips already spot welded on so not necessarily. But it certainly doesn't hurt, they're not expensive though. K-weld is one of the better ones.

> And how do you get the battery pack open, since they are usually glued shut?

That can be a bit tricky depending on the manufacturer they may have the whole rim glued shut or maybe only a few strategic spots. I've yet to find one that I could not open, but some do take a bit of patience. And once you know how a particular model works the next one usually goes ten times quicker.

I realize that what is easy for me may be hard for others, but this being hacker news and the fact that there is a substantial intersection with the maker scene here I don't think such a subject is out of place.

[MaKey]

I tried this with a laptop battery where I guess the undervoltage protection of the BMS cut off the power. I was successful in replacing the cells but wasn't able to reset the BMS. How do you deal with this?

[kitsunesoba]

A policy worth taking on anything handling electricity IMO. Cheap desktop PSUs and laptop/phone charging bricks are similarly dangerous, and although less commonly a problem cheap charging cables can be too. It’s just not something that’s a good idea to pinch pennies on.

[tharne]

Is there anywhere folks can find a list of vendors with decent aftermarket batteries?

[JamesAdir]

I've had good record with KingSener on AliExpress.