I have an old Dell battery that isn’t holding charge at all. The replacement, which was a supposedly original one bought off Amazon but is a copy only, holds but will not charge as Dells are a bit cheeky.
I’ve opened both and the cells look ripe for swapping. Can I? Should I? I can’t buy a real McCoy now as it’s costly, will I loose much by swapping the cells? And I won’t return, the seller wants it registered and from Eire to UK it’s about 10 Euro, not worth it as I only paid 30 maybe.
Please advise, I know some people make batteries here (Smudge?).
Thanks!

if you do swap the cells, make the first charge outdoors, with a fire extinguisher to hand 🙂

I have two of them 🙂
Would you risk swapping?

Oops.

Got it, Luminous 🙂
Still none the wiser.

I’d happily swap them – I’ve had loads of Li-ion cells die in battery packs and just swap them out.

Unless you know what your doing I wouldnt advise it, plus its ok swapping the cells inside but unless they are the same capacity as the original the ‘fuel gauge’ wont work properly. If you put smaller capacity cells inside to the original it will never show fully charged status.
I did look at supplying replacement laptop batteries but the market is too huge and stock would be too big to cover the range involved, plus fleabay to compete against.

Oh, if you do have a go, take a couple of pictures beforehand so you can see where everything goes back.

Smudge, thanks. I think I’ll give it a go tonight. The batteries are useless as things stand anyway, not much to loose.
I’ll be using a low-power soldering tool (pen?), the cells are pretty much flat now.
Pics are a must, in case I need to revert to the original case.

HC.

In my original post I posted a link to Smudge’s website, but then re-read your post to see that you already knew about Smudge.

Thats all.

🙂

I thought it was his, just wasn’t sure.
If you hear about a huge explosion in Drogheda co. Louth tonight on the news, it means the battery transplant went poo-like.

if you plan on soldering the tabs on the cells then you’ll need the most powerful iron you can get your hands on.
10 euros to save 30? know what i’d do.

Del, 10 to return. They won’t refund the postage, no point bothering. Especially that I might be able to use it to fix the old one.