Third Party Batteries

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Just a quick science experiment to bring up:

One of my customers asked me to order him extra batteries for his and his main salesman's Lenovo T400 notebooks. The battery used in that model is the same as the one used in my widescreen T61 and in newer T410 and T510 models that several other members have.

After informing him that a new nine cell battery from Lenovo is $150, he asked me if I could get them cheaper anyplace else, so I ordered a pair of $60 Knock-offs from Ebay, something I've never done for a Lenovo notebook. I specifically bought more expensive models that offered a three year warranty; the same battery can be had for as little as $35 otherwise.

According to Lenovo's battery monitor, the knock offs are not official Lenovo batteries, something that it complains about every time the notebook wakes up from sleep and randomly during normal operation.

The knock offs use Sanyo cells, just like my current OEM battery, but the watt-hour rating is 81.something for each of them and only 76.something for the OEM battery (mine is two year old, which may account for the discrepancy). Nonetheless, the knock offs both appear to be good for only about 2:45 of normal operation, versus about 3:15 for my well used OEM battery.

Also of note: I ordered the batteries from different Ebay sellers on different days and paid different prices for them, but the batteries I received appear to be identical. One has a serial number of 45 and the other one's serial number is 59, which suggests that they came from the same production run from wherever the hell they came from. Both packages shipped out of Singapore.

Now it may very well be that the Lenovo battery gauge reset behaves differently or reports different information for non-OEM batteries, but I'm having some difficulty reconciling the idea that the knock-offs appear to have more power storage yet discharge more quickly.
 

LunarMist

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I bought some 3rd party batteries a few years ago for a notebook. They were fine for about 6 months, then lost capacity and finally shorted out after a year. :( Japanese cells, my ass.
 

mubs

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I'm having some difficulty reconciling the idea that the knock-offs appear to have more power storage yet discharge more quickly.
May have something to do with the chemistry of the battery; can hold higher charge, but discharges faster (like self-discharge in NiMH batteries).
 

Santilli

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I'm having a similar experience with a backup I bought for a Panasonic Toughbook.
80 bucks, ebay. claims Li-ion 11.1 V 660mAh/73Wh.

It discharges faster then the original Panasonic battery by about 25%, and the original is
what, 11 years old???

See how long it lasts.

Panasonic batterys were 140 bucks, about 60 dollars more then I spent for this laptop.

Battery shipped from China.
 

Stereodude

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May have something to do with the chemistry of the battery; can hold higher charge, but discharges faster (like self-discharge in NiMH batteries).
:erm: That doesn't make any sense.

In the case of NiMH cells they will self discharge faster if not used, but they don't discharge faster. If they were to discharge faster they would hold less charge.

As to the topic, I'm not sure you can make any solid conclusions based on the percentage reported by the computer since they can be horribly inaccurate. You'd really need to run it side by side with a OEM battery until the machine powers off and compare the run times.
 

Stereodude

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Now it may very well be that the Lenovo battery gauge reset behaves differently or reports different information for non-OEM batteries, but I'm having some difficulty reconciling the idea that the knock-offs appear to have more power storage yet discharge more quickly.
More likely the capacity rating is a lie or derived from different discharge characteristics. If you use a capacity rating derived from a .1C discharge curve, but run the battery at 1C discharge there will be a difference. The magnitude of the difference is partially dependent on the quality of the battery.
 

Mercutio

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As to the topic, I'm not sure you can make any solid conclusions based on the percentage reported by the computer since they can be horribly inaccurate. You'd really need to run it side by side with a OEM battery until the machine powers off and compare the run times.

The problem with that is that the only OEM batteries I have access to have at least nine months of charge/discharge cycles on them already. Best I can recall, a new OEM 9 cell 7600mA Thinkpad battery will drive a 14" T-series notebook for around 4:30 in reasonable usage (802.11 on and being used, screen brightness reasonably high).
 

Stereodude

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It could just be a poor quality knock off battery. :scratch:

There's nothing magical about the OEM one from Lenovo.
 

Howell

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The knock offs use Sanyo cells, just like my current OEM battery, but the watt-hour rating is 81.something for each of them and only 76.something for the OEM battery (mine is two year old, which may account for the discrepancy). Nonetheless, the knock offs both appear to be good for only about 2:45 of normal operation, versus about 3:15 for my well used OEM battery.

IIRC, the power rating of the battery is communicated to the computer by a chip in the battery pack. So, a battery pack could technically lie about what it is and leave out a cell or something. Also, my T510 battery (42T4791) has two different ratings on it, 4.76Ah and 5.2Ah, but this battery is always referred to as 4800mAh by places selling replacements. Not a huge difference but confusing.

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Running the batteries through a conditioning cycle may affect how long power manager says it is good for. Without going through that I don't think it would know what a particular battery's discharge curve would look like and thats if it can even keep track between individual batteries.

This place has what they claim are original Lenovo for ~$85.
 

Howell

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The problem with that is that the only OEM batteries I have access to have at least nine months of charge/discharge cycles on them already. Best I can recall, a new OEM 9 cell 7600mA Thinkpad battery will drive a 14" T-series notebook for around 4:30 in reasonable usage (802.11 on and being used, screen brightness reasonably high).

Is there some sort of cd-based test suite for batteries? If there is I'll run it on my month old battery.
 

Howell

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I am actually finding a bunch of cheap batteries online matching my FRU that are only 4400mAh as compared to 4800. That's 91% of the original battery. Merc's runtime numbers of 2:45 and 3:15 come out to 85%. It's not close but not too far off. In order to hit the 91% mark the runtime numbers would have to be imprecisely measured by 12 minutes combined.
 

Howell

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I've always trusted it before. The gauge reset is supposed to, you know, reset the gauge for a particular battery.

All my batteries do have the same mA rating though.


I did not realize you reset each battery; I thought you were just inserting it fully charged and going off the "time remaining" reading. Yeah, I would trust a battery reset.
 

blakerwry

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I never buy batteries off ebay - Too much cheap Chinese junk that's mislabeled or misrepresented. I have bought some non-OEM camera batteries and never noticed a distinguishable difference in battery life, but these are from a reputable dealer... who ships out of HK.

I have been interested in buying the replacement laptop batteries from batteries plus (Rayovac), but have been hesitant precisely because of the expectations that I might experience what you are going through. They're not especially cheap either.

My general advice for someone looking for a laptop is to buy one with the 9 cell (or upgraded) battery OEM from the start. Expect to have to replace it in 2 years (standard batteries get 1 year); factor that into the cost of owning a laptop.
 

Santilli

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There is something to be said for buying stuff made in Japan. On the otherhand, some of the stuff is being made in China, and then badged.
 

Stereodude

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Yes, the problem is there's no middle option. You can get a cheap battery (likely crappy) made in China, or hand over your firstborn for a genuine OEM battery (also made in China).

Why isn't there a equivalently good non-OEM battery that's somewhere between the two in price?
 

paugie

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Yes, the problem is there's no middle option. You can get a cheap battery (likely crappy) made in China, or hand over your firstborn for a genuine OEM battery (also made in China).

Why isn't there a equivalently good non-OEM battery that's somewhere between the two in price?
I think they want people to junk their perfectly good portable computers once the batteries go bad.
BTW, some shops provide a service here where they "repack" old batteries with new cells. Better cells cost more. I asked around, the "good" repack costs like $110. New "original" batteries will cost twice that.
 

Stereodude

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The problem I have there is 6 good quality 18650 cells don't cost anywhere near $110, so even that seems a tad stiff.
 

ddrueding

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The problem I have there is 6 good quality 18650 cells don't cost anywhere near $110, so even that seems a tad stiff.

Have you considered packing it yourself? If you have a source for the batteries, that might not be too tricky. I would, but my laptops are too expensive to fool with.
 

Howell

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Have you considered packing it yourself? If you have a source for the batteries, that might not be too tricky. I would, but my laptops are too expensive to fool with.

All of the casings I've seen are glued together. You are likely to destroy the casing just getting it apart.
 

Mercutio

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Apparently one of those knock off batteries has stopped charging. Sweet. I'm looking forward to my "I told you so."
 

Mercutio

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I have a pair of T61s that I'd like to continue to use in at least some capacity. Now I'm trying to decide if it's worth $100 - $150 to get new batteries for them or just let them go quietly into that good night with batteries that only maintain 50ish% of their original charge. I suspect that a T9400 CPU is still reasonably competitive with current low-end mobile processors and I also know that I wouldn't waffle over a $100 hard drive replacement, but for some reason, especially knowing how often people are sold fake batteries, I'm having a tough time making up my mind to do this.
 
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