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My Fujitsu Lifebook C352 had no more life because of a bad battery, I had to find a replacement.
Plagued by the death of my laptop battery I needed to find a solution. At first I decided I would just purchase a replacement, to my dismay I discovered that the cheapest refurbished battery was over $250.
The Operation
Warning this is possibly a very dangerous project and shouldn't be done unless you know what your doing. Im not responsible if you try this and cause damage to you or your laptop.
Now that I got that outta the way, I figured that the battery was just a pack of lithium ion cells, so I decided to pry the battery pack apart. Slowly inching around the cover with a small screwdriver broke the glue loose and I was able to get the battery apart without damaging anything.
Laptop battery with top removed.
I figured all I would have to do is replace the cells with new ones. So I started hunting around for someplace that sold Panasonic CGR18650H Cells.
I was able to find some replacement cells on Ebay, Sony Energytec US18650S. According to the auction page these cells were direct replacements of the Panasonic cells. I was very pleased to see that they were only $2.75 a cell.
After receiving the cells I quickly got to work on the battery pack. I carefully dismantled the pack to avoid damaging the charging circuit. The old battery connectors were spot welded in place, and was difficult to remove them without tearing them. I decided I would just use pieces of wire to connect the batteries in the pack. I made note of the original cell placement and made sure to place the new cells in the same arraignment. Since the new cells did not have solder lugs attached to them, I had to solder the wires directly to the cells. Soldering directly to the cells is very dangerous, soldering onto the end of the cell caused the cells to get very warm. I made sure to allow the cell to cool between each soldering connection and made sure that the cell never got too hot to touch. I recommend that if you decide to try something like this, you buy cells with solder tabs attached.
Everything fit nicely in the pack, just like the original.
New Lithium Ion cells in old battery pack.
The Test
For now I just taped the cover onto the battery pack with electrical tape.
I put the battery into the laptop and applied the charger. The laptop quickly acknowledged the battery packs presence and began the charging sequence. I let the battery completely charge, and turned on the laptop. Windows recognized the battery and showed 100% available. Now the moment of truth, I unplugged the power to the laptop, and wollah, the laptop was running on battery power. By now the old battery would have quit. Windows displayed that I had about 3hrs remaining on the battery. I was shocked, since my old battery new would only last about 2hrs. Further investigation showed that the old cells were lower output then the new cells. Effectively the old battery was 2800mAh, and with the new cells, it is 3200mAh, not a bad improvement for 20 bucks.
Conclusion
The laptop battery rebuild project was a success, I was able to effectively save over $225 by rebuilding my laptop battery myself, and without knowing it, increase the runtime of the battery.
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