Anyway to fix a battery that's gone bad?

On 9/27/19 11:58 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
[...]
That's why my opinion is to run the power command available in a command
window to occasionally check the battery's status, and judge accordingly.

I think you mean the 'powercfg' command and specifically:

powercfg /batteryreport

which generates a .html file in your current directory.

Probably so, but MS has changed the name, and I haven't kept up. Just
not interested.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 69.0
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 06:28:40 -0000 (UTC),
(Kenny McCormack) wrote:

I have a cheapy HP laptop running WinBlows 10 (bought at Walmart).

Was working fine, right up until...

Recently went on vacation for a few weeks, leaving the laptop at home,
unplugged.

When I got back, laptop would not stay up (booted) for more than a few
minutes. Kept crashing and seems the problem is the battery, which would
not hold a charge (onscreen battery status shows "0% charged").
Charger/power supply is working (see below).

Eventually figured out how to remove the battery, now the laptop works fine
(as long as AC power is good). This is fine, and is, actually, a common
solution (I have a long history of this sort of thing happening to laptops;
the basic takeaway is that the battery is the most vulnerable part of any
apparatus that has a battery). Still, this is a relatively new laptop;
this should not have happened this soon and, I'm pretty sure it happened
because the thing was left unplugged for 3 weeks.

Any suggestions on ways to get the battery working again?

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

On 9/30/19 3:20 AM, Lucifer wrote:

[snip]

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

AFAIK, that seems normal for automatic battery chargers (won't charge
unless voltage is present). It also seems like a design flaw (you need a
manual charger too).

--
86 days until the winter celebration (Wed, Dec 25, 2019 12:00:00 AM for
1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"The convent is opposed to all that is sacred in human nature." [Lemuel
K. Washburn, _Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays_]

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 9/30/19 3:20 AM, Lucifer wrote:

[snip]

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

AFAIK, that seems normal for automatic battery chargers (won't charge
unless voltage is present). It also seems like a design flaw (you need a
manual charger too).


Maybe it set off the polarity detection on the smart charger ?

A manual charger doesn't care, and will ruin things if you
connect it backwards. My manual charger, is just a transformer
and selenium rectifier bridge. And if you connected it to a
zero volt battery, the selenium rectifier would get very very
hot.

I got a smart charger a couple years ago, but haven't
attempted to abuse it yet. It's only charged working
batteries. And one of the nice things about it, is
it is temperature compensated, so at least you
won't be "off by 50%" on your state-of-charge.
There will still be some error in that determination,
but a smaller error.

Paul

On 2019-09-30 12:38 p.m., Paul wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 9/30/19 3:20 AM, Lucifer wrote:

[snip]

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

AFAIK, that seems normal for automatic battery chargers (won't charge
unless voltage is present). It also seems like a design flaw (you need
a manual charger too).


Maybe it set off the polarity detection on the smart charger ?

A manual charger doesn't care, and will ruin things if you
connect it backwards. My manual charger, is just a transformer
and selenium rectifier bridge. And if you connected it to a
zero volt battery, the selenium rectifier would get very very
hot.

I got a smart charger a couple years ago, but haven't
attempted to abuse it yet. It's only charged working
batteries. And one of the nice things about it, is
it is temperature compensated, so at least you
won't be "off by 50%" on your state-of-charge.
There will still be some error in that determination,
but a smaller error.

Â*Â* Paul

My smart charger had a momentary push button to force a smallmanual
charge, just enough to activate the automatics to continue the charge on
a dead battery.

BTW, did you ever smell a selenium rectifier when it went up in smoke?
Pheeew, a never to be forgotten smell. :-(

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-09-30 12:38 p.m., Paul wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 9/30/19 3:20 AM, Lucifer wrote:

[snip]

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

AFAIK, that seems normal for automatic battery chargers (won't charge
unless voltage is present). It also seems like a design flaw (you
need a manual charger too).


Maybe it set off the polarity detection on the smart charger ?

A manual charger doesn't care, and will ruin things if you
connect it backwards. My manual charger, is just a transformer
and selenium rectifier bridge. And if you connected it to a
zero volt battery, the selenium rectifier would get very very
hot.

I got a smart charger a couple years ago, but haven't
attempted to abuse it yet. It's only charged working
batteries. And one of the nice things about it, is
it is temperature compensated, so at least you
won't be "off by 50%" on your state-of-charge.
There will still be some error in that determination,
but a smaller error.

Paul

My smart charger had a momentary push button to force a smallmanual
charge, just enough to activate the automatics to continue the charge on
a dead battery.

BTW, did you ever smell a selenium rectifier when it went up in smoke?
Pheeew, a never to be forgotten smell. :-(

Rene

Having opened the case of my dumb charger for a look,
I know from what I found, not to expect miracles from it.
I could easily see it becoming a smoke generator.

I think selenium is the one, that if you eat too much,
it makes *you* smell. There was some mention of this in
a chem class.

"Health Risks from Excessive Selenium

Early indicators of excess intake are a garlic odor
in the breath and a metallic taste in the mouth. The
most common clinical signs of chronically high selenium
intakes, or selenosis, are hair and nail loss or brittleness."

Paul

On 2019-09-30 3:53 p.m., Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-09-30 12:38 p.m., Paul wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 9/30/19 3:20 AM, Lucifer wrote:

[snip]

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

AFAIK, that seems normal for automatic battery chargers (won't
charge unless voltage is present). It also seems like a design flaw
(you need a manual charger too).


Maybe it set off the polarity detection on the smart charger ?

A manual charger doesn't care, and will ruin things if you
connect it backwards. My manual charger, is just a transformer
and selenium rectifier bridge. And if you connected it to a
zero volt battery, the selenium rectifier would get very very
hot.

I got a smart charger a couple years ago, but haven't
attempted to abuse it yet. It's only charged working
batteries. And one of the nice things about it, is
it is temperature compensated, so at least you
won't be "off by 50%" on your state-of-charge.
There will still be some error in that determination,
but a smaller error.

Â*Â*Â* Paul

Â*My smart charger had a momentary push button to force a smallmanual
charge, just enough to activate the automatics to continue the charge
on a dead battery.

BTW, did you ever smell a selenium rectifier when it went up in smoke?
Pheeew, a never to be forgotten smell.Â* :-(

Rene

Having opened the case of my dumb charger for a look,
I know from what I found, not to expect miracles from it.
I could easily see it becoming a smoke generator.

I think selenium is the one, that if you eat too much,
it makes *you* smell. There was some mention of this in
a chem class.

Â*Â* "Health Risks from Excessive Selenium

Â*Â*Â* Early indicators of excess intake are a garlic odor
Â*Â*Â* in the breath and a metallic taste in the mouth. The
Â*Â*Â* most common clinical signs of chronically high selenium
Â*Â*Â* intakes, or selenosis, are hair and nail loss or brittleness."

Â*Â* Paul

The moral to that is, Don't chew on your selenium rectifiers, Use
Dentyne :-)

Rene

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 09:20:47 +0100, Lucifer wrote:

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 06:28:40 -0000 (UTC),
(Kenny McCormack) wrote:

I have a cheapy HP laptop running WinBlows 10 (bought at Walmart).

Was working fine, right up until...

Recently went on vacation for a few weeks, leaving the laptop at home,
unplugged.

When I got back, laptop would not stay up (booted) for more than a few
minutes. Kept crashing and seems the problem is the battery, which would
not hold a charge (onscreen battery status shows "0% charged").
Charger/power supply is working (see below).

Eventually figured out how to remove the battery, now the laptop works fine
(as long as AC power is good). This is fine, and is, actually, a common
solution (I have a long history of this sort of thing happening to laptops;
the basic takeaway is that the battery is the most vulnerable part of any
apparatus that has a battery). Still, this is a relatively new laptop;
this should not have happened this soon and, I'm pretty sure it happened
because the thing was left unplugged for 3 weeks.

Any suggestions on ways to get the battery working again?

I was able to revive a SLA battery by connecting it to a power supply.
My car battery charger won't attempt to charge a battery that is near
fully discharged.

An SLA battery doesn't need a fancy charger. I charge them with a 13.8V 15A current limited power supply (designed for CB use).

Kenny McCormack wrote:
I have a cheapy HP laptop running WinBlows 10 (bought at Walmart).

Was working fine, right up until...

Recently went on vacation for a few weeks, leaving the laptop at home,
unplugged.

When I got back, laptop would not stay up (booted) for more than a few
minutes. Kept crashing and seems the problem is the battery, which would
not hold a charge (onscreen battery status shows "0% charged").
Charger/power supply is working (see below).

Eventually figured out how to remove the battery, now the laptop works fine
(as long as AC power is good). This is fine, and is, actually, a common
solution (I have a long history of this sort of thing happening to laptops;
the basic takeaway is that the battery is the most vulnerable part of any
apparatus that has a battery). Still, this is a relatively new laptop;
this should not have happened this soon and, I'm pretty sure it happened
because the thing was left unplugged for 3 weeks.

Any suggestions on ways to get the battery working again?

Since, AFAICT, you haven't yet gotten any solutions to your
dead-battery problem:

Did you try to charge the battery without booting the laptop? If not,
you may want to try that and see if that way the battery will - start to
- hold a minimal charge and work from there on.

IOW, if you don't boot the laptop, that might prevent it from
"crashing" after "a few minutes".

N.B. If/when you do this, make sure you're present while the laptop is
trying to charge the battery. Dead Li-Ion batteries can be dangerous
(fire/explosion/etc. risks) and charging such batteries can be even more
dangerous.

On 9/30/19 12:38 PM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

A manual charger doesn't care, and will ruin things if you
connect it backwards. My manual charger, is just a transformer
and selenium rectifier bridge. And if you connected it to a
zero volt battery, the selenium rectifier would get very very
hot.

In some cases, a few minutes on a manual charger made the difference
between a battery that wouldn't charge (automatic charger refused to
work) and a fully charged battery.

It would be a good idea to watch it for awhile.

I got a smart charger a couple years ago, but haven't
attempted to abuse it yet. It's only charged working
batteries. And one of the nice things about it, is
it is temperature compensated, so at least you
won't be "off by 50%" on your state-of-charge.
There will still be some error in that determination,
but a smaller error.

Â*Â* Paul


--
85 days until the winter celebration (Wed, Dec 25, 2019 12:00:00 AM for
1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send
peace, but a sword." [Jesus, Matthew 10:34]

On 9/30/19 3:23 PM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

[snip]

Â*My smart charger had a momentary push button to force a smallmanual
charge, just enough to activate the automatics to continue the charge on
a dead battery.

That's such a useful feature, I don't know why it isn't more common.


BTW, did you ever smell a selenium rectifier when it went up in smoke?
Pheeew, a never to be forgotten smell.Â* :-(

I have had a battery (this one was really bad) that leaked acid while on
the charger.

Rene




--
85 days until the winter celebration (Wed, Dec 25, 2019 12:00:00 AM for
1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send
peace, but a sword." [Jesus, Matthew 10:34]

On 9/30/19 4:05 PM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

[snip]

I think selenium is the one, that if you eat too much,
it makes *you* smell. There was some mention of this in
a chem class.

Â*Â*Â* "Health Risks from Excessive Selenium

Â*Â*Â*Â* Early indicators of excess intake are a garlic odor
Â*Â*Â*Â* in the breath and a metallic taste in the mouth. The
Â*Â*Â*Â* most common clinical signs of chronically high selenium
Â*Â*Â*Â* intakes, or selenosis, are hair and nail loss or brittleness."

Â*Â*Â* Paul

The moral to that is, Don't chew on your selenium rectifiers, Use
DentyneÂ* :-)

Rene

that one reminds me of someone asking if fluorescent lights were bad for
you, and was told "They are if you break the tube and eat the white
powder inside.".

--
85 days until the winter celebration (Wed, Dec 25, 2019 12:00:00 AM for
1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send
peace, but a sword." [Jesus, Matthew 10:34]