[Ti] Titanium batteries

[Dan K]

First off, I'm NOT the most knowledgable about this topic, but with that 
caveat firmly in mind I still have a couple of what I hope are a couple 
of useful suggestions.

Alan Thompson <alan at alanthompson.net> asked:
>I see a lot of used batteries at various places, but I'm not seeing 
>anyone with new batteries.  I have a 500MHz model, and the battery 
>charges fine, and I can get about an hour or so on it, but when it 
>reaches 50 some odd percent (full or drained, your choice) it will 
>suddenly drop to the red zone, and quickly go into sleep mode while 
>working.  I tried resetting the PMU last night to no avail, so I'm 
>looking for a new battery.
>
>So, does anyone know of a good source for a new TiBook battery?
The quick drop from 50% suggests one or more failing or failed cells, 
there is no cure. However, before tossing the pack, one might want to run 
through the steps I outline in the second half of this message.

Complete replacement of the entire battery is one solution, recelling is 
another. Ti batteries use 8 'standard' tabbed 18650 LiIon cells, cost 
seems to be $5 to $10 per cell and you must replace them all at the same 
time. It's DIY doable but you'll likely have trouble cleanly opening the 
case, not an issue if you don't mind a few cosmetic 'issues'. No, I don't 
know any takeapart sites, but there's always Google.

I don't know or endorse this outfit but they do sell cells (by the 
seashore? :-), here's an example:
<http://www.aspencer1.com/showitem.asp?ItemID=11273>

 - - - - -

then luke <etyrnal at ameritech.net> asked:
>i am using a tibook 867 w/ 512MB RAM and 40GB hd...
>recently my battery just decided to go from 2-3 hours of solid battery 
>life to about 6 minutes...
>it had never done this before.
>i've tried 'conditioning' the battery - (i'm not sure if i understand 
>the specifics of the procedure though)
Recalibrating is where you fully charge the pack, remove the 'Book from 
mains power and allow the 'Book to run until the battery's charge falls 
to the point where the 'Book falls asleep. Then you plug it back into 
external power and allow the battery to fully recharge.
 **See the end of this message for a more elaborate technique**

This usually is enough to reset the battery pack's internal memory and 
lets it communicate correct charge levels to the 'Book. Sometimes the 
recal doesn't work, but before dashing off to buy a new pack, there is 
another tool one can use to attempt to reset the battery's internal 
electronics.

Use the openfirmware nvram reset commands:

Startup into openfirmware by holding down key combo cmd-opt-O-F right 
after startup.
at prompt type
 "reset-nvram" (without quotes of course, and then enter)
it'll say "OK"
 "reset-all" (and enter)
and it'll restart

That's it, if battery now works properly, yer in luck. If it didn't, then 
the battery may actually be shot after all.

dan k

**
The best advice I've seen for maximizing LiIon battery runtime, as posted 
to usenet by "Peter" (whose last name escapes me at this moment):
------------------------------------------
(Peter's Trickle Calibration)

1. charge fully and then some
2. in terminal,
   ioreg -p IODeviceTree -n battery -w0 | grep Bat
   (make a note of your Capacity -- should be around 4000 or more)
   sudo pmset -b spindown 1 sleep 0 reduce 1 dim 1
   (prevents idle-sleep, and after 1 idle minute spins down your disk,
   reduces your processor speed, and turns off the LCD when on battery)
   (Maybe in Panther you can do that without pmset, but Jaguar is broken)
3. shut down all applications.  turn off airport,
   disconnect anything external -- keyborad, mouse, printers,
   and finally, power.
4. LEAVE IT ALONE -- DO NOT TOUCH IT

5. W A I T (5 hours or more ...)
6. eventually your notebook will go to sleep

7. plug it in.  wait 3 minutes.  (mebbe 5 to be sure :-)
8. ioreg -p IODeviceTree -n battery -w0 | grep Bat
   (Has it re-evaluated your Capacity?)
9. leave it alone and let it charge fully.
10. if the Capacity changed significantly, you might want to repeat
    the calibration cycle.
11. Adjust your battery-power management settings to make it sleep
    at a more reasonable time.

Note -- *calibration* means helping the battery's firmware estimate the
battery's capacity.
------------------------------------------


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