Battery Internal

[ron85]

Do you need the internal battery if you have an external battery. Reason I ask is I ordered 2 external battery on ebay and got 4 of em that are suppose to hold a charge, cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state gives output that 3 of the 4 batterys are holding a decent charge (3000) and 1 is holding less then 20, but if i pull the plug it turns off, the state also indicates its charging. So i left one on the charger all nite tried to power it on and nothing, just changed it out again gonna leave this other one on the charger all day too.

Now the battery light is blue and flashing when these are connected, the one i got with it doesn't show any state says none and the light is always solid so I think these batteries are good. My internal battery, well last i checked also says none.

Now are the external cells the same as the internal, if i need an internal could I just strip take the cells out the exteranl and put em in the internal?

Any one have any thoughts on this?

[Dave7341]

Hi Ron,

You must have an internal battery that can a charge at least 1% in order for the external battery to be used. If the internal battery is dead, your external battery will not be used. Again, the internal battery does not need to work well, just work a little.

You didn't mention the model you have but if it's a 366 there is an issue where sometimes it does not know there is an external battery is connected and then uses the internal battery only. The simple fix if this happens is to do a soft reset on the tablet. With the tablet OFF (not standby or hibernate) - press and hold the power button. The LED will light that it's starting to turn on but keep holding the power button and then the tablet goes back off. All together you will hold 5-8 seconds. This will perform a soft reset and if the external battery is connected properly, it will be recognized. Of course this doesn't help if your internal battery is dead.

Another common problem with external batteries on the 366, 375 and 368 models is the contacts get oxidized either from humidity or from touching them with our fingers or other environmental issues. Use a pink pencil eraser to clean the contacts on the back of the tablet and carefully clean the battery contacts. Be careful you don't short out the contacts with the brass part that holds the eraser to the pencil.

Good luck, -Dave

[ron85]

yeah just ordered a http://www.ebay.com/itm/370583199851?ss ... 1439.l2649 got working external, 3 of which hold a really good charge so why i wait for the interal to come in gonna let each battery sit on the charger for 24 hours, if i can get this thing to work on battery gonna have a sweet little device, posted some videos of what i set this thing up to do with linux, esentialls, just automated vnc and rdesktop, but also has a full useable desktop on it as well

[ron85]

damn it just realized i got the model number confused, have the 366 not the 360, confusing cause the 360 is newer then the 366, what a retarded naming convention

[Dave7341]

Well, I see you discovered your mistake. That battery has the wrong connector and it setup for pulse charging from the 360/310 models. I tried to convert one to the 366 a while back with some limited success. Since you have a blown internal pack, cut it open. There are four cells inside - same as the external battery cells except smaller.

Taking apart the external pack is easy. There are two screws - one under each sticker. They are located in the corners closest to the center connector that touches the tablet. Use a knife to peal back the label and then remove the screws. Once the screws are out, the metal plate will pry up easily from the plastic housing. You'll see four cells setup the same as the internal battery.

Some of the guys have used 3.7v batteries that fit internally inside the back of the tablet. Use two to get 7.4v. They don't last 90 minutes like new internal batteries but they will last 20 minutes or so. The key isn't how long they last but that they will take SOME charge so that the external battery does all the work.

Let us all know how you make out, they problem with these older tablets is that the batteries are no longer made.

-Dave

[ron85]

okay got it all apart gotta go grab a soldiering iron hopefully the board out of the internal battery works, not sure if i could use the board from the external battery, but i had one with fucked up pins so figure ill use that for the internal battery now, the packs are def bigger...and red

[ron85]

actually if anyone knows the external battery pins i could easily just push the cables into the pins duct tape it and call it a day....

[ron85]

k works
but still won't stay on with out ac power, i got the whole thing only sorta put together gonna goto radio shack if i can get something working
ron@slitaz:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
present: yes
capacity state: ok
charging state: charging
present rate: unknown
remaining capacity: 3528 mAh
present voltage: 7195 mV
ron@slitaz:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state
present: yes
capacity state: ok
charging state: discharging
present rate: unknown
remaining capacity: 3600 mAh
present voltage: 8075 mV

[ron85]

update, its stay on, going to radio shack now, thanks, for the help, hopefully the damn thing don't blow up, lol, just used the wiring from the internal and looked at the board to figure out what wire went where, gotta extend the wires and solder to the leads adn i'm good to go i think, gonna be bowed like a mother though

[Dave7341]

Good job! Post some pics.

[ron85]

k wired it up, didn't bother with soldier, i just pinched the wires into the pins, then the back wouldn't go on, so i had some black gorilla tape laying around, and just taped the whole damn thing down, whole damn thing is held in with duct tape but it works good using it now, a little worried it might short and blow up, but, idk those wires are in there good and the whole thing is duct taped so wth

[ron85]

regreting now taking pictures before i duct taped it....but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, cause I just winged it, so ymmv, my house may burn down, but at least i have renters insurance

[ron85]

did a little video, the internal one i put in died fast, dropped from 3000 to 300, granted i never charged it, and it was marked as bad pin free so maybe after i leave on charge for a bit it'll spring back to life, but charge is up to 1200 on internal, hoping to see it hit close to 3600 dual 3600 batteries, plus 3 extra external, long as the wiring i did holds to together...thinking i'm gonna carefully pull off that tape this weekend, take some pics, better attach everything, idk

[ron85]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP_c4SpA ... r_embedded