Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

[pentium]

I don't know if the batteries are at fault or what but here we go:
I found at the local university a Compaq Armada 7360DMT and Armada 7350MT (which I yanked the floppy drive and battery from and tossed the rest back in the pile) as well as the enormous docking station which can hold two PCI/ISA cards as well as a half height drive and charge a spare battery and still give you the basic port replicator features with 10/100 networking and two additional PCMCIA slots and after a quick upgrade of the hard drive (1.5Gb to 4Gb as that was the biggest spare I have) and an install of 98se (I really wish I could use 2000 but it only has 64Mb of ram and 2Mb of VRAM) It was all ready to go however the damn batteries will not charge. Weather they were in the laptop or plugged into the dock the system didn't see any batteries and would not charge them.
What gives? Could the batteries themselves be at fault? I do know at least that the charging slot in the dock works (or at least is getting power).

[Scenic]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

check for voltage on the batteries with a DMM...

i bet they're deep discharged..

[pentium]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

I don't know if it is because I am testing the wrong pins (there are + and - marks but they don't even point to any of the pins) or because the batteries are REALLY dead but both are giving me 0 volts.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

Laptop batteries usually only last 2-3 years.

For LI's the chemicals break down with time even if unused.

.

[pentium]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

Yeah, I had a crash coures in the lifespan of LI-Ion batteries when I put my DUObook 230 away for a year and it went from holding a two hour charge to nothing.
Still, can a battery get so dead that the computer can't even detect it? I would at least expect the system to see it.

[pentium]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

I'm looking around at the more "forceful" ways to at least bring a little bit of life back to dead Li-ion batteries and they all seem pretty simple however they all require the computer to see the battery and I still can't figure out why I can't see them and that makes 99% of what is out there useless to me.

[kc8adu]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

the reason it wont charge is the management chip sees one or more cells/paralel groups which have gone below 2v.
its in end of life shutdown mode.replace it.
i rebuild the packs but unless you have lots of experience working with lithium incendiary grenades dont try it yourself!

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

How do you do the spot welds?

[kc8adu]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

Well I am getting somewhere using a non standard method.
I cracked open a pack and low and behold I'm only getting like .8 volts.
What I did was I went with a charger and "zapped" each cell until they read at least a volt and a half. Then I popped it back in the computer.
First off, it now tells me it's charging however none of the charging lights are on and it only shows battery #2 (located in the dock) as present briefly before vanishing but continues to say it is charging though the DMM tells me the voltage is dropping.
I'm getting contradicting data here.

hope you have good fire and health insurance!
once li-ion are that deeply discharged they grow dendrites that can go through the seperator.then they short and explode,vent with flame,imitate a roman candle,ect.
just throw it away or have it rebuilt by someone who knows what they are doing!

[pentium]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

Well that then makes this whole kit useless portability wise as replacement batteries will be next to impossible to get for anything under $100 and would make it not worth the time.
Damn, and the thing was thinner than my toughbook.

[pentium]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

Well I am getting somewhere using a non standard method.
I cracked open a pack and low and behold I'm only getting like .8 volts.
What I did was I went with a charger and "zapped" each cell until they read at least a volt and a half. Then I popped it back in the computer.
First off, it now tells me it's charging however none of the charging lights are on and it only shows battery #2 (located in the dock) as present briefly before vanishing but continues to say it is charging though the DMM tells me the voltage is dropping.
I'm getting contradicting data here.

[pentium]

Re: Armada laptop won't charge the batteries

Bah, I'll just consider the batteries FUBARed and hope I come across a stash of spare Li-ion cells.