Laptop Owners: Do Not Fall for the Newest Gimmick That Tries to Sell You "Refurbished" Laptop Batteries. Is There Really Such a Thing?
by Anonymous
Anaheim, CA, November 25ˇV You may have seen them on the Internet: companies that claim to be selling ˇĄrefurbishedˇ¦ laptop batteries. The advantage? They come at a fraction of the price of a new one. You may have wondered what exactly is a refurbished battery and, in the end, is there such a thing?
The answer is no. This is the newest hoax for selling worn out batteries pulled from used laptops when they are dismantled for parts. These batteries generally have only a few charge-discharge cycles left, and they are sold to the unsuspecting consumer with 30 or 90 days warranty. ˇ§These vendors rarely will stand behind the warranty they advertise, because more then half of these batteries will be coming back for replacement and this cuts out all their profitsˇ¨ says Mitch Anderson, owner and CEO of Laptops for Less, a mobile electronics retailer in Anaheim, CA. Mr. Anderson has been selling batteries for more than half a decade, and his knowledge in electrical engineering has made him extremely suspicious of such claims.
All battery packs are composed of 6, 9 or 12 primary cells. They are wired in a series and parallel circuit combination. For example, a 10.8V battery is made by three 3.6V cells connected in series. For these batteries to charge and discharge correctly, they all have to have the same internal impedance (if your DC theory is bit rusty, impedance is a fancy word for resistance, generally used for pulsating or AC current). For this reason manufacturers go trough extensive cell testing to match together thousands of cells with the same impedance. Once they have - letˇ¦s say - a lot of 10000 pieces all at 0.2 Ohms, they will design a charging circuit that is specially adjusted for that specific lot. Then they will assemble the battery packs and study the next lot that might be tested at 0.3 Ohms. The charging circuit will need to be adjusted again, for the different impedance.
Lithium-Ion batteries have very sophisticated charge current requirements, they donˇ¦t just take juice until they are full, like a car battery. More than that, these cells must maintain their internal impedance in the same manner over the life of the battery. To accomplish this accuracy, the chemistry of the cell components must be of extreme purity and the mixture must be exactly the same over thousands and thousands cells.
Only a handful of manufacturers are able to accomplish this task, mostly located in Japan. Panasonic, Sanyo, Toshiba and Sony are the world leaders and the only brands trusted by the laptop OEMˇ¦s (original equipment manufacturer) today, such as Toshiba, Compaq and IBM. A company must get certified, in order to get the right to sell primary cell to these manufacturers. Certification is a lengthy process and requires a substantial investment. This is yet another reason why Lithium-Ion batteries are so expensive.
Refurbishing Lithium-Ion batteries can not be accomplished, or the refurbishing can not be done properly, for the following reasons:
„h If ˇ§Refurbishersˇ¨ are to replace the one failed cell, they are facing the impossible task of finding a cell from the same lot that the other ones have been coming from. Even so, a new cell has different properties, then the other used ones. Replacing a cell with one that has different properties is disastrous because it will create a voltage drop that is not balanced with the other cell in the series circuit. This leads to overheating and even the possibility of explosion, since the graph above can not be respected.
„h Other small shops tried to replace all the nine or 12 cells in the bad batteries. This is also a quick and dirty job, since they can not match the charging circuit design to the cell impedance they have. They donˇ¦t even know what impedance the circuit has been calibrated at. To really fix this problem, they would have to redesign the charging circuit, an expensive process that makes the economics of refurbishing un-feasible.
„h The same cells are impossible to find. The batteries that come for ˇ§refurbishingˇ¨ are most of the time more than a year old. By this time, Sanyo or Panasonic does not make the same cells anymore, they move up to higher capacity and reliability. Replacing the cells with different models creates the problem of the charging circuit calibration. Again, not an option.
„h The ˇ§Refurbishersˇ¨ can not get brand name cells. They lack the size and the engineers to be certified by manufacturers, so they rely on gray market cells, often rejects that have not been disposed properly.
„h Opening and sealing the case without damage is a next to impossible task. The packs are sealed with an ultrasound machine that melts the plastic internally, without the messy glue and with minimal physical distortion. A small shop will have to tear it apart and glue it back tighter. Next thing you know, the battery does not slide easily in the laptop anymore.
Conclusion
We urge our customers and the general public to stay away from these fake ˇ§Refurbishedˇ¨ batteries. They are a waste of your money and time. Having your laptop battery fail in the middle of a presentation can cost you more in lost business and aggravation than the few dollars saved on the price of the battery.
A few tips on finding a good vendor:
It is wise to look for certifications on vendorsˇ¦ web sites. See if they belong to any reputable trade organization, such as the Better Business Bureau, or a third party, unbiased company such as BizRate.com, has certified them.
Better Business Bureau has an Internet division. This is still the oldest and the most respected consumer protection agency in the US. Look for their logo on your vendor site.
If you are a Yahoo Shopping customer: Yahoo shopping rates their vendors on quality an reliability. The rating system is fair and based on customer feedback. Look for the ˇ§Top Serviceˇ¨ merchant and stay away from two or 3 star vendors. Go with 4 or 5 stars.
This article courtesy of http://www.laptoppartscentral.com.
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