How to disassemble a laptop battery. Replacing battery cells

If one “fine” day, while sitting in front of your favorite laptop, you suddenly notice that its battery has become significantly smaller and has poorer charge retention, do not rush to immediately look for a replacement.

First, you should find out the source of the problem and figure out what’s wrong with your battery. And after checking, we can talk about the reasons bad work battery and make a conclusion about whether it can continue to be used or requires replacement.

Laptop battery - the “heart” of the laptop

A rechargeable battery is a large “battery” that allows the computer to operate autonomously. If everything is in order with the battery, the laptop “feels” fine for several hours without recharging. However, over time the capacity lithium-ion batteries(these are the devices found in most modern laptops) is irreversibly reduced.

So how can you tell whether a laptop battery has completely exhausted its resource or whether it still has some “powder in its flask”? For this purpose, there are special test programs and devices with which you can make an accurate “diagnosis” of the device.

How to check a laptop battery

Experts offer two main ways to check the condition of the battery:

Special programs. All you need is to download the utility from the Internet, install it on your computer and run it. After the verification procedure, information about the type of battery, its capacity and the degree of wear of the device will appear in the battery properties. If the resource is completely exhausted, there is only one way out - to look for new battery. This can be done, for example, on BatteryOn. Popular and effective testing programs: BatteryInfoView, Aida64, BatteryBar.
Using a battery tester. The compact “device” allows you to determine the health of the controller in a few minutes; it will show you the number of remaining charge/discharge cycles, the current capacity, and the temperature inside. The only caveat: to check the condition of the battery cells you need to disassemble the device. We'll tell you further about how to do this correctly.

How to disassemble a laptop battery

You need to “dissect” the battery on a flat, wide surface. It is advisable to prepare all the necessary tools in advance:

knife with a thin short blade (model);
tester;
glue for plastic;
soldering iron;
small car light bulb;
new batteries.

Battery disassembly process.

Completely discharge the battery and remove it from the laptop.
Find the longitudinal seam on the battery case, carefully insert the knife a few millimeters deep and separate the case halves.
Take a photo of the location of the power cells in the battery. The image will be useful to you when it comes time to put the battery back together.
Now check the voltage in the circuit and each element separately with a tester. The multimeter should show a number equal to the total number of batteries multiplied by 3.7. A different number will mean that you need to take out the cells and measure each one separately. The “battery” voltage should be in the range of 3.7-4.1 V. If it is less, the element must be replaced with a new one, since its resource has been exhausted.
All cells need to be discharged to 3.2 V by connecting a car light bulb to each.
Place all the batteries back in their places, as in the photo you took earlier. After this, you can solder the “batteries”.
Glue the battery halves together and leave until the glue dries completely.
Insert the battery into the laptop, put it on charge and wait until it finishes.

If you did everything correctly, the battery will hold a charge again, like new.

In this simple way you can check the condition of the battery and even extend its life. Many years to come good work for your laptop!

Before attempting to restore battery functionality laptop computer, you must determine the type of device. There are three of them: nickel-metal hydride, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer. Most often, the last two types are used in laptops. Their main disadvantage is their fragility - only about 300 cycles of operation. However, you can revive the device yourself at home...

First you need to disassemble the battery. This is not so easy to do - the battery parts are securely fastened. To work you will need a sharp thin knife or scalpel. While pressing on the seam, carefully disassemble the device into pieces. Try not to damage the “insides”. Next, make sure the battery is completely discharged. To determine this, you need to resort to the help of car light bulbs and a multimeter. Connect them to the battery. You can start repair work, if the light sources are on. It is worth noting that the total voltage on the multimeter should be equal to the number of elements that are multiplied by 3.7 or more. In case the voltage is at measuring device less than necessary, you will have to check each battery cell and replace damaged or faulty parts as necessary.

All new cells and remaining old ones must be completely discharged. Using those same light bulbs, bring the voltage to 3.2 V in each battery cell. You carry out this operation so that the updated laptop battery starts charging from zero. In this case, the charge level will be determined correctly.

Among the faults computer battery Another one is common. The battery does not charge while the voltage at the contacts is 0. To fix the problem, you must again open the case, create series circuit, including a 5 W car light bulb and a laptop power supply. Bring the voltage of each battery cell to 3.4 V.

Reassemble the battery. To properly glue the halves together, you may need special glue.

After replacing the battery in your laptop, fully charge it. To ensure that your battery serves you as long as possible, follow the operating instructions.

What is the best way to disassemble a laptop battery?

Readers of the site often receive questions about how to disassemble a laptop battery. In principle, this procedure is simple, and you can do it yourself without any problems. However, due to the low repairability of most laptop batteries, their owners often encounter problems during disassembly. Therefore, it was decided to write this small manual on disassembling a laptop battery.

For example, repairing a laptop battery. It consists of replacing lithium cans with new ones. Lithium cans are used as cans. This process is often called repackaging the battery. This allows you to save on purchasing new battery for laptop. True, the savings are insignificant, since the main contribution to the cost is made by lithium battery cells.

However, such repairs may be useful if you have old laptop, for which manufacturers no longer produce batteries. If you don't want to part with your assistant, then repacking will help. After all, 18650, unlike assembled batteries, have a single standard, and you can buy new ones for replacement without any problems.

And also disassembling the battery may be required for those who work in radio electronics. These lithium batteries can be used as power supplies in various schemes. Someone may ask a reasonable question: “After all, the batteries are used. Why are they needed?

In laptop batteries, lithium cells are combined into parallel assemblies, which in turn are connected in series. The charge controller monitors the characteristics of all banks, and if they deviate from the permissible ones, it can block the operation of the entire battery. A situation often arises that, due to a significant variation in characteristics, some elements of a non-working battery still remain functional. Therefore, the battery can be disassembled and their resource can be used.

Many users ask how to disassemble a laptop battery to use 18650 lithium cells in flashlights, power bank, and also as power sources in various “crafts”. Now, let's move on directly to the disassembly process itself.

Disassembling a laptop battery

As already mentioned, the batteries of most laptop manufacturers are not suitable for repair. Exceptions include only some Samsung models, in which the battery case is closed with latches. In all other cases, you will have to deal with glued hulls.

To disassemble such batteries, I advise you to first run a utility knife along the seam. It has a thin blade that penetrates well. At the same time, do not overdo it by inserting the knife deep. Otherwise, you might short something or damage something inside. On the Internet you can find recommendations for preheating the seam with a hot air gun, but you can do without it. If you warm it up, keep an eye on the temperature. For lithium batteries heating is contraindicated.

After going along the seam with a knife, begin to bend the housing cover with some object of greater thickness. For example, a screwdriver. It is better, of course, to use something made of plastic. As you bend the lid, place something in the spacer. When the battery is opened, you will see a multi-cell assembly and a BMS board. Most laptops have 4, 6, 8 18650 elements installed. Less commonly, 2, 12 are installed. The photo below shows the disassembly process.

Next you need to unsolder or bite off the wires going from the assembly to the controller. The plus and minus assemblies and balancing points are soldered there. In addition, a thermocouple is glued to the body of one of the elements. According to its readings, the battery turns off when the elements overheat.

After you unsolder the elements, you need to disconnect them. This problem can be solved by cutting through the connections with wire cutters. The cells in the battery are connected to each other by spot welding. A steel strip is used for this.

You can simply tear it away from the battery, but it is better to leave it for later use. Wires can be soldered to these pieces of tape if necessary.

All you have to do is determine which elements have exhausted their resource, and those that can still be used. This can be done by measuring their capacity with a universal charger. But this is a topic for a separate article.

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The idea of creation perpetual motion machine has not left the minds of researchers from the very moment they learned to tame electrical energy. And the sad fact for them that not a single patent commission will even accept such an invention for consideration does not stop new generations of enthusiasts from science. Well, perhaps they have become a little more accommodating and are ready to compromise. For example, look for a renewable energy source with an efficiency of 99.9999999..%.

Why do we remember all this? Oh yes! In the foreseeable future, we are unlikely to be able to connect a laptop, even one as cutting-edge as, for example, Asus ZENBOOK, to a wind turbine or make it accumulate solar energy so that it will be enough for a whole sleepless night of surfing the Internet or developing a website layout.

And imagining a laptop running on biofuel is beyond even the most perverted imagination. Although... who knows! Perhaps some next thinker will figure out how to turn human waste products into waste-free production that provides much-needed energy for battery life laptop.

This is still a dream. But in reality, if your old Asus, one of the first models with lithium-ion batteries, or the super new ZENBOOK ultrabook suddenly stops holding a charge, you will have to figure it out using traditional “old-fashioned” methods. First, you need to calibrate your Asus laptop battery in hopes of straightening out its electronic brains (that is, bringing the battery controller to life). If calibration does not improve the situation, then the battery will have to be disassembled, looked for obsolete elements and replaced with new ones.

How to disassemble lithium-ion battery so as to accurately get to the truth (in the sense of the faulty element)? How to successfully replace a non-working “barrel” with a working one and assemble the battery so that there are no unnecessary parts left anywhere? Specialists from UA-Battery, the undisputed leader in the laptop battery market, will help us figure this out. So, let's start disassembling the battery for Asus laptop!

Asus battery disassembly algorithm

Before disassembling the battery, prepare a knife, hammer, vice and rubber gloves. You will also need car light bulbs, a multimeter and a soldering iron. And, of course, superglue.

Secure the battery in a vice so that the pressure is applied only to one half of the case (the reference point is the seam between the halves). Insert a knife into the seam and unstitch the body by tapping the handle of the knife with a hammer. Some models are not glued very tightly, so you can do without a vice. And in some cases you have to literally cut the battery along the seam.

2. Diagnostics of battery cells

Connect a multimeter and check the voltage on all internal battery cells (the so-called “barrels”). The normal reading is 3.7 V or more (but not higher than 4.1 V). All elements where the voltage is less need to be replaced. According to UA-Battery experts, the central elements of the battery usually fail earlier. So pay special attention to them. Also ring the controller and inspect it for external damage. If there are burnt or melted elements, it also needs to be replaced.

Now you know how many elements you have that are suitable for further use, and how many need to be replaced. Select new “barrels” based on the markings. Next, discharge the cells (old and new) to 3.2 V using car light bulbs. And then connect a 5 W light bulb to the battery and charge it to 3.4 V. After this, you can solder the elements and glue the battery case.

What is a battery?

Before picking up piercing and cutting objects, it is worth finding out what you will have to deal with: a rechargeable battery is a monoblock that includes several individual elements connected in series and parallel.

Over time, battery capacity decreases. This is due to the chemical reactions taking place inside the elements (cans) - that’s where life is in full swing! Even if the battery is not connected to the device, the processes do not stop.

It is for this reason that you should pay attention to the production date of the battery (just like when buying perishable products).

Although in the case of batteries, their service life is measured not in days and weeks, but in years. The battery loses up to 10% of its capacity per year. But everyone's aging individual element does not proceed the same way. It is reasonable to assume that Operation Autopsy is carried out precisely because of these elements.

Why do elements “fly”?

This happens for several reasons:

Overheating, causing the fuse to trip;
Accelerated wear of individual elements;
Error in the controller, which “does not see” some of the cans;

It is enough to have one “black sheep” in a set of cells, and the overall efficiency of the battery drops. But what is their value if the battery is dead?

Well, to what extent he died/not died - an autopsy will show. What if he can still be brought back to life? In a word, away with all the torment and let’s get to work!

“... scalpel... scissors... swab!”

This is a joke, of course. Surgical instruments are not useful, but a mounting knife is just right. Not all batteries are collapsible; more precisely, they are mostly non-removable. Let's consider this case.

Opening

The battery monoblock housing consists of two halves, connected at the factory by hot pressing. You need to cut along the joint. For convenience, you can heat the tip of the blade and it will go like clockwork. The penetration depth should not exceed 1.5-2 mm, so as not to inadvertently damage the elements. Therefore, it is better not to rush.

A little patience, and you will be rewarded - the casket will open like an oyster shell, and “33 heroes” in film, lying in in strict order. In fact, there will be fewer elements - from 6 cylindrical cans.

Checking the elements

If average temperature known from the hospital, i.e. you know for sure that the battery is dead, now you need to find out the well-being of each patient - the performance of each battery element. For this you will need a multimeter. I won’t explain how to use it: since you have gone to great lengths, then such things should be known to you.

First, you should take measurements bypassing the controller: if the readings are equal to or exceed 3.7 times the number of cans, then the problem is with the controller. By the way, lest you forget: before opening your laptop’s battery, make sure that your power supply is in order. If anything, here's where you can find an adapter for most laptop models.

The controller is responsible for the charging and discharging process, avoiding overloads. If the elements are in order, but in general the battery “does not hold up,” then the problem is in the controller - it simply “does not see” the elements.

In this case, there is an option to flash the controller (if not mechanical damage, Certainly). But this will require special equipment. This operation cannot be carried out at home. But we can be glad that the banks are intact. Below I will tell you what you can do with them.

In cases where the controller is in order, by “ringing” each element separately, good jars are identified, and unusable ones are thrown away.

What if you replace all the banks and restore the battery?

A good idea is to replace the non-working banks with new ones and bring the battery back to life. But! – the indicators of the new elements must be identical. How to achieve this if the old ones have wear and tear? Only with the help of special equipment. Or replace all banks.

Replacing cans is a painstaking procedure that requires qualifications. It is not always possible to solder elements efficiently, and spot welding requires equipment. It is still possible that the controller will need to be re-flashed for new elements.

But now, as promised, I will tell you about useful little things, which can be made from waste cans.

Practical benefits of opening the battery

Since you have done such work, you need to get practical benefits from it. After all, you didn’t do this for the magazine “I Want to Know Everything”?

Each element (bank) in a laptop battery is lithium battery. Their capacity is not enough to “pull” the laptop. But each element individually, even if worn, copes well with low-power equipment. For example:

Flashlight or lamp for tourism and fishing;
Autonomous flashlight for the dacha or entrance;
Bicycle headlight.

And many, many useful “tricks”. You can even organize a competition of ideas for the use of used batteries. All that remains is to choose the jury.