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Rebuilding the Sony VAIO PCGA-BP51 Li-Ion notebook battery pack
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Chieh Cheng
I hate getting rid of stuff. Especially stuff that I use on a daily basis, such as my Sony VAIO PCGA-505TS SuperSlim notebook. Sure it is seven years old and still runs Windows 98 on a 300MHz Pentium II processor. But it is so hard to find a good replacement notebook now days. The 505TS was only 3/4" thick and very tidy. There are hardly any notebooks out there that are that small anymore. The last time I looked, there were zero! Today, the 505TS are still having its "WOW" factor as I carry it around.
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Chieh Cheng
The 505TS and the 505TX (slightly more features than the 505TS) both use the PCGA-BP51 lithium ion battery pack for power. A brand new battery pack provides an hour and ten minutes of power. An optional PCGA-BP52 doubles to triples the endurance of the PCGA-BP51. My BP51 lasted a little shorter and shorter until it will not hold any charge at all. For the past few years, I have been using the 505TS on plug-in power. The 505TS, being so small, is such a waste to use being strapped to power. But the cost of a brand new battery pack is prohibitive.
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Chieh Cheng
The next best thing . . . take it apart and see if the cells are replaceable. It was a little intimating at first, since there was no screws or any other fasteners externally. I had to use an X-ACTO knife to pry the two shells apart so that a flat-head screwdriver blade can be inserted. This brute force approach ruin the edges on the two shells, which had to be straightened out later before the shells can be put back together. After pulling the shell apart, I realized that the shells are held together with small tabs and mostly a rubber-like glue on the battery cells. The battery pack would have been easy to disassemble if not for the glue. Once the shells are apart, three battery cells are revealed. Note that the polarity is in one direction.
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Chieh Cheng
Examining the cells closer, I found them to be Sony Energytec US18650GR batteries. I even sliced the wrapper off to see if there are any other designations, but there were none other. Then is the time to start looking for Sony Energytec US18650GR suppliers. Back to finding a supplier . . . I typed in the "18650" keyword and found that there are several brands of 18650 battery cells. Those include the Panasonic CGR18650, LG ICR18650, Samsung ICR18650, and many others. There are plenty of suppliers, so I'll leave the exercise of find one to the reader. Finally, I ordered two pairs of these batteries from Alltronics. Their web-site could have been designed better, as I tried two web browsers, Mozilla and Firefox, neither worked with their shopping card. I had to resort back to Internet Explorer (gag!) to finally put in my order. Someone might want to help them build a better web site. Nevertheless, my order arrived a week later.
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Chieh Cheng
The batteries I ordered from Alltronic came in sets of two. They were originally built for some other purpose, with a built-in charging circuit . . . might be useful for some future project. The battery even had a Motorola label that read "Engineering Sample". Anyway, I need three out of the four cells.
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Chieh Cheng
After unwrapping the Motorola Engineering Samples, I found that one pack is made out of Sony Energytec US18650GR battery cells, while the other pack is made out of Toshiba LGR18650P. Either way, the cells are exactly what I needed to rebuild my notebook battery pack.
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Chieh Cheng
In the picture below, you can see the interface pin-out for the PCGA-BP51 connector. There are 6 contacts:
-
I don't really know what S.PRE and B.PRE are. If you do, please let us know.
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Chieh Cheng
I pulled the older cells out of the PCGA-BP51, being very careful not to pull the metal tabs out of the circuit board. I wanted to reuse the tabs with the new battery cells. A pair of needle-nose pliers really helped. When I put the new cells into the configuration, I must have been quite careless, because I smelled an electronic burning smell. I immediately realized that I forgot to look at the polarity of the original configuration, and had mounted the new battery cells without even thinking of polarity. I quickly pulled everything apart. At this point, I was quite nervous that I had damaged the PCGA-BP51 circuitry. Nevertheless, I wired up the battery correctly this time and hoped for the best. The PCGA-BP51 was packed quite tightly, so I decided not to use any solder nor any glue. Everything held together really well. Being quite excited that the battery was complete, I was again careless. While transporting the battery to the location of my notebook, I managed to drop the battery 4 feet to concrete. I was quite upset, because I figured that if I had not burnt out the circuit board, I surely have damaged it by dropping it. Without solder nor glue, the battery pack still held together after the drop. I was quite down, but took the battery pack to the notebook, nevertheless. Upon plugging the battery, the computer was able to boot up solely on the amount of juice in the new cells. I was quite happy that the battery pack still worked and immediately proceeded to give it a full charge. Several hours later, the battery pack was charged, so I did a timing test. The battery lasted exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes (70 minutes). That is the same amount of time a brand new PCGA-BP51 could expect on a Sony VAIO PCGA-505TS notebook. Time to rebuild the longer lasting PCGA-BP52 . . . 8-)
Chieh Cheng
hi
iraj badrian
I was reading your: Rebuilding the Sony VAIO PCGA-BP51 Li-Ion notebook battery pack and I want to know the coast of your procedure.
Hermes
What do you mean "coast"? Do you mean "cost"?
Chieh Cheng
sorry, it's cost.
Hermes
I remember it costed about $10 for a pack of two. So, it costed $20 for two packs.
Chieh Cheng
After almost two years, the BP51 died again. It's completely dead. When the computer is plugged in, the charge light will continuously flash. I think it is not ok to leave the battery plugged in while always connected to the wall socket. It will only shorten the battery life. I also have an used BP52 that I bought off eBay. It hasn't died yet. I think it is because it is always sitting in my computer bag, fully charged. I only install it on the notebook when I need to actually use it or charge it. Therefore, I think the battery will last a long longer if you charge it and remove it. Only install it when you are actually going to use the battery.
Chieh Cheng
Rechargeable batteries will die quicker if continually 'topped-up' - It is always recommended to 'cycle' rechargeable batteries, that is, from new, fully charge them, then run them until dead, before recharging. Oh, yeah, I found this page because I am about to attempt to rebuild an F1466A battery pack for an aging HP OmniBook 4150B - and refuse to pay GBP120 for a battery... ;)
alloydog
"It is always recommended to 'cycle' rechargeable batteries, that is, from new, fully charge them, then run them until dead, before recharging"
alloydog
Just asking if whats the voltage rage of that LGR18650P Rechargeable li-ion battery. Just the single battery only. Noel All lithium ion battery cells are rated at 3.7 volts, at least, for now. Chieh Cheng To be precise, there is at least two types of Li-Ion batteries, that was in use in older laptop batteries. Difference in a charge cutoff voltage. Older ones had 4.1V, newer - 4.2V. So, it is good idea to check which one you have before replacing anything. If you put 4.1V cells to a pack with 4.2V controller - you will get serious problems (like vented cells) on a first charge. If you put 4.2V batteries to a pack with 4.1V charge controller - you will have reduced capacity but nothing dangerous. Fortunately, cells with 4.1V cutoff voltage now hard to find. Ve BTW, there is also new LiFePO batteries that have higher capacity than regular LiIon cells, but lower voltage (3.2V if I remember correctly). Never try to put these cells to laptop packs designed with regular LiIon cells - it is not compatible. Ve I have recently bought some more 18650 batteries. But this time around, I got the 3.6v version. After rebuilding the battery pack, the battery pack did not power the laptop, nor did it charge, even though the charge indication was on. At first, I thought maybe the circuit board was fried. But after some detailed examination of the battery pack, I noticed the PCG-BP51 rating: 11.1V/1550mAh. There are three 18650 battery cells in the battery pack. So 11.1V divided by 3 is 3.7V. At this point, I'm suspecting that the battery cells I got doesn't provide enough voltage; 3.6v time 3 equals 10.8v. The 3.7v versions are more expensive than the 3.6v versions. But I think I'll get some of the right voltage and try again. Chieh Cheng Very nice directions. Unfortunately, they didn't work for me. In fact, I'm 0 for 2 on BP51's. In pack no. 1, I carefully replaced the three cells with fresh 18650's (that I individually charged before using) and then tried it out. BatteryScope said there was 100% wear and zero charge remaining. It never charged in my 505TR. Turns out fuse F1 on the battery board had opened. When I bridged it with a 5A picofuse, that blew too. At that point I figured I had nothing to lose so I cautiously bridged F1 with a piece of wire. After half a second, transistor Q1 started releasing the magic smoke. I'm not sure if Q1 was the cause or a downstream victim of something else, but without a schematic of that board it was pretty much all over. I then moved the three new cells to dead pack no. 2. I checked the fuse first and it was OK, as was the thermal protector. But this pack refused to charge too. BatteryScope said it had 0% charge and 247 hours to full charge, but it never charged either. It measured 11.3V from the + to - battery terminals, but zero at the + and - connector pins. I never figured out what this one's problem was. So beware, not all BP51's will respond to a battery swap. Michele Did you ever find out the functionality of the battery's pinout (DATA, CLK ect.); in trying to diagnose the fault with my vaio battery I'm considering scoping the digital interface. Seb Nope. I have never figured it out. Let us know if you do. Chieh Cheng The DATA and CLK pinout on battery is for a battery charge controller. Newer LiIon packs use SMBus(SMartBus) controllers to charge in a way suited to each individual pack. It varies how each pack uses this, but the DATA takes microcontroller data to/from the computer and the CLK maintains clock pulse with the system so it may keep time in the communication cycle. HerrUnderdogg Did you ever figure out what the S.PRE and B.PRE pinouts were for? And what does CLK stand for? I'm thinking about replacing the batteries in my laptop battery pack and want to know if I have to keep power to the circuitry in the pack while replacing the batteries. I've heard that you have to do this in some cases. TinFury I have a third-party replacement battery. B.PRE shortened to "-" pin, S.PRE not connected lemonacid
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