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-- one more step to Visor Prism's battery replacement... (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=32621)

one more step to Visor Prism's battery replacement...

I've bought a Panasonic CGA103450 Lithium Ion battery today and paid a guy to change it for me. However, that guy told me there's a small piece of board attaching to the original battery(it's probably a chipset relating to the charging function...?), he dared not to remove it and weld it on the new battery...! Does anybody know what's that and whether to have that small piece of board welding on the new battery? Thanks!

I think it is the charging circuit

Seems to me I've read that the charging circuit is attached to the battery itself. This makes sense since rechargable Li-Ion bats vary in their composition from one batch to another. I think I read something about that in the FAQ at Laptopsforless .
I just received a replacement battery from them about a week ago and have had it installed for about 5 days. It seems to work fine, but hasn't dazzled me with extra capacity or endurance. In fact I called and spoke to one of their techs, asking if the battery was supposed to have the higher capacity that some people here thought it might. He flatly answered "...we make no such claims, this is a replacement battery for the original Prism battery....", so I'm assuming that this has the exact same amp/hrs as the original battery, which is a bit dissapointing. There is a further discussion of the replacement battery in this thread replacement battery. I'm sure there are others on the board who can contribute more specifics about your question .
On a brighter note, I had StiMPy upgrade my Prism with a 16mb chip, and I couldn't be happier. It's really nice having the extra internal RAM and he had it turned around and back in hands within 3 business days of receiving it!

LiIon batteries

and indeed, you're correct. All rechargeable LiIon battery packs, and many newer NiMH ones as well, include an onboard charge controller circuit -- you merely feel the battery current, and it does all the thinking.

As you might expect - that charge controller has to be fairly closely matched to the cells in the pack.

This is, among other things, how Sony's InfoLithium batteries for camcorders work; the charge controller knows about every coulomb that goes into and out of the pack, and can therefore tell the camera the projected life at the current drain rate.

I had it mentioned to me that these threads were going on by the buy at Active Armor -- who make really cool cases for every model of Visor 'cept *mine*, darn it -- and decided to stick my head in: I do MIS for a ...

battery company. I'd give y'all the url, but we're in the middle of a complete redesign of the website; it's a bit embarassing right now.

But, so, since I know that HS wants more for a battery replacement out of warranty than I just paid for *an entire replacement unit* on eBay this week, I'd be interested to know just how much people *would* be reasonably willing to pay for the job -- perhaps I can talk the boss into sticking our neck into the breach.

Since I now *have* a broken unit to pull apart (don't leave your Visor on top your car, 'k? :-()...

Cheers,
-- jra

I hear the Prism's battery is good only for about three years and that's all. I certainly would be interested once mine starts going.