High Capacity Lithium-ion batteries

[Michael Starks]

So, I bought one of the high capacity lithium-ion batteries from eBay that I've seen a few people use in their rigs and that have been talked about by a couple of people. I just got the battery and let it charge for like 8 hours or whatever it said to do. However, when I plug it in to the monitor I've got (a Lilliput 6.5" LCD) the monitor never turns on. The monitor works fine because it functions quite normally when pluged in to AC power. Am I doing something wrong or do I have a potentially dead battery?

Any suggestions on what to try? Thanks!

One more thing, here is the link to the specific battery that I bought:

http://tinyurl.com/mcz4v

-Michael

[Alan Dague-Greene]

When you press the little black button, do all the lights turn on? It comes with all those little connectors, are you sure you're using the right one? One last thing, there are two holes, one for input (charging) and one for output (using). Are you plugged into the right one?

[Michael Starks]

First, off - I contacted the seller, told him all the testing I had done and he said he'll be shipping a replacement battery to me once I send this one back to him. I should have the replacement by next Thursday.

Alan - When the little black button is pressed without the battery connected to AC power nothing happens at all. When the battery is connected to AC power then nothing happens if you just press it. If you press and hold all the lights flash green for a millisecond or something like that. I made sure I was using the correct tip and nothing still happened. I ended up using a 12 volt tester my dad has (one end has a alligator clip and the other end is a metal rod, there is a light at the end of the metal rod and when you connect the two - making a circuit I assume - it lights up if it is recieving 12 volts) and the light never turned on when the battery was unplugged, but it would occasionally turn on for about a second when the battery was plugged in to the outlet.

After describing everything that had happened to the seller he said that it sounded like some of the connections on the inside of the battery had come loose during shipping because it had been tested before it was shipped. Anyway, as long as I can get a replacement that works I'll be happy.

Thanks guys!

-Michael

[chuck colburn]

Hi Michael,
Here are some possible alternatives to buying commercialy made batterries and chargers. I don't know if this is a fesiable
option or not, but it would be a heck of a lot cheaper. The chargers and protection devices seem quite advanced and would keep one from destroying the packs while maintaining them at peak charge. Just a thought.

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/lithium-polymer.htm

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/chargers_lipoly.htm#Xtrema

P.S. There are quite a few of these sources on the web.

Chuck

[chuck colburn]

Just a couple more links about bateries. On the first check out the black packs at the top . They have a built in circut to protect from over charging and discharging. They can be run in series for double the current capacity. The second link has some basic techno info about lipo cells.

http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=262

http://www.rchobbies.org/lithium_battery_breakthrough.htm