Can Cell phone Ni-Mh battery be revieved?

[baa]

I have a vibrating Ni-Mh battery that I have not used for at least a year.
I tried it again today but it is dead. I tried charging it but nothing
helps.
Can not using a battery for a long time kill it? If so, can it be revived?

 

[Jerry G.]

These usually cannot be revived. Sometimes one or a number of cells fail
first. This is internal. There used to be some tricks by discharging a high
capacity capacitor across the battery, or applying a very high charge
current to it for a short period. These effects never lasted long. Sometimes
there where cases where the experimenter actually blew up the battery and
had injuries.

NiCad and Lithium batteries will last about 2 to 3 years with normal use and
charge cycling. They should be left in storage in the discharged state.
After about 3 years the chemical makeup of these change, internal corrosion
takes place, and the battery is not usable any more.

Over the approximate 3 year period, they will usually last about 800 to 1000
charge cycles if used every day. Some times we have been very lucky, and had
batteries last about 4 to 5 years when used regularly, but this is very rare
for us.

I have been getting a battery life of about 3 years average with our cell
phones. This is within the general average for these. If the phone is a low
cost one, I would have replaced the complete phone, rather than the battery.
Every year, most of the services allow you to have a new phone, if you sign
a new contract with them for the year period. This way, you get a new free
or low cost phone every year.

I have a digital camera, where the battery lasted only about 1.5 years.
This little battery was an amazing $90.00. I had no choice, but to replace
it, if I want to take my photos. The dealer told me that the battery is
only warranted for 30 days. He said that this is the manufacture's policy
with batteries.

--

Greetings,

Jerry G.
======


"baa" <baa$$@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1080247568.969059@news.vaxxine.com...
I have a vibrating Ni-Mh battery that I have not used for at least a year.
I tried it again today but it is dead. I tried charging it but nothing
helps.
Can not using a battery for a long time kill it? If so, can it be revived?

 

[Jean Marc]

You can try to put it in a freezer during few hours, may be 1 day and then
charge it just after taking it out from the freezer.
This sometime removes the internal short circuit.
Rgds
JM

"baa" <baa$$@yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:1080247568.969059@news.vaxxine.com...

I have a vibrating Ni-Mh battery that I have not used for at least a year.
I tried it again today but it is dead. I tried charging it but nothing
helps.
Can not using a battery for a long time kill it? If so, can it be
revived?

 

[Ron]

"baa" <baa$$@yahoo.com> wrote
I have a vibrating Ni-Mh battery that I have not used for at least a year.
I tried it again today but it is dead. I tried charging it but nothing
helps.
Can not using a battery for a long time kill it? If so, can it be
revived?

....
I bought a used cell phone with a dead Ni-MH pack 2 1/2 years ago
and revived it by taking it apart and "zapping" a bad cell back to life.
It was already 3 years old when I bought it, and it is still going strong
now and keeps the charge like a new one.
Not sure why this particular battery pack is lasting that long because
usually after cells start to fail like that they tend to die not long after.

If your battery simply drained down too much, it may still be ok, but
some chargers refuse to charge any batteries that have gone below a
certain level. In that case, using any power supply with sufficient specs
and manually forcing a short charge will revive them enough for the
regular charger to "take over" and continue charging. -Ron

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

In article <1080247568.969059@news.vaxxine.com>, baa wrote:

I have a vibrating Ni-Mh battery that I have not used for at least a year.
I tried it again today but it is dead. I tried charging it but nothing
helps.
Can not using a battery for a long time kill it? If so, can it be revived?

Sometimes it's just that the battery has gone so dead that the charger will
not charge it. This especially happens with the built in charge circuit of
phones. I've had good luck (but not 100%) by charging the battery in an
external charger.

I've even revitalized batteries by charging them using a ham radio
pulsed charger and clip leads. It does not need much, just about 15
minutes or so.

DO NOT use a high current charger. A "wall wart" that puts out about 2 volts
higher than the battery is rated and a current limiting resistor, such as 1k,
will do if you charge it for a few hours. Keep "an eye" on it and
if it starts to get hot, stop it.

DO NOT DO THIS WITH ANY LITHIUM BATTERY!!! It may explode, even with the
low current approach.

Note that any battery revitalized this way will have a bad memory effect and
will need several charge/discharge cycles to come back to full capacity.

As others have said, it may have a bad cell internaly, which this will not
fix.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson gsm@mendelson.com

 

[jakdedert]

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

In article <1080247568.969059@news.vaxxine.com>, baa wrote:
I have a vibrating Ni-Mh battery that I have not used for at least a
year. I tried it again today but it is dead. I tried charging it
but nothing helps.
Can not using a battery for a long time kill it? If so, can it be
revived?

Sometimes it's just that the battery has gone so dead that the
charger will not charge it. This especially happens with the built in
charge circuit of phones. I've had good luck (but not 100%) by
charging the battery in an external charger.

I've even revitalized batteries by charging them using a ham radio
pulsed charger and clip leads. It does not need much, just about 15
minutes or so.

DO NOT use a high current charger. A "wall wart" that puts out about
2 volts higher than the battery is rated and a current limiting
resistor, such as 1k, will do if you charge it for a few hours. Keep
"an eye" on it and
if it starts to get hot, stop it.

DO NOT DO THIS WITH ANY LITHIUM BATTERY!!! It may explode, even with
the
low current approach.

Note that any battery revitalized this way will have a bad memory
effect and will need several charge/discharge cycles to come back to
full capacity.

It might also be noted that 'full capacity' in this case will not be the
same as 'rated' or 'original' capacity. Very likely the cell will have
deteriorated to some degree, although it should still be useful.

Eventually, they all die.

jak

As others have said, it may have a bad cell internaly, which this
will not fix.

Geoff.

 

[baa]

Can you explain how to do that in detail. What kind of power supply
do you mean. I have one of these $20 transformer that can adjust
from 1 to 12 volts and it has different jacks and attachment that can
power just about anything.

If your battery simply drained down too much, it may still be ok, but
some chargers refuse to charge any batteries that have gone below a
certain level. In that case, using any power supply with sufficient specs
and manually forcing a short charge will revive them enough for the
regular charger to "take over" and continue charging. -Ron

 

[Ron]

"baa" <baa$$@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Can you explain how to do that in detail. What kind of power supply
do you mean. I have one of these $20 transformer that can adjust
from 1 to 12 volts and it has different jacks and attachment that can
power just about anything.
....

I have done it different ways over the years - with a few capacitors
in series such as 10,000 -20,000 uF - if you like a bang and sparks.
On the other hand, hooking up a power supply across the dead cell
with perhaps one or two Amps of *limited* current output is just as
effective.
The caps have more punch in the event that some internal short has
developed in a cell from old age, which they have a better chance of
blowing open.
The power supply voltage (6-24V +/-) doesn't really matter since it'll
go down to zero at first, and as the cell revives, it goes up to the rated
1.2 or 1.25 V of a single cell, or higher if you go across several cells.
Once the voltage has gone up - which may take just a few seconds -
you can continue to charge the battery then in its regular charger.

I have done NiCads, Ni-MHs and lithium batteries that way.
Although I have never had any of them explode, I would still wear
safety glasses at all times, particularly with lithium batteries. -Ron

 

[jonpi]

i have done the freezer overnight routine...with a li ion in the
discharged state...it definitly gave it a nice little rejuvination...i
don't know the specifics of what goes on chemically in either type but i
can imagine it squeezes the last out of the supply of ion swapping
atoms...but like it is a small improvement...don't expect miracles

 

[Ron]

"Ron" <Ron@cyber2.net> wrote
I have done it different ways over the years - with a few capacitors
in series such as 10,000 -20,000 uF...
....

Correction - I meant "parallel" such as for instance 5 x 2,000 uF,
unless you use them across a battery with LOTS of cells in series.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

In article <1080329728.594323@news.vaxxine.com>, baa wrote:

Can you explain how to do that in detail. What kind of power supply
do you mean. I have one of these $20 transformer that can adjust
from 1 to 12 volts and it has different jacks and attachment that can
power just about anything.

If your battery simply drained down too much, it may still be ok, but
some chargers refuse to charge any batteries that have gone below a
certain level. In that case, using any power supply with sufficient specs
and manually forcing a short charge will revive them enough for the
regular charger to "take over" and continue charging. -Ron

This is for the case where the battery has discharged to the point that
the phone's internal charger will not charge it, but is otherwise ok.

I would set the power supply to around 2-3 volts higher than the rated
voltage of the battery and place a current limiting resistor in series
with the power supply. A 1k ohm resistor will do fine. Less will be ok
too, the idea is to get a current flow of about 15ma.

The whole purpose is to get a small charge on the battery, so a couple of
hours at 15ma will do the trick and not toast the cells. Once there is a
small charge on the battery it should charge in the phone.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson gsm@mendelson.com