I had an existential crisis watching this video. So many different skills put together to design something almost entirely from scratch. And produced in a video that was surprisingly captivating to watch. Simply saying this is impressive is a massive understatement. Hope your channel balloons. Now to get off my bum and try to learn new skills..
All my life I have kept learning.. including new things academic and practical from traditional crafts to repairing old cars, mechanically and electrically.. apart from being great fun.. sometimes annoying at the time as everything has a learning curve.. I have saved so much money and avoidance of bad trades people.. particularly it seems waiting weeks for things to be repaired.. It's also good for the mind.. we exercise to keep physically fit but many don't exercise the brain.. funny.. yesterday a person (about 20 years old) in a phone shop couldn't answer a few simple questions aka brain dead.. "The wheel was turning but the hamster wasn't there" ... and it's suggested reduces chance's of dementia etc.. The well respected actor Donald Sinden said to me when I was getting his autograph 50 years ago "Learn new things" ... I'll add to that ... It's great fun 😻
Not to down play the skills involved which are impressive, but making a copy of something is not "design something almost entirely from scratch" it's still a copy.
@@lucasreis6251 ive seen someone reverse engineer a whole ass xbox 360 motherboard before, what they do is go layer by layer by sanding the layers down. its crazy
For replicated designs I just include a clearly visible "REPLICATION COPY" text in the final design so nobody is confused. Sometimes I pull some pranks on the design and add a small but clear jokes (such as intentional typos). All to ensure that nobody is going off and selling the design.
The Japanese do not open, dispose of in fire or short circuit is not the same as the original by the way. The original says "do not put into fire", the clone says "do not dispose of in fire".
That doesn't stop them from selling it. Just makes it easier to track. Or they just edit it out. I personally hate seeing "Reproduction unit" or "Unofficial Replacement" as it can be a psychological thing. But I'm not the one doing any actual work so you can ignore me if you want. Just my opinion.
Your mastery of modelling, design, fabrication, graphics, electronics, programming, writing, video editing, and god knows what else, are breathtaking. The only thing I was left wanting was a bit more of your shop helper, Pickles.
Great work, massive attencion to details. 2 things i woud do differently - 1. You put "LiPo" on label but used NiMH inside. It is especially concerning because LiPo and NiMH/NiCd are charged differently, and Laptop charging circuit could damage real LiPo battery. 2. that little dallas chip is also a temperature sensor, so i would add a termistor to that attiny and preserve temperature sensing function - for safty reasons.
Thanks so much! The LiPo on the label was wishful thinking. At the time I had that batch printed I was getting good results but ultimately failed to have the laptop charge the battery reliably - the BMS is on the logic board and not on the chip so I ended up conceding and going with NiMH. You’re 100% right on the thermistor - that would have been ideal but I wanted to keep the BOM down and my hacky way of estimating temp based on conductivity on the ATtiny was enough for me to call it good :)
The internal sensor should be fine. It's not important of the battery stops charging when 65 or 70°C, as long as it's +-5°C it should be fine. If the chip is used for temperature-based end of charge detection a good BMS should look at the temperature change (derivative) rather than the actual temp
@@polymattlifepo4 is way easier to design for, and you can deep cycle it thousands of times without degradation. It has like 30% less power than lithium ion but it charges faster than it.
This is admirable work. Truly I haven't come across someone like this before, it's almost maddening but at the same time amazing the effort going into each process. Everything is thought out and done properly and carefully. I'm only 20, but boy have you shown me how things can be! Thank you for striving towards the unobtainable perfection.
Hey thanks so much and I’m glad this type of content resonates with you! So much of the skills I’ve learned have been by watching some amazing creators. For me the attention to detail is the fun part - constantly trying to make thing more precise has made me learn so much more.
The only thing is for the batteries, it is not advisable to solder them but to weld them, but I'm sure they just didn't have a welder (kind of shocking with everything else they have though xD) and did put a warning in that part of the video
In another comment he says it took a year... If you're interested.. learning how to reverse engineer could be a useful skill.. especially with right to repair becoming a thing. I did one of the first 'sound cards' for the Commodore PET in about 1981 the chip cost £25... I also used a Winchester disk that had 1mb? per side.. the metal disc inside was about the size of an LP record.. and the thing you 'slotted' it into at the top was the size of a washing machine. Something to look out for which you might find amusing and useful would be an old imperial (fully mechanical from the 1950's or earlier) typewriter.. look for one with a good smooth non perished roller, which is the solid rubber tube that the letters hit under the paper also use thicker absorbent paper (a little trial and error needed to get good results)... A marvel of mechanical engineering.. there are places in the UK that still sell the ribbons.. a complete workout for the fingers. A few people of your age and older have seen my typewriter and have frozen in wonder.. getting them to type on it causes much laughter.. 😻
Sometimes you stumble upon a youtube vid that actually makes you go "wow". This was one of them! What a development journey for the love of old tech. A very enjoyable watch! :)
As someone who works on computers for a living and often very old computers at that, AND as someone who just enjoys quality craftsmanship, this is amazing. I wish more people would do stuff like this, whatever "it" exactly is, if that makes sense. Regardless, great job and keep up the awesome videos
Finally got around to watching this. It was a pleasure meeting you at VCF SW and getting to compare the end result with my own eyes, impressive work! Thanks for showing off your awesome ThinkPads and letting me test the PS/2 keyboard.
KISS, short intro and let the pictures tell your story. You are a master of interesting retro content, editing, cutting, labeling and toppping this video off with beautiful music.Would love to see more of your work of art!
I just had to laugh when you reproduced the battery label. I did the exact same thing in 1992 using Photoshop and Illustrator in order to make a fake ID. Same level of commitment and precision. Keep up the insane work! (I had access to professional level 2400 dpi reproduction equipment)
It was a hell of a lot easier back then. What they put in ID cards today is retarded IMHO. ID has NEVER influenced the outcome of ANY mass casualty events.
You have mad skills, my dude. One of the best 30 minute sessions that I have spent on youtube in the last five years. I feel wiser for having come here. Please keep up the excellence!
Wow, amazing work! Using the Pantone swatch to match the colors, shows how serious you were to make it perfect! Seeing this being made in a 30 minutes video makes it look so easy. How much time did it actually take?
Thank you so much! It was actually the better part of a year to get to that point. But most of the time was spent waiting. 3 or 4 versions of the PCB, the case, the label, debugging the code etc.
Man, I didn't know I'd enjoy watching a half hour video about a laptop battery. Excellent job. Wish I had all these skills... as well as the money lol.
This video broke my brain. The fact that one person can do something like this is insane. I barely knew what was going on, yet it was still fascinating to watch.
This was back with IBM designed and built their own models... and they were QUALITY!!! Lenovo purchased their PC line and really went to shyt fast. The T40 series came out after the purchase and it was a line of junk... it got better over the years, but was bumpy as ehll! I had an old T23 when I was just out of highschool in 2003 and that thing was amazing..... solid as a rock and nothing could take it down!!
holy crap, i have been working on literally this exact thing for a while, even the exact same laptop. my thinkpad is like a time capsule from the late 90's and runs perfectly. i even have some of the fancy hot swap accessories like the floppy drive!
Most impressive work I have seen presented on a video/channel. Thank you for sharing such a comprehensive and inclusive project. You have to be very proud of your work.
Wow, what an amazing effort to keep those dinosaurs alive! Thank you so much for sharing the project. Guess which of my old laptops will get some more use in a few weeks 😁
Damn.. You are like a one man orchestra. Desing, electronics, programming like a full package. Great job. Thank you very much for your informative videos.
Amazing video! I admire all the work that went into this! One thing i'd recommend is to add a decoupling capacitor (100nF) across the attiny's power rails. This will prevent it from glitching when there is any sort of transient. It's a miracle it even worked on the breadboard without a decoupling cap with those long wires. You might also like the TagConnect / EdgeConnect line of connectors for (re)programming your chip in circuit, they only require a footprint on the target PCB and a proprietary cable, and then it's easy peasy to upgrade your firmware or debug it in circuit. That being said, congratulations again for the awesome reverse engineering and the fact that you made something that looks like a finished, OEM product!
modern elecrolytics have a LOT less inductance than older designs. Originally they only had a single point of contact with the end wires and the cap was spiral wound around those wires. Modern ones have the electrodes offset and welded to the end wires every half turn (it's the same design tweak that Tesla applied to their bateries which increased the current carry capacity - and why it wasn't patentable)
@@miscbits6399 Even so, a decoupling capacitor as close as possible to a logic IC is a fundamental design principle that can never hurt to have in place.
@@larzblast I totally agree, but for a manufacturer it adds a few cents to the board and "Ethel the Aardvark Quantity Surveying Inc" will delete it from the BOM Whenever I recap boards, extra decoupling caps are a standard addition
I liked the video but I wish you had explained more in detail how you reverse engineered communication between the pc and the battery. Maybe a follow up video? 😊
@@polymatt Just went down of rabbit-hole of discovering what a DS2434 is. I knew about 1-Wire Dallas temp sensors before, but not that those maniacs put EEProm in them, or burned Prom serials at the factory. You must have dug up the serial number from the laptop's BIOS. Sadly, these days manufacturers are probably using crypto-hashes against unreadable hardware numbers, to more thoroughly Owners the right to repair. Fight for the Users.
@@GnuReligion oddly enough I found that the family and serial number don’t matter for this specific case. It’s the custom instruction set that IBM had made that the laptops look for to make sure it’s a “known” battery.
That was some super high quality content! Really great video. Found the link on reddit and I am glad I checked the thread! Looking forward to what you will do in the future!
Thank you for this project! I bought a battery PCB from you and have printed a battery case from your files for my 701C. Even printed on my FDM printer the battery looks and fits great!
This video just popped up in my recommendations, and I loved it - I was asking myself why someone would go through the trouble of reverse engineering a battery of a 90's notebook, until I saw the unfolding of the keyboard :O Keep this up!
Man, this is such lovely and beautiful and clean work! Definitely subscribed for more stuff like this. Your diligence and attention to detail kept me hooked for the whole video, so I would have loved a few longer shots of the finished battery itself at the end.
Thanks so much! And I’ll definitely make sure to do more closeup shots of the finished product when I do these types of builds. I appreciate the feedback!
Great work. And seeing the butterfly keyboard in action is still amazing. The 701C looks about as new as any could get. Fellow Thinkpad user and collector, but don't have any of the original IBMs. I no longer use the batteries from my original old ThinkPads. I tried ordering replacement batteries from Amazon years ago, but they were fake. Some were even split open or wouldn't fit correctly. So I gutted the battery cells to prevent leaking and use them to as "space" and on some, they are the "feet" of the Thinkpad. The fakes were so bad, the didn't charge or could only power the computer for a few minutes. The seller did give me refunds and didn't even want them back. So, that's something.
@@polymatt Why do they even bother making the fakes? Amazon would just do a refund anyway. I don't have the skills to make my own. But it's okay, they work otherwise. My daily modern ones are important for having working batteries.
A flatbed scanner is also a fantastic tool to get accurate measurements of flat faces. Calibrate both X and Y beforehand using a machinist's scale or another accurately sized object.
Really enjoyed just watching this. Next stop, learning how to replace lipo cells for laptops and phones. There's great value to be had in older models but sadly the batteries are often kaput and even if you buy "new" ones, they end up dying quick just because the cells are already old even though the battery hasn't been used. So I figure if I can swap out cells, I'll be well positioned in my battle against planned obsolescence 😂
I use my old think pad to play older games like the original Myst & Riven.. nice to have a wander.. use the original OS and don't connect to the internet as it will inflict so called updates that cause havoc.
Hello. I rarely write comments, and even more so, I know English so-so, but after I watched this, I realized that I simply had to leave a comment. this is an amazing work, such a fine study of small things, such a serious approach to work, excellent shooting. I wish you promotion of the channel and waiting for new videos :)
I'd love to see a battery life comparison between the original NiCd 14650s (probably have to find a contemporary review, even NOS would be horribly degraded), the 1.2V (probably NiMH) AAAs you used, and Li-Ion 14500s.
Li-Ion would need a more complicated BMS in (at least 2 chips like later thinkpads) and it might be limited by the laptop only using a portion of its discharge range, although a 3S arrangement would top out at 12.6V which might work out nicely. Pouch cells might be more economical than 14500s if you can find a convenient size.
li-ion would come with a few problems. Yes a 3S li-ion pack can deliver the same 12.6V as 9 nicd cells in series charged to 1.4V per cell, but that is just using the pack. The laptop will also want to charge the pack and this is where it gets tricky. Nicd cells can be charged in different ways and with different voltages. Some cells are charged with a voltage as high as 1.6 to 2.0V per cell, looking primarily at the charge current. If the laptop dumps 14.4V or higher across a 3S li-ion pack, your BMS (which you definitely need for any lithium based pack) will probably respond negatively if the charge current becomes too high. Another problem with the switch to li-ion is that Nicd charges differently than li-ion and such a change in charging profile could reduce the lifespan of the li-ion cell. Lastly, you might also find out that the laptop might expect different cut off voltages based on the nicd profile. This means that if the nicd cells are discharged further than li-ion cells then the BMS will intervene and cut off the pack entirely from the laptop, causing an instant shutdown (not great for any OS). So if the battery drivers aren't made to adjust to the new voltage range, you might see your laptop turn off at say 15 or 20% charge capacity without warning or graceful shutdown.
@@jhonny44444 with the density of li-ion or li-po, it's have enough space to make a buck-boost, converter to interface the system, basically make a custom powerbank for the laptop, and with some trickery it's not hard, limiting, instead of cutting current with diferent voltage inputs, so, how hard it,s trick the original charging system to use for charge a new type of battery, in the end, it's only voltage and amperage, any similar to a pwm solar controller logic maybe it's overkill, but its only a idea.
Quick tip for getting things accurately placed on reproduction labels: Scan the original on a flatbed scanner and work from that, not photos. The labels on laptop batteries are generally metal-backed for heat sensitivity reasons. Not heat from the battery, heat from the laptop.
The project effort is out of this world. Personally i love details, the ins and outs, hence the closed captions are fantastic. And the editing/videography is top notch as well, that transition at 10:51 ! For reference, how many hours do you reckon went into the project itself? and how does it compare to the time spent editing and producing the video? Making nice things takes a long time, but it's most definitely worth it. Not so much for content quantity and the yt algo sadly, i guess, but that's just to say it's a pity only very few get to see such craftsmanship and beauty-of-process in relation to the production quality and all that went into the endeavour. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure discovering this and hope your work gets the recognition it deserves, best wishes! ps: What kind of pixel art display is that next to your main screen?:) (edit: found it on your gram!)
Thanks so much! The project itself took the better part of a year to do. Lots of testing, various revisions of the case, board, software, labels etc. honestly not sure how many hours but a lot :) shooting the video took probably a couple weeks and editing I think I did in about 4 or 5 days. I’m just happy with the response I’ve gotten so far - enough for me to keep sharing projects. One upcoming video to watch out for is a full teardown, refurb & painting of a 701C laptop. That one will hopefully be out in a few weeks. And yeah - love my little Tidbyt! I was an early backer and it’s great all of the apps that have been made for it. Just a fun little box.
This is really cool, but man, how does anyone even have the necessary: know-how, equipment, software, supplies, patience, and time, to do all of this? Haha. Really cool
You can get a good feeling of which font to use by scanning the diffrent section of text and ask online font selectors which font it is or comes closest to it. Then see if you can get that font, or one that looks a lot like it from public domain sources. I did that twice for some projects.
Seeing all those PCBs and chips, just for one battery, I was, for no particular reason, reminded of watching Baking Professional shows where they have to make 8 identical cakes, and they make precisely 8 cakes - and then drop one just prior to judging. At least that can't be said for your approach. Nice video.
When I seen the NiCD/NiMH cell voltage, I nearly flipped at first. I was like "WHOW! WHY'S IT SO... oh... right... NOT lithium". I sure hope you get more traffic that this though. This was an ASTONISHING amount of work for 2500 views. But, welcome to my world. RU-vid is a harsh mistress.
@@polymatt: What I loved about your approach here was the ridiculous level of attention to detail. You didn't just re-cell a pack, you literally reverse engineered it. Going as far as sniffing the protocol data and writing a bit of uC code to yack to the laptops charge circuits is next level work for a project like that. Even just as far as a teaching video, it's outstanding. You pretty much touched every major subject of entry level EE work here. I'm kind of tempted to start doing some video's for my own projects, but I don't really do much serious work these days. The last serious thing I did was a geiger counter with a tiny active matrix display to display real time count and aggregate count over time. It's a mish mash of analog front end with a bit of uC back end. The one project I've been thinking about doing though is a video on my "forever" lamps. They're as trivial as electronics projects get, but they probably have the single highest value of "cool" vs "work" (like, nearly division by zero levels of cool). They're just a lamp with self binned LED's (sifting them one by one with ultra low current to find the best of the bunch), then making a lamp that runs for 3 - 5 years or more on a set of 3 AA cells. At first, I figured a green would be VASTLY better (peak of vision's sensitivity and all), but the modern blue LED's they use to pump the white units, holy crap are they efficient. We're talking, pick one up and hold one lead, touch the other lead to a lithium cell battery terminal, then touch the other terminal with your other finger and behold the glow. Even with a diffuser from a modern 120V white LED house lamp, they're bright enough to read by if you put the diffuser by a written page with night adjusted eyes and even at that current, the first one I built ran for almost 4 years on a set of ULSD AA NiMH cells. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't stare at it every single night for almost a half decade. So, I'm building a better unit for a friend now that's not all hot melt glue and stuff jammed together and I might use it for a video. It's the closest thing to what feels like "alien" technology I've ever seen. I did some back of the napkin for using high end D size lithium cells a while back. If you used the ones that are designed for long term standby, I suspect you could build a glow lamp that would last a person's lifetime. Originally, I was going to build one using a pile of tritium lamps, but it turns out, this is orders of magnitude brighter, orders of magnitude cheaper and WAY easier to come by. :)
I'm definitely saving this video to watch later. I recently recelled the battery to my Thinkpad 380Z but it didn't strike me as a sustainable solution.
17:42 I wouldn't recommend glueing the batteries together like that, masking tape is enough to hold the individual sections of 3 batteries together during soldering and the heat-shrink he put on later is enough to keep the entire pack together. The batteries will heat up with use and cool down when not in use causing expansion and contraction in the batteries which will cause the glue to break off and possibly damage the protective layer of factory heat-shrink on the batteries. Also its not recommended to solder directly to 18650 batteries as they are heat sensitive and high temperatures can lead to catastrophic faillure of the batteries. With this kind of 18650 with spot-welded tabs, its better to just solder wires to the tabs to interconnect them, instead of soldering the tabs directly to the next battery in line. Just make sure to position the wires so they fit into the voids between the batteries and the case once assembled.
The main issue I've been facing with vintage laptops was that there are no compatible replacement cells that physically fit. Batteries for laptops like the Thinkpad 570 and 570E aren't the standard round cells, but thick, metal Li-Ion pouch cells. You can't replace those with modern LiPo pouch cells without coming up with a custom charge controller PCB, and then you're fighting the "smartness" (or lack thereof) of the laptops internal charging circuit. It's just pure pain all the way
Glad i found this channel in the recommended videos! Very interesting project and superb execution. The Pantone section surprised me, i didn’t think you wanted eve the color to be exact 😍. Only thing i didn’t like was no voiceover. It would have been nice if you talked a little bit instead of using captions.
