If you’ve had the same laptop for several years at a time, chances are you’ve noticed how the batteries slowly become less effective. Usually by year three and almost always by year 4, they suck. Manufacturers are required to continue making replacement battery packs for a number of years after they cease making laptop models, but these can be very spendy, and depending on the vintage of your laptop they also may no longer be available. If your model was popular you can sometimes find after-market battery replacement solutions, but again for a high price. There’s another alternative though for those who aren’t afraid to get their hands a bit greasy. Most folks don’t realize that if they cracked open the battery pack for their laptop, what they’d find inside was a collection of power cells – basically imagine 4 or 6 c cells or overlarge AA cells in series, kind of like what you’d stick into the back of your television’s remote control, but with a hard plastic shell wrapped around it. If you’re handy you can crack open the plastic shell and replace the contents with new non-sucky lithium ion cells at a significantly lower cost than buying a replacement battery for your laptop would cost you, and often you can boost the capacity of the battery pack beyond what it was initially designed for. There’s a handy tutorial here with some photos that uses and IBM laptop battery pack as an example, but the same principles would apply to other models. If you’re interested in pursuing this make sure to google your laptop model so you can determine what kind of cells you’ll need to replace the ones it initially shipped with.
Month: March 2007
More Mazda ridiculousness
So I dropped my car off at Mazda Tuesday. They call me Wednesday, say it’s all set, come get it. I ask what was wrong and they say the same part that failed two weeks ago failed again. I express some skepticism. I start the car in the dealership lot, drive less than 10 yards and pop, the check engine light comes on again. What’s most surreal about this is this is the second time this exact thing has happened to me with this car. Thank god I’m pretty even keeled about things. I had to walk right back into the dealership and not lose my temper.
Anyway now they’re thinking it’s a short circuit in the wiring of the car and have ordered a wiring harness from Japan which will take a week or so to get here. The explanation seems reasonable, but so have several other explanations I’ve been given (defective gas cap, bad car computer that needed an update, vacuum hose leak), so I’m still skeptical.
Meanwhile I am driving the car around with the check engine light on. I complained about this at the dealership, along the lines of ‘can I get a guarantee in writing that if the temp gauge or oil or fuel systems fail and my engine pops while this is going on, you guys are buying me a new car?’ but they weren’t having it, basically their point of view is everything is still under warranty and I’ll be covered no matter what happens. I guess we’ll see. The biggest bummer is I am on vacation next week and was planning to drive all over the place to hike. Now I have to decide whether it’s wise to do that or not.
My next car?
It’s a bike, wait, no, it’s a car, wait, no, it’s a motorcyle. No, it’s a VentureOne, a damned cool hybrid car/motorcyle that leans dramatically into sharp turns, runs a hybrid or all electric power train yet is capable of 100mph and would, in theory, make a perfect little commuter vehicle which would be a total blast to drive. I can’t get a firm handle on the price, but it’s somewhere between 20-40k. The site has a selection of videos of the thing in action. If it is closer to the 20k end of things I would seriously consider getting one.
Dave's Place/Metamusing 