Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: polar bear6 on April 14, 2006, 11:05:39 AM

Title: Recharable batteries.
Post by: polar bear6 on April 14, 2006, 11:05:39 AM
hi.
i was wondering if i could use old cell phone batteries in some robotic projects, i know they are low volt, but if you use 3 of em at the same time, i think you will get usable stuff.
now to the tricky part; if I'm gonna recharge them, can i just take the cellphone charger and just attach the wires onto the battery terminals? or do i need the cellphone ? and some batteries have 3 terminals? what do i do then?
Title: Re: Recharable batteries.
Post by: Admin on April 14, 2006, 10:23:14 PM
Ok so I dont know anything about cell phone batteries, so I could be entirely wrong, but here are some things you might want to look into.

Laptops use 'smart batteries,' meaning that they have built in electronics to tell your laptop how much charge it has, whether it is broken, and many other things. Considering how rapid cell phone technology (and battery technology) is changing, you may have to hack the smart part of the battery if it has one. This could quite possibly be what the 3rd wire is about . . .

Let us know what you learn if/when you figure it out, I'm really curious now . . .
Title: Re: Recharable batteries.
Post by: polar bear6 on April 22, 2006, 10:51:33 AM
hmm, i havnt figured out what that smart battery is, but i found out that some devices use a chip called 1381- voltage trigger.

it gives a signal when the battery comes to a certain volt level and then (usually) tells the device to shut down