My $14.74 solution to a Dead PlayBook battery - last resort

I thought I would share my story with the community here.

I received a second hand PlayBook from a colleague....the battery was completely dead and wouldn't charge. I trawled forums and tried everything I could find...a summary of my woes here:
supportforums dot blackberry dot com/t5/BlackBerry-PlayBook/Need-Ideas-PlayBook-won-t-charge/td-p/3039997

I decided to resort to pulling apart the PlayBook and LiPo charging, and I managed to do it for less that $15.00!!!

Step 1: Familiarise yourself with this video, it gets useful about the 4 minute mark, and shows you how to open the PB, loosen the battery without damaging anything, and connect to the terminals of the battery.
www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=MlsgGwoq1-8

Step 2: For $14.74 I purchased the following from JayCar:
- Freetronics LiPo charger ($12.95): www dot jaycar dot com dot au/productView.asp?ID=XC4243 or www dot freetronics dot com dot au/products/usb-lipo-charger#.VLW10SuUdQk
- Alligator Clips ($1.50)
- A length of wire (25c)

You will also need:
- Some way to open your playbook, many use an opening tool but my small screwdriver worked with minimal scratching to the case.
- A very small philips head screwdriver to unscrew the battery connector from the mobo (refer video)
- I also used some tape to cover the battery connector so it didn't touch the mobo while charging

Step 3: Using solder, or in my case conductive glue:
- Close the jumpers SJ1 and SJ2 to set the charge rate to 500mA as shown here:
Attachment 327264
- Attach the wire and alligator clips to each terminal, being careful that no wires touch each other to short the circuit
Attachment 327265
Attachment 327266

Step 4: Connect the Micro USB charger that came with the PB to the LiPo charger
Then refer to the video in Step 1 to disconnect the battery from the PB, set up charging of the battery, and attach the alligator clips to the terminals.

When I set this up it was late at night and I was paranoid about charging the Lithium battery...I left it charging for about 2 hours. The following evening I placed it back on the charger for 4 hours. At this point the LiPo charger still hadn't turned green to indicate standby mode, but I decided to test it anyway.

I reconnected the battery to the mobo and my PB booted up! The battery charge was at 44%.

No problems since then, I reassembled the PB and updated the system software. Plugged in the charger the normal way and the PB charged all the way to 100%. SUCCESS!

If you don't want to spend a lot of $$$ on a LiPo charger this method may be the one for you.

Amazing story!
I hope this serves as a tutorial for others with the same issue! Great job!!!!!!!

No pictures??? Really?!?

Haha. I'll see if I get time to take some pictures in the next day or so.

Nice post. I copied this to my notes because I bet I need it someday given the age and use of my PB's. I'm not giving mine up unless I'm forced to. :)

Originally Posted by jmoosta

I thought I would share my story with the community here.

I received a second hand PlayBook from a colleague....the battery was completely dead and wouldn't charge. I trawled forums and tried everything I could find...a summary of my woes here:
supportforums dot blackberry dot com/t5/BlackBerry-PlayBook/Need-Ideas-PlayBook-won-t-charge/td-p/3039997

I decided to resort to pulling apart the PlayBook and LiPo charging, and I managed to do it for less that $15.00!!!

Step 1: Familiarise yourself with this video, it gets useful about the 4 minute mark, and shows you how to open the PB, loosen the battery without damaging anything, and connect to the terminals of the battery.
www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=MlsgGwoq1-8

Step 2: For $14.74 I purchased the following from JayCar:
- Freetronics LiPo charger ($12.95): www dot jaycar dot com dot au/productView.asp?ID=XC4243 or www dot freetronics dot com dot au/products/usb-lipo-charger#.VLW10SuUdQk
- Alligator Clips ($1.50)
- A length of wire (25c)

You will also need:
- Some way to open your playbook, many use an opening tool but my small screwdriver worked with minimal scratching to the case.
- A very small philips head screwdriver to unscrew the battery connector from the mobo (refer video)
- I also used some tape to cover the battery connector so it didn't touch the mobo while charging

Step 3: Using solder, or in my case conductive glue:
- Close the jumpers SJ1 and SJ2 to set the charge rate to 500mA as shown here:
Attachment 327264
- Attach the wire and alligator clips to each terminal, being careful that no wires touch each other to short the circuit
Attachment 327265
Attachment 327266

Step 4: Connect the Micro USB charger that came with the PB to the LiPo charger
Then refer to the video in Step 1 to disconnect the battery from the PB, set up charging of the battery, and attach the alligator clips to the terminals.

When I set this up it was late at night and I was paranoid about charging the Lithium battery...I left it charging for about 2 hours. The following evening I placed it back on the charger for 4 hours. At this point the LiPo charger still hadn't turned green to indicate standby mode, but I decided to test it anyway.

I reconnected the battery to the mobo and my PB booted up! The battery charge was at 44%.

No problems since then, I reassembled the PB and updated the system software. Plugged in the charger the normal way and the PB charged all the way to 100%. SUCCESS!

If you don't want to spend a lot of $$$ on a LiPo charger this method may be the one for you.

Do you think this would work for a completely dead battery on anything?

BlackBerry Z30 Chenpion

My advice would be to do some research on what the battery requires to charge.

I used the information I found here to decide that the Freetronics Lipo charger was appropriate:
eboots dot ru/play/MlsgGwoq1-8/How_to_RECHARGE_%2528STACK_CHARGE%2529_your_Blackb erry_Playbook_if_it_isn%2527t_charging_%2528Won%25 27t_Charge%2529.html

From this I determined the following:
- This LiPo charger had the option of 500mA
- In theory I wasn't going to blow up the battery at 4.2V because the charger stops at 3.6V

What I didn't have was a multimeter. This would have been useful so I could check that I was making progress.

I hope this helps.