Just back from meeting with my client who bought out the battery manufacturer earlier this year.

I thought I'd chance my arm on it and took along my Gizmondo battery.

On removing the battrey from my pocket and flashing it in front of the Chief Executive I noticed the broad smile on his face. "Oh so you've heard the Gizmondo story then?" was my first reaction.

"That's very interesting, so do you have one of them then?" he responded.

"Yeah great little machine, I've actually got two of them." I sheepishly replied expecting the mockery to begin.

"I was wondering if any of your battery guys would know where me and a bunch of other owners, sat waiting for our batteries to die on us, might be able to get something suitable to replace them?" I continued.

"Well", he began "xxxxxxx (the company they had bought) manufactured those batteries!"

"You wouldn't happen to have any lying around would you?", I spluttered. "If you did I could put you in touch with people who would want one."

"We don't do retail..." my heart sank "but leave it with me" he ended with a broad grin on his face....

So it looks like there may be a source of batteries, bear wiht me and I'll keep you up to speed with developments.

I'd prefer no speculation or attempts to name the company involved, so don't ask. Wouldn't like to scare them off. Also note it is like that when I quote the reference to manufacture this is more likely to refer to the company designing and facilitating the production via a 3rd party so no flaming please.

There are no promises and no guarantees at this stage and I can only read between the lines from his demeanour that there are either a stack of batteries already produced and taking up warehouse space or that if there was enough noted demand a further run could be produced at a commercial rate.

I guess it's time to start a poll...

I will buy 4...



Good Work Gizdaddy... let just hope it will be all good

Ciao

10:)

Don't think any forum regulars would say no to a battery or two, good work so far.

Hopefully premium

Nice one!!

If premium, I'll probably buy one or two
If not... well, i'll still probably buy one or two

(what would be great would be a device which would charge the batteries without the need for a giz - but I'm dreaming, lol )

Hmm..
Premium batteries require the new cover..
Now if only we could locate a source for those..

O.

I presume they would have them?
Perhaps not. I will be happy with duck tape it thats what it comes to.

Hi everyone - I'm new here BTW.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one concerned about getting replacement Gizmondo batteries - my current one isn't great at holding charge for long these days. However I've been taking the Blue Peter approach and looking at converting the 3.7v battery used by most Nokias to run on the Gizmondo. Here's what I've been found out so far:
* The Nokia battery definitely works with the Giz - if you hold it in place (in the opposite direction from which you would expect) you can boot up and work the Giz like normal (albiet with just one hand!)
* I've opened up the Giz battery and once the outer sticker is removed there really isn't much to it - the battery itself lifts up from the plastic case pretty easily and has a metal strip running from either end of it and connecting to a small circuit at the connecter end.
* I've opened up the Nokia battery and removed the outer sticker and it looks as if the two core batteries are about the same size but in the Nokia it's encased in a lot more plastic so not so easy to get out.

My thoughts are that you could remove the main battery from the Nokia shell and then place it into the Giz shell but as I only have the one Giz battery I'm not too keen to test that theory out. I've got photos of my little operation if anyone wants to see what I'm going on about.

I'd definitely be interested in buying a couple, particularly the premium ones.

Post pics. .

Nice one Gizzdaddy,

Lets hope something comes of it.

I have been quietly working on a solution too.

I have found that the Sanyo DB-L40 is electrically very close to the Gizmondo battery. It has the same thermistor value and connection. It is also physically smaller yet slightly higher capacity (1200mA).

I have quickly knocked up a little adapter from matrix board today and it powers the Gizmondo Ok.
What remains to be seen is if it charges ok.

Here are my pictures:



I should also apologize for getting the terminals wrong in a previous thread.
The Gizmondo battery is:

terminal 1-negative
terminal 2-10k thermistor to negative
terminal 3-positive 3.7V

I must have had my leads the wrong way round before
My plan is to make a proper printed circuit board which will be made available to all

I'd buy one or two.

Eddie

this definatly looks promising we look forward to any new developments. ill shove my name on the list for a few.

good luck
Gr

Yeah I'm keeping fingers crossed. Will keep gently reminding him.

I'll away and set up a poll now...

Nice one GizDaddy

I would buy a couple but would pref premium ..

Heh! We will need to wait and see. Next step is to find out what they may have lying around. If nothing then the challenge is on to find out at what volumes and price they would do a run.

If we get to that stage and I'm needing to do a business proposal for them it'll be time for donations...

The positive side to that would be that we could push for some newer technology to be deployed in the batteries

Cool, this is great! Maybe after i get my DS lite i'll still have enough for a third battery .

@FR4NK5T3R: plz tell me how long it holds charge (or how long it can power the giz)

cuz i´ll immediately buy some - mod them and then I´ll sell them on the forums or on ebay (of course not for too much money)

wischi

See if you could get me couple of American ones.

Slight teething problem at the moment.

Put the Gizmondo in the car cradle to charge on the way home and rather than a charging battery symbol I got a symbol for a charger lead and an exclamation mark so I guess it's not going to charge.

I think it may be the thermistor if it is one. I got the battery from Ebay really cheap. I was slightly suspicious when I put both batteries in the fridge and whilst the Gizmondo thermistor had changed to 20k the DB-L40 stayed the same at 10K. I thought the Gizmondo would accept it as an OK temperature but obviously there's more to it. I will add a thermistor to the adapter and leave off the middle terminal to the battery and see what happens.

or maybe just maysure the normal value (in ohms - with normal room temp) and put in an normal resistor with this value

wischi

Will that not just overcharge even when the temp goes up?

Lithium is charged a bit like Lead Acid. You keep filling it with constant current until the cell reaches a certain voltage then you just maintain that constant voltage. The current will gradually drop and when it reaches a certain level you stop. The temperature is mainly there to prevent any charging outside sensible ambient limits and for emergency stop. So best to use a thermistor but you could use a fixed resistor.

Glad you're working on a back up plan in case my scheming comes to nothing

A few pics of the insides of the Gizmondo and Nokia batteries (phone camera isn't great at doing close-ups so the detail isn't great I'm afraid):

Nokia & Giz Batteries

The first few is just getting the Giz running on the Nokia battery, after that it's the taking apart of the Giz battery and the last one is just me beginning to peel open the Nokia battery.

Another thought - I've got tons and tons charger cables for various things: phone, mp3 player, gizmondo, pda, etc and would very much like to consolidate a few of them - I reckon the Nokia and Gizmondo charger are the same - just have different size of tip. Using an AC/DC adapter with exchangable tips to charge my Gizmondo anyway to going to see I can them to work on the settings and then if they do look at cracking/removing the plastic tube around the power connection on the Gizmondo so the Nokia charger will fit into it. Well... it might work.

Good job!
Fingers crossed this gets somewhere!
If a new battery was made I'd opt for hight MA to help battery life out.

|Thanks