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Hot-swappable laptop batteries.

940 points posted to Laptop Power by jmxz May 31

I'd like to be able to swap the battery on my laptop without having to turn it off or hibernate it. It seems you could do this by putting a large capacitor or tiny internal battery that could provide power for the 30 seconds or so it takes to switch to a spare battery. Another way you might be able to do this is instead of having one big battery in each laptop, have 2 small ones instead; and you could swap them one at a time.

If it was really easy to swap them I'd probably buy more spare batteries; so I could go most of the day without plugging in the laptop (and then I'd want an external charger so I could charge them all overnight).

james-94
May 31		 even an internal battery that lasted 10 seconds would be enough time to swap batteries
cestuila
May 31		 I already do what you describe with my Latitude because, as you say, it actually has 2 batteries!
- main 6 cell battery
- and a media bay battery.

This is a great thing, really! The media bay battery is really flexible. So I can easily hot-swap it with the DVD burner or the airbay filler, according to what I need to do :)
And then, if I had an extra main 6 cell battery and/or an extra media bay battery, I could keep on hot-swapping them to have virtually unlimited battery life :)

Do ask if you want more details.
james-94
May 31		 So your latitude has an extra media bay battery but for laptops without that there could be an internal battery so that for 10 seconds your computer runs on that until you swap the main battery
jervis961
May 31		 It should last more than 30 seconds and also be replacable. Most batteries start to lose capacity after a year so startign with a longer time to ensure the battery lasts over a year.
aikiwolfie
May 31		 When an electrical device holds as much power as a laptop battery it's always better to power down first if you can. Remember these things can explode. They have exploded in the past. For the sake of saving five minutes? It's not worth it.
claudio_ch
May 31		 Seeing the latitude case, Dell could implement this idea by offering media bay batteries on all models across all lines except only for those small models which don't hae any media bay.
cestuila
May 31		 @claudio_ch: as I always say, if all ranges of products have the same benefits, then Dell might as well just keep one single range... or even stop doing business...
winoffice
May 31		 I doubt that a 30 second capacitor would be enough. I would probably need more than that.
sugarbear
May 31		 It`s still safer to power it down.
cestuila
Jun 1		 You don't really have to power it down. Putting the laptop in Hibernate mode is good enough :)
zanlok
Jun 2		 True that. Vista even starts okay fast; but the shutdown stinks. A 30-second suspend of some sort has my vote!
jordann
Jun 9		 Try an external battery, using the internal as a back-up. APC and other manufacturers provide products for this.
punpun
Jun 14		 why bother with hotswap technology problems? only to gain like 4 minutes? i think it's not worth it
aikiwolfie
Jun 14		 Why does it take so long to shut down, swap the battery and reboot anyway? Are you using Windows?
james-94
Jun 14		 it doesn't take long its just easier to swap the battery while your laptop is running
inkslug
Jun 18		 aikiwolfie that's the first time I've laughed at ideastorm, thank you for putting a smile on my face after a long nasty day.
aikiwolfie
Jun 18		 :oD I always aim to please and entertain :oD
winoffice
Jun 20		 Hibernating the PC does in fact power it down.
pepperoni
Jun 23		 30 seconds is plenty! Time it using a watch sometime. 30 seconds is quite a bit to just switch out a battery. Of course it goes without saying, but don't flip out the old one and then start rummaging around your bag for the fresh one. Get everything ready to go BEFORE flipping out the old battery.
sgogeta4
Jun 25		 great idea :)
jakegub
Jun 25		 It would be SOOOO simple to put a small replaceable watch battery or even rechargeable Li-Ion battery in below the battery to allow some time to swap out your battery. Hot-swappable drive bays are also a solution and is actually my preference, but the backup battery might be easier and cheaper to implement.
sugarbear
Jun 25		 Jakegub, thats a very good idea about the watch battery.
rotthund
Jul 2		 Two batteries, Two batteries, and if they are interchangable with other laptop models would be awesome. With enough battery life, a biz traveler can go all day without puling out the power adapter and cords, can even leave it at home. Larger laptops could use three.
jmxz
Jul 2		 How's a watch battery going to help? These things have specs like 0.03 - 0.2 mA and 3V; or about 0.6 watts for the biggest one. I like the idea, but it seems to me it'll need something much bigger than a watch battery (or a big capacitor and a watch battery; but if you have that big capacitor you could just charge it with the laptop's battery instead.
sugarbear
Jul 2		 A battery the same size as in a desktop.
joshhendo
Jul 7		 I think this is a great idea. I plan to buy another battery for my Vostro (currently have a 6-cell, planning on getting a 9-cell so I can go longer), and I love the thought of being able to hot-swap batteries. I am OK with powering down for now, though in future when I buy a new laptop I would really like this feature.
programsynth
Jul 31		 You do not need a battery with enough output power to keep the laptop on and running-- only enough for the RAM and essential motherboard components. This concept was successfully applied on the Handheld PC series of computers and other PDAs ten years ago-- a watch battery, coupled with correctly configured hardware, should do the trick. A potential solution could work like this: the user removes the laptop battery, the firmware signals the computer to immediately go into deep suspend, and is powered off of the clock battery or capacitor until the charged main battery is replaced. The firmware signals resume, and you're back in business.

I'm not sure on the power requirements of today's logic boards, but I'm sure that one of the engineers at Dell could figure it out. Personally, I would just prefer a system that runs for over six hours off of the standard battery to begin with.

jmxz: clock batteries in laptops are traditionally charged from the battery-- they tend to be little nimh or lithium-oxide cells. You used to be able to break into systems with hardware passwords by just waiting until the thing ran out... ;)

By the way, I really am impressed to see that Dell has a site like this-- I've never seen anything like it before. Very cool. =)
 
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