Isn't that a small "+" mark?

By the way, you can just use a multimeter to check which terminal is connected to ground.

Is that a Li-ion or Ni-Mh battery? Looks like li-ion to me and I don't know if it can be used to replace NiCd or NiMh batteries. NiMh or NiCd batteries would be constructed from three separate cells, and that one looks like it consists of one cell.
But if the original board used Li-ion battery that's fine of course 😜

Ahhhh.... You are right. STUPID ME NOT LOOKING. 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

I think that it will work, as long as I mount the plus and the minus the right way.
Don't think it will explode or anything, most likely not work at all. 😀

It's done...

ah but does it work? 😀

Half-Saint wrote:

ah but does it work? 😀

Had to finish up my report on the GF4-UT99 issues first. Still need to pack the P-III away and it's late now.
Will check it tomorrow.

Strange package for a 3.6 volt rechargeable battery...

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Strange package for a 3.6 volt rechargeable battery...

True. And cool looking. I grabbed it from eBay, because it was cheap.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151634844250?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

http://www.powerstream.com/p/Lir2032.pdf

So it's a small sister of the notebook battery 'hand grenades'. It should not be charged above 4.2V and discharged below 3V.

Well... Lets see if something blows up.
At least it is not that crazy as those who solder in Capacitors instead. 🤣

Lithium batteries are very sensitive to their charging.
I am a bit worried putting Li-ion battery directly in place of a NiCd/NiMH, which in this era of motherboards are most likely just charged from the 5V through current limiting resistor and a diode.
At least capacitors can survive the conditions in place of a NiCd/NiMH battery.

You all got me intrigued on if it would blow up, so I packed away the P-III and sat up a test-rig with the 486 board.
Booting without VGA card makes the machine complain about no vga.... Yet nothing blew up.
With a vga card installed, it did not complain about any battery issues and yet again, nothing blew up.
I will power on the test-setup within the next 30 minutes, and see if it is holding the BIOS setting correctly.
(It's even year 2k compatible, yarrrhh...)

The battery are not even getting warm. Cold as it should be. So I am very positive about this.
I even put some clearcoat on the traces that were exposed after damage from the original battery.
Previous owner had cleaned this up, just not added clear-coat and a new battery.

EDIT:
How long will it take for the battery to blow up, if it will blow at all?

EDIT #2:
Still holding up BIOS information, one hour after been shut off.
Not even lost one second.
I will let it sit for some 12 hours without power.

brostenen wrote:

EDIT:
How long will it take for the battery to blow up, if it will blow at all?

It will probably hold information for months, that shouldn't be a problem. But Ni-Mh or Ni-Cd batteries tolerate trickle charging, so they can be charged constantly, by small current, and a bit of overcharging won't hurt them, while Li-ion batteries aren't good choice for such use. The charging current in mainboard battery is probably very small, so I don't think it could make the battery explode (it won't make it hot enough), but overcharging can slowly degradate the chemistry and damage the battery. But I found such information:

Unlike nickel-based batteries, it is not recommended to continue to trickle charge Li-ion batteries, which can cause plating of metallic lithium, a condition that makes the battery unstable. The result can be sudden, automatic and rapid disassembly.

Basically speaking. In most cases, the explotion would occour when such batteries get too hot?
This might be an idea for some outdoor testing on newyears eve. 😉
(No mister police-man, i was only making experiments, not illegal fireworks. 😁 )

Here is more information: http://lithiumbatteryresearch.com/Plating.php
So, it looks like overvoltage could start slow process of lithium plating, which, after some time could make internal short circuit, and that will cause very high current to flow, ending with battery heating up and exploding. 😜

I think that the ultimate reason of explosion is heat and/or internal pressure, but you can see that a slow process can trigger something more dangerous after some time.

Here are some experiments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNNWbm681AI

You can measure the voltage of the battery (with computer turned on), if it never exceeds 4.2 or 4.3 volts it is in the safe range, so that's not overvoltaging, but charging Li-ion without special circuitry can basically make its life span lower, and lowers its capacity.

I have just powered on the board yet again, and it is holding all the BIOS information fine. Nothing wrong there, soldering job is ok I guess.
I think the only question now, is if it is going to blow or not. So far it's all fine and dandy.