4/26/2000 By Christopher Erickson
11/27/2000 Updated

Rebuilding Omnibook 600C, 600CT and 800CT LiIon battery packs.

Because of the difficulty in finding replacement LiIon cells,
rebuilding these battery packs is not presently possible.

It is speculated that LiIon cells are not generally available
to the public because they pose a fire hazard if improperly
handled.  This includes shorting cells, excessive heat from
soldering and other dangers.

NiMH and NiCd cells have different charge and discharge
characteristics than LiIon and it is assumed that the battery
management circuit inside the battery pack is fully
incompatible with all but LiIon cells.

One last note is that LiIon cells are about 3.7 volts each, not
like Alkaline, NiCd and NiMH cells, which vary from 1.2 to
1.5 volts each.  This means that it would take twelve
NiMH cells to replace four LiIon cells.

If someone were to find LiIon cells for sale somewhere, I
would recommend ones with solder tabs.  This would protect the
cells from excessive soldering heat to a large degree.
Common sense and soldering heat-shunt clamps (hemostats) would
not be a bad idea either.

As for good candidates for NiMH cells:

www.Digikey.com, www.alliedelec.com

As for LiIon cells:

E-one Moli Energy, SONY, Eveready, ABSL, Envoy