Hello, I’m getting the Framework 13 Ryzen edition, but I’m getting the lower tier with the smaller capacity battery. I’ll stick with it for a while, but I value battery life a fair bit, so I do hope to upgrade at some point. However, I don’t want the other one to become ewaste. Obviously there’s the option of making a portable charger out of it, but would it be viable to just leave it (alongside a screwdriver) in my backpack as an emergency backup battery, should my main one run out while I’m on the go? Would the battery realistically drain much at all if it’s not even plugged into the laptop? Could I leave it in there for a month or two or a few without worrying about whether it’ll still be charged? Sorry if this is a silly question, I’m just not sure much about this sort of thing.
Energy will always drain out of a battery even when not plugged into anything but rates can differ. On my Anker battery bank, it’ll be dead within a month even if nothing is plugged into it so I always have to charge it up every 2 weeks. It’s good practice to plug it in occasionally to make sure it’s topped up.
Oh, I would not leave a bare Lipo pack in a bag unprotected! It absolutely needs to be in a hard case to protect from damage.
Lithium batteries, if damaged or charged improperly, can “vent with flame”, aka literally shoot out a stream of fire. It vents flammable gases, which becomes the stream of fire. Worse, you can not put the fire out with water, and the smoke is toxic.
Kinda sad Framework hasn’t put out that battery case concept they showed in the Next Level event.
I was writing this same response as you posted! This is meant to be an internal component for a reason, and having it loos in a backpack means a big risk of damage that could lead to lots of bad stuff
Lol, I saw you writing, and I knew you must have been about to warn him too!
A soft, vulnerable lipo pack just riding along in a backpack with a pointy screwdriver next to it. A 55Wh pack. Gave me anxiety just reading it.
Good to know! Thanks for the help, unfortunate but I suppose I’ll just wait until they make that battery case a reality.
Though, additional question here, would it be relatively safe if I were to 3d print a hard case for it to keep it safe when not in use?
Theoretically, lithium-ion batteries that are not charged or discharged must be fully charged once every few months.
Provided you designed the case to be especially strong. Accidents happen, I would want it strong enough to not bend if stepped on. One might think that getting stepped on is unlikely, but large lithium batteries can be so terrible when they go off that I would just not risk a lesser case.
Made me think about my li-ion 18650 emergency supply that I haven’t touched in ages. Just checked them, my Sonys dropped 0.02v.
As long as you store your batteries with a medium or higher charge level, they can be fine for a long time. But not sure if the Framework pack’s BMS might have parasitic drain. Someone should leave one out for a while, then test how much charge it lost. The concern is that you don’t want your cell’s voltage to get too low. It can ruin them, cause them to be unsafe to charge back up. But if that happened with a laptop battery like the Framwork’s, which has a built-in battery management system, it should protect you by blocking you from charging.
Planned obsolescence. It should only prevent discharging not charging. A discharged battery wears fast, lower lifespan is still better than a brick. Fortuneatly if the BMS is known you can always reprogram it via an interface module such as the EV2400
Anyway it’s not framework’s fault as most laptop battery does this in order to jack up the battery packs’ prices as it makes diy repairs much difficult. Back in the days when laptop battery packs were using 18650 cells. Second hand laptop DIY enthusiasts often buy individual 18650 cells instead of a whole battery pack, re-solder them into the battery pack circuit to replace the worn cells, the most difficult part is to unbrick or prevent the BMS from bricking the battery pack
Think there has been a misunderstanding somewhere. Really deep discharge does permanent damage to the cells which may cause them to massively heat up or even thermal runaway when charged again so preventing charge after deep discharge is a reasonable safety feature.
I have also observed that some controllers fully discharge all cells if one of them fails which does destroy potentially still good cells but makes them a lot safer to dispose of so I have somewhat mixed feelings about that (given the amount of people that will just throw a laptop with a battery in the trash is a lot bigger than the people that would harvest the still good cells from failed batteries, it’s probably a net positive, still kind of a waste).
They had the suicide fuse thing (or whatever it’s called) in those for ages which makes the unbricking a not just flashing the controller thing.
Whoa, this scares me, what if you are retired and at some later stage some agents get you and tell you “you have outlived your usefulness”, and proceeds to [REDACTED] you. Their reasoning is that what if you are too old to move or take care of yourself and if you die at your home they will spend lots of time dispose of your body and clean up your house as decomposed body is a bio-hazardous waste, so they do the [REDACTED] thing “preemptively” just like those controller fully discharges and destroys good cells from the pack
As I said, mixed feelings.
Edit, it’s even worse, it’s like if your coworker died and they just [REDACTED] the whole department XD
It’s more a preventing “energetic displays” measure. Puncturing or crushing a charged cell is a lit more spectacular than a fully discharged one.
Thanks. Saved me from having to reply to that.
I wish we have laptops that have 18650 or 21700 slots like the AAA battery slots on remotes with a switch to select 3.6V(LFP), 4.2V(NMC) and 4.4V(LCO) so we could just insert four or six cells and charge and use them. When they are dead, open the case and replace them easily.
Despite all the drawbacks I would like that too XD.
It is unfortunate that they have to do that, but considering how bad li-ion events can be, I have a hard time arguing against most safety features that manufacturers implement. And I say that as someone who has torn down laptop batteries for the cells. Though it’s only been new-old stock unused batteries.
And with Li-ions it’s not just the obvious intense fires, but also the extremely toxic gasses and smoke. I wouldn’t want to use a room where one went off, even after all the smoke was clear. Smoke leaves residue on surfaces that’s then released over time.