RIM 950 internal battery normal voltage??

[Buddyc1]

What is the normal full-charge voltage of the internal Lithium rechargeable battery of the RIM 950?

I have been experiencing apparent power problems (display blanking out, shutting down spontaneously), even with a fresh AA battery. Pager is about 1 1/2 years old. Opened up the case, found the internal battery, measured its voltage to be 4.0 volts. I believe this is abnormal as each Lithium cell yields 2.8 volts and there are probably 2 cells in this package so there should be at least 5.6 volts.

Anyone out there know?

Thanks,

Buddy buddyc1@comcast.net

[JimBobJoeRay]

Your best bet here is to place a new AA battery in the unit, then manually shut off the radio, then manually turn off the device overnight. The AA battery needs time to charge the internal battery. If this fails, you may be out of luck, unfortunately you can't buy those internal batteries seperately. Only the 6710 has replaceable batteries. my guess is that charging it overnight with a new AA battery with it turned off will fix your problem though.

[Buddyc1]

Your comment that "...I may not be able to find a replacement battery separately.." is not encouraging. I still think that from all the various shaped Lithium batteries out there, I should be able to find one. After I opened up the pager and tightened connections and measured the internal battery's voltage (4 volts probably turns out to be a good number since it's probably 1 cell, not 2 and a nominal cell voltage is 3.7 from my research). If the pager shuts down or blanks out, I will open it up quickly and remeasure the lithium battery's voltage again to see if it's the culprit; if the voltage is down, then it's probably bad and I'll need to find another one. The battery looks easy enough to replace - it has 2 wires and a small plug attached to it and the tiny plug is plugged into the RIM950's circuit board.

[JimBobJoeRay]

I still doubt you will be able to find a battery which will fit in the device with the proper voltage, they are special order for RIM. Have you tried to put the new AA battery in the device overnight with it off yet?

[Buddyc1]

Yes I did that and that seemed to help revive it....for now. We'll see what happens!!

Thanks for posting your advice.

Buddy

[JimBobJoeRay]

Good, glad to hear it!
Its actually not a bad idea to turn off your BlackBerry once in a while, just so the internal battery can charge overnight. Its like letting a car battery stay low for a long time, eventually it won't charge anymore.