Hm, well, somewhat discouraging. I might as well try to charge them
once I get back to my office on Wednesday. I mean, I already have
them, and as long as I limit the current and voltage, I will hopefully
avoid fires. Now I just have to figure out which of the pins on the
outer package are negative and positive.

I'm not sure the smaller chip is a Motorola part. The logo is wrong.
Motorola's logo is symmetrical and has "webbing" at the top junctions
of the M. This logo is slanted, and uses just lines. I tried to get a
picture of it, but the digital camera just wouldn't pick up the
writing. I will try again later. Plus I'm downloading Philip's program
(thanks Philip!). I will try charging at 1/3C and see what happens. If
it works, I'll probably keep the protection circuit that's in there
now and just use one of the charger chips from Maxim or others.

Thanks!

Josh
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On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:51:33 -0700, Engineering Info
<engineering-info@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Li-Ion cells are nominally at 3.6V per cell and are typically charged to
> either 4.1V or 4.2V depending on the manufacturer and your needs.  Yes,
> the SO8 is indeed a battery superviser meant to stop any discharging
> when the cell drops to around 3V among other things.  And by the looks
> of it, the chip was made about the end of June 1999 (9926 = 26th week of
> 1999).  I would suspect that the battery itself was close to the same
> age and is probally of little value due to the fact that  Li-Ion has a
> typical life span of about 2-3 years and ages even without use.  The 6
> pin IC is a Motorola part and is the power switch that disconnects the
> battery when the voltage drops below 3V.
>
> Charge rate on smaller Li-Ion batteries such as cell phone batteries can
> be done at a 1C charge but would be better at about one third of that.

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