~Toughbooktalk~

I've had more than a few old Toughbooks in my hands and I'm often amazed at the quality Panasonic built into their batteries. Today I got ahold of a CF-M33, the first tiny Toughbook. It was born on Nov 1998, more than 15 years ago, and probably has the original battery. I charged the battery several hours till the light turned green. This came from an estate sale so likely this is the first time in years the battery has seen a charge. Booted it up and got the message about bad date & time, so the CMOS battery went dead. Check BIOS then booted to Windows 95 :nostalgia: Set brightness to max and watched the power meter. Over the last *2 hours* it has slowly and evenly run down to 10%, just got the low battery warning at 1:53 hours run time. I know Panasonic makes their own cells and often pleasantly surprised to get a well used battery that still hold a good charge, but .... 2 hours on a tiny battery made 15 years ago that probably has not been charged in many years .... simply amazing.

Got a few CF-M34 and CF-28 batteries that still perform well too. Gotta hand it to Panasonic, they sure know how to make a great performing battery (and a few other things too).

The battery in my "new" M34 Mk3 that I have still runs great too. Going by in install date it was the original install and I was on the first boot when I turned it on.

Most of my CF-28 and CF-29 batteries are also good. 100% running 2-4 hours.

I also have 3 batteries for my CF-27s. They seem to work 120 minutes. but strangely, when i put them on my storage, and use them weeks/months later, they all drained to 3%. I guess, it might be the age of them. If I charge the Cf-27 batteries, they hold a charge for about 8 hours before using them.

Yes sir!

Panasonic batteries > ALL others!!!!!!!!

This thread and the Hackaday link Toughbook posted inspired me to renew my efforts on my "dead" CF-28 battery. I ran the battery refresh utility and let it charge for a couple days. While in the BIOS, I also discovered it was set on high temperature environment, which prevents it from fully charging as well. Between all of that, I went from a 15 minute lifespan to 3+ hours on a WELL used battery.

<3 Panasonic