The unobtainable battery

A friend of mine has a battery-powered vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, said battery died on him. This is nothing too surprising. Batteries are guaranteed to fail on you after some years. He tried to get a new battery through the regular channels, but he failed.

When he asked the shop he bought the vacuum at, he was told, that the model no longer existed and that if he was lucky, the manufacturer would produce some more batteries. He was put on a waiting list, but never heard anything from them. As you might expect, he was disappointed. His vacuum was still completely usable apart from the battery.

That’s when he asked me what to do. He sent me some pictures of the battery and I quickly found him a matching battery. He was really surprised and ordered it immediately. His vacuum is now running again. He just never had the idea to search for matching, but not original, parts.

How to search

The best thing to have when searching for a spare part is a part number. Many parts have a, often cryptic, number on them which is used to identify them. Such a number can contain letters, characters, and special characters such as - or /. Just take this number and put it in your search engine of choice (I use ecosia which helps planting trees when searching). That way you can find shops that maybe still have the original or an aftermarket part that fits your device.

Often it helps when you combine the part number with additional information. You could add the brand of your device or the type of thing you are looking for (battery in our example).

What fits

When talking of batteries there are some important things to consider. If you are lucky all the key figures are the same when searching with your part number. Sometimes they aren’t. Either because the 3rd party manufacturer changed something that still works, or you are looking at a part that has a similar number but does not fit your device.

The first figure is the voltage of the battery. This has to be the same. Your battery should have it written on (e.g. 12V or 18V). This has to match because this is the voltage your device expects.

Then there is the battery type. The most often found are NiMh and Li-Ion. NiCd is less frequently used and (at least in europe) forbidden for most applications. This has to match because the charging methods are different.

Another thing is the battery “capacity”. This is indicated in Ah (Ampere hours) or mAh (milli-Ampere hours) and specifies how much energy the battery holds (in combination with its voltage). If this value is bigger than the one of the battery you have, this just means that the battery will last longer. So, it doesn’t really have to match.

Last but not least there is the form factor. This means, how the case of the battery looks. You have to judge this by the images provided by the supplier and maybe some text that tells you “fits XYZ”, where XYZ is the type of your device.

When all else fails

If you can’t find a matching battery, there is always the option to rebuild the battery from single cells. If you break open a larger battery, you will find smaller “batteries” (the cells) inside. These are more generic and can be found way longer than a specific make of a battery. This step needs deeper electrical/repair skills, and I will not go further into details here. You can have a look at this video to see how this could work.

Conclusion

When needing a spare battery which is no longer available, don’t give up. Often 3rd party suppliers will have your back with a compatible product. Search for the part number which you can find on the battery itself. Check if voltage and battery type are ok and if it looks like it could fit your device.