Notebook Battery Chargers?

Nilatir asks: "Here at the University where I work we're checking out Dell notebooks to the students in the library and our main lab. While this is proven to be good for the students I'm having a hard time managing the batteries for the notebooks. By eliminating the floppy drives and using wireless APs to access network shares we were using two Li-Ion batteries in every Latitude and getting almost 8 hours of life a day from them. But, due to some students undying dependence on floppy disks, we were forced to drop down to one battery which will only last half the day at best. We now have an extra battery for each notebook with no way to charge them (even Dell's docking station has no charging bay). Have any slashdotters run into a problem like this and how you all resolve it? Does anyone know of external battery charging station for notebook batteries?" Will laptop makers ever learn that this is one of those accessories that would sell like hotcakes?

Comments

Li-ion charger ICs commonly available cheap

[xtal]

You can get a battery charger IC cheap cheap cheap from any number of sources now. Most come with a example application that details how to build the charging logic. Do not attempt to charge a li-ion battery any other way, they will explode violently. I've had coin cells go off like small grenades by pulsing them with 1A @ 12V (don't ask).

Steve