Replacing GBA SP battery with a modern Li-ion?

Is it possible to just replace the GBA SP's battery and wire up a standard Li-ion of the appropriate voltage? If so will the SP's charger still work?

 

it is a lithium battery..

buy a new battery

 

Bought a replacement, still doesn't hold a charge very long and will just shut off within an hour.

 

Two things can be happening here.

1: You got a dud battery (was it some uber cheap one on ebay?)
2: The GBA is drawing a fair amount of current draining the battery quick..

I think it's #1..
The GBA SP battery is a 3.7v lithium, bigger capacity (so long as it isn't multiple batteries in series or something) batteries should not be an issue, they will just take longer to charge (the cut off voltages are the same)

 

I think it was this one? (The picture looks right anyway). It's a 700mAh 3.6V Li-ion according to the label on the battery itself. My SP acts and charges the same way with it as with the original battery.

 

I don't trust Tomee/Hyperkin stuff at all. Best bet is get an original replacement. If you have the same issues then you know it's not the battery.

 

The issue with original replacements is that Nintendo hasnt exactly been making them recently. Any stock they have is bound to be old and degraded in itself. So finding a new solution isn't a bad thing to talk about.

 

They seem to still sell them on the official store. But whether or not they are recent is another question I guess.

 

Everyone Ive spoken to have said it is old stock that never sold. Not a good sign for batteries.

 

Enh, month old dust...

My question is why? Or rather, if you do get one get an origional genuine battery. Mine I have had for several years now and it is still going strong. The fact that it pretty much never needs to be charged anymore is just a happy bonus. (Dont ask, I have no idea why)

Just my two cents.

 

You might just have a dud battery.
I bought a cheap replacement off of ebay and it holds a good charge without issue.
If you really feel like it you could mod the SP by removing the proprietary charge port, install a mini usb charging circuit and then put in a new battery. Granted that amount of mod work might be tedious and a very roundabout way of doing things.

 

Not really true for lithium. Long as they are not full discharged (you can tell, they won't charge again), they will be fine.

Lithium can hold charge for like 10 years no problem.

 

If original battery was fully charged then it can be fully working with at least 90% of nominal capacity.
And yeah, lithium batteries can hold charge for many years. But... sometimes charge control circuit draws too much power and will drain the battery in a few months. Not sure if it's true for GBA SP as i never had one, jumped from original GBA (backlight modded) to DS Lite.
For original question - yes, you can replace the battery with modern ones, from mobile phones etc, but you must know how to deal with lithium batteries - they die very fast if charged improperly, also can catch fire/explode if overcharged. So it's not for newbies, if you really need to do it then ask someone who knows some electronics/Li-Po battery-related stuff.
P.S. I got original PSP fat battery from old stock and it works fine, maybe not 100% but enough for a few hours.

 

I'm just repeating what others have said after they bought them Especially since the DS has been out since what, 2005? So SP batteries are going on 10 years.

 

The 10 years figure was that you could charge it today, leave it 10 years and it should still have power in it. Not that after 10 years it will stop holding a charge.

 

I bought an SP battery from Nintendo with the manufacture date of 09 so I think you should be safe.

 

I'm aware that's the theory of li-ion batteries, but I don't think that's what most people experience. It's possible that people get age mixed up with number of charge cycles (as they often trend together), but I hear a lot of stories (and have experience it myself with cell phones) of people taking new old stock off the shelf and battery life being pretty terrible.

I'm curious about the SP battery replacement as an upgrade more so than a stock replacement. My SP is a backlit model with a overclock modkit and I usually play it with my Everdrive GBC...this combination (to no surprise) is a major battery drain.

 

I've personally left lithium batteries (drills etc) for about 5-6 years in my loft and it's still had over 80% charge (and most of that loss was probably from when I used it before putting it in there. Charged it after and there is no noticeable loss of capacity.

But yes, obviously it all varies. But lithium don't have a very high rate of self discharge.