MacBook OEM, Aftermarket, and Knock-Off Batteries

Batteries

MacBook Pro 13" A1502 2015E Model: A1582

PCB Manufactured by COMPEQ, Controller BQ20Z451, board is secured with torx screws (Most knockoffs use philips)

Every cell has QR code and lots of numbers including unique serial number

Main terminals are welded instead of being soldered, it also uses battery balancing wires and thermal couple (absent on almost all knockoff batteries). 15A fuse is clearly seen.

Thermal cutoff device is present on every cell, thermal couple also visible in center

Macbook Pro 15" A1398 2013L-2014M Model: A1494

Original battery disassembled from untouched device.

Allmost all components secured with strong adhesive, gold plating

Every cell marked with QR code and some sort of serial number (last line)

PCB Manufacturer is COMPEQ (Same as all Logicboards). Thermocouple present (absent on most Knock-off boards). Smartbattery controller: BQ20Z451

Every cell has HC77AY-1 Thermal Cutoff Device placed on input.

Macbook Pro 15" A1398 Early 2013 Model: A1417

A1417 battery for A1398 MacBook Pro Early 2013 adhesive pattern reference 1

A1417 battery for A1398 MacBook Pro Early 2013 adhesive pattern reference 2, for those that have brains that work differently.

Macbook Pro 13" A1706 Touch Bar 2016 Model: A1819

Original battery disassembled from untouched device.

A1819 recto (manufacturer : Simplo Technology (Changshu) Inc.

A1819 recto pcb

A1819 verso

A1819 verso pcb (black sticker peeled off)

A1819 verso thermalcouple (one per cell)

Aftermarket Batteries

MacBook Pro 13" A1502 2015E Model: LMP A1582

LMP is a Swiss firm, manufacturing in China. it is delivered in fancy package with glue remover and pry tool. Glue remover is toulene, not recommended. Got EC / TÜV certificates, does not even try to look like OEM-Apple battery. AHT Test passes with no hardware issues found, system information reveals same serialnumbr as on sticker.

Back side of the board. Note much more advanced design compared to regular knock-offs. Thermal pair is present and balanced charging implemented. Pretty suprised, instead of battery controller it actually uses ARM Microcontroller Atmel samd 10u. This board should not be considered as cheap aftermarket since it implements pretty decent charging scheme with high level of control and cell balancing capability. Quite expensive 300LSE adhesive is probably not the best choice, so i would rather replace it with floam before installing.

Exposed cell packs, completely blank front side of the PCB

Apple MacBook Pro 15 A1398 (Late 2013, Mid 2014) Model: LMP A1582

Pretty solid battery. Full balance-charging implemented, temperature sensor could be found in the middle of the battery. Compared to Apple betterie, No thermal-protection devices on individual cells.

Some basic liquid protection like on Apple batteries. Slowburn fuse, thermal pair. Controller is the same Atmel SAMD10U

Battery diagnostic and troubleshooting

This is an old article. New one is here: MacBook battery diagnostics and repair

Clean AHT does not necessarily mean that battery is fine. The most basic thing you should expect to measure is output voltage as soon as SYSTEM_DETECT_L is pulled low. On many modern boards it is pulled down by mosfet which means it means to have ppbus BEFORE battery will be activated on (after you plug the charger it will pull the switch down and activate the battery). If you do not have the charger (say, cd3215 is blown and you have to recover data urgently) you can find this circuit on your board and simply pull this line to ground for a short period of time. This will enable battery and allow you to safely recover the data before proceeding to fix cd3215/17 circuit.

The second thing to expect is communication. if battery outputs voltage, it SHOULD communicate.

Many macbooks like A1398 15" DG need good battery to fully boot and properly work. MacBook Pro 16" will throttle with a bad battery and will blow full fan if no battery is present (however it will fully boot).

To diagnose Smartbattery controller you need special equipment. There are few devices to reprogram the batteries. Unfortunately it is a mixed experience since most of them are requiring subscription and also known for spying on their customers (they check how many batteries you reset, they limit you to replace SSD / CPU in your bench PC, etc). The only known tool without this kind of arrogance is MBRT /Macbook Battery Repair Tool) which is extremely hard to get in US/EU.

If battery is clean and "should be working", there is still a chance that internal fuse is blown and battery will still report good condition. Personally i do not recommend recelling batteries and never plan to. LiPOL Chemistry is not a rocket science but if done unproperly - life dangerous. I am using this device purely to keep stocked batteries in a good shape + charge batteries in case of urgent data recovery.

I am currently developing adapter board for all common apple connectors, so this section will be improved later.