MBP A1281 battery rebuild/replace?

[NY Guitarist]

I'm about to put a late 2008 MBP back into service. Aside from installing a new SSD and RAM upgrade this laptop will need a new battery. Even though it had low charge cycles and excellent recharge capacity the battery in this MBP was taken out of service because it suffered from battery swelling.

I see a lot of cheap battery options from companies I've never heard about before. I think I would rather go with a Newertech battery from OWC but wonder about compatibility with the laptop correctly reading charge states and cycles and charging properly.

Are people who have purchased Newtech batteries happy with them? The knock-off brands are less than half the price of the Newtech, and about 1/3 the price from Apple, but they scare me.

Another related question: has anyone replaced the actual Li-Ion cells in the original Apple A1281 battery successfully? Any links to sources for the raw cells?

 

[Codeseven]

NY, I'll be following this since I have the same laptop and need to do the exact same thing(s). The battery swells and needs to be replaced. I've already upgraded the RAM to 8Gb of Crucial memory.

The other thing is replacing my aging and slow HD with an SSD. Nothing huge, just a decent SSD. What did you end up getting and where from?

 

[NY Guitarist]

NY, I'll be following this since I have the same laptop and need to do the exact same thing(s). The battery swells and needs to be replaced. I've already upgraded the RAM to 8Gb of Crucial memory.

The other thing is replacing my aging and slow HD with an SSD. Nothing huge, just a decent SSD. What did you end up getting and where from?

I'll be upgrading to 8GB of memory too. but I haven't decided on which SSD to get yet. I was hoping to do it in one purchase and install it all after giving the MBP a good cleaning in and out.

Any leads on the battery purchase that you've come across, or just maybe go with the Newertech? It seems like replacing cells would be pretty inexpensive but I have no idea on where to source them or how difficult it is to open the original battery and do a swap.

 

[Codeseven]

The battery comes out super easy. Once the compartment on the back is opened it practically fall out and another one can be popped right in. I went to Newegg and just typed in 2008 MacBook Pro battery and had like ten of them pop up, all for about $30.

I don't know anything about SSD's. None popped up on Newegg specifically for the 2008 MBP but thats probably because it didn't come with one.