Removing battery module to reduce weight

[sonique]

Hi!
I just got a 16-inch MacBook pro M2 Pro, as you know this machine can last for looong hours.
I'm not a heavy user on battery, I need 8h top. However I would love the mac to be lighter.

So I was wondering if it is possible to remove some of the battery modules to reduce the weight of the machine.
Does anyone has experience with removing battery module? Is it possible? Is this idea dumb?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Really not a good idea. It would invalidate warranty, and pretty sure removing cells would reduce voltage.

Sounds like you should have got a 15" M2 MBA which is 1.4 lbs lighter. is it too late to return your 16" MBP?

 

[leman]

The machine won't start without battery. So yeah, fairly dumb

 

[3Rock]

The machine won't start without battery. So yeah, fairly dumb

Well, this is the first time I heard anything like this before. Taking out a battery just to save a little weight and I mean a very little amount of weight. 🤪

 

[Boyd01]

One of my old Macs - the PowerBook G3 "Pismo" (I think?) had a big slot on the side with a removable CD drive. You could pop it out and replace it with an extra battery to double your runtime. Always thought that was a pretty cool feature, and I normally had a battery in the slot because the runtime was really short on that old beast without it! IIRC, you only got about 4 hours even with the extra battery.

But those days are long gone.

 

[jav6454]

Hi!
I just got a 16-inch MacBook pro M2 Pro, as you know this machine can last for looong hours.
I'm not a heavy user on battery, I need 8h top. However I would love the mac to be lighter.

So I was wondering if it is possible to remove some of the battery modules to reduce the weight of the machine.
Does anyone has experience with removing battery module? Is it possible? Is this idea dumb?

Thanks for your help.

It is a terrible idea, DO NOT attempt. Also, as soon as you try to open the battery, you'll cause Lithium fire.

Not to mention, the entire system assumes a specific power draw is held and voltage can drop should the incorrect cells be removed. This means, you can seriously damage your Mac.

 

[ArkSingularity]

I'm fairly certain the batteries are in series, so this wouldn't be possible. If you removed one of them, the voltage would be different and the battery would be non-functional.

 

[sonique]

Thanks everyone, I think you took me a little bit too seriously. I mainly wanted to understand what is possible, not necessarily do it

Mike said an interesting thing: "it would reduce voltage". If you look, the battery has 6 cell. Each cell provide some voltage, to provide a total of 11.47V.

So to reduce the size of the battery, one would need to find a small/lighter battery providing the same voltage.

 

[ewu]

go to Gym and be a strong man rather than removing battery.

 

[sonique]

thanks ewu, I got a gym membership today. meanwhile I want continue explore this idea as a cool "mod".

The Macbook Pro 14" battery specs (src: ifixit) - 11.46V - 69.9Wh - 6100mha
The Macbook Pro 16" battery specs (src: ifixit) - 11.46V - 99.6Wh - 8700mha

The specs are fairly similar, perhaps, a 14" battery may work in a 16", the connectors seem similar.

 

[3Rock]

We all learned something. Leave the darn thing alone. It’ll last longer.