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Eco-Tip: Make Your Lithium Batteries Last
treehugger.com — Here are 4 tips from Spicy Gadget Roll to help make sure your Crackberries and MacBooks stay powered without having to burn through batteries.
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- aldenhg, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1Seems like sounds advice. Is there any 3rd party verification?
- ozydingo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1These are consistent with all the educated & reliable websites I've read when searching for information on proper battery care for Li ion batteries--except i haven't specifically read about not letting the batteries heat up--but it is believable. A google search should lead you to the same evidence; or you could take the word of the site's authors with mine and comments below.
- jklyon, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I want to test that last tip on my old blackberry. I wonder if these will work with the iPhone.
- trunkster, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
Apple's site use to say to let the iPod battery drain all the way down once in a while, they no longer say this... they still suggest it for the MacBooks though.
- trunkster, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
- insecuregirl, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15Tip 1: Contrary to what you may have heard, lithium-ion batteries do not need to be completely drained and recharged before using. They will still come to a full charge later if you start using them right out of the box. In fact, leaving your lithium-ion battery empty for too long (or too often) can actually drain battery life.
Tip 2: Although you don't want to leave your battery sans charge for too long, every once in a while it does a Li-Ion battery good to fully drain and recharge. If your laptop or cell phone's battery meter is no longer accurate, this will calibrate the battery back to normal.
Tip 3: Don't let your battery heat up.
Tip 4: When it comes time to store away your lithium-ion battery in periods of non-use, put it in the fridge with a 40% charge. The 40% charge is high enough to fight the battery from losing its charge and low enough to ensure the battery doesn't fall victim to "unnecessary stress."- forgetfulca, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2the tip #5 (posted in the article's comments) is actually one of the most relevant: No matter what you do, your lithium battery will lose capacity over time. In this one respect, nimh batteries still win.
- auxplage, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8As I type on a MacBook Pro which is a year old with a battery that is at 50% of its original capacity, I can say that these tips are good; however, batteries eventually just die. There is no reason to stress about it.
- trunkster, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Unless you have an iPhone, then that's when to stress about it.
- Rikkochet, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Blogspam that just links to:
http://spicygadget.com/2006/12/24/guide-getting-the-most-out-of-your-lithium-battery/ - astroman13, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0I've had the best luck always trying to keep the battery at full charge. I have killed a battery before by discharging it all the way (and leaving it drained for too long). I don't know, it could be a fluke.
- mitrovarr, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1No, that's not a fluke, fully discharging a lithium-ion battery and leaving it can easily kill it. If you leave a battery dead long enough (and for this it must actually be a multi-cell battery, not just a cell) one or more of the cells within it will discharge down to basically nothing. Then, when you attempt to charge it, the livelier cells will push current through it backwards, which is very destructive to the battery. It'll overheat and probably set off the battery's protective devices, ruining it (or for a cheap battery, setting it on fire.)
Just fully discharging a Lithium-ion battery within a device isn't too bad, because the protective circuitry inherent in the device and any decent battery will stop it before it gets to dangerous levels. So, the trick to recalibrate your device's sensors isn't very dangerous. You usually have to discharge and leave a lithium-ion battery to harm it. NiMH, NiCD, and other battery technologies can be ruined by a total discharge, however, since they don't necessarily have the protective circuitry.
(I'm just basing this on stuff I've read online about batteries, so check up on any of it before actually following it.)
- mitrovarr, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1No, that's not a fluke, fully discharging a lithium-ion battery and leaving it can easily kill it. If you leave a battery dead long enough (and for this it must actually be a multi-cell battery, not just a cell) one or more of the cells within it will discharge down to basically nothing. Then, when you attempt to charge it, the livelier cells will push current through it backwards, which is very destructive to the battery. It'll overheat and probably set off the battery's protective devices, ruining it (or for a cheap battery, setting it on fire.)
- idc5, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2If you're batteries are empty and need to use your appliance for a little longer, lick the contacts and they will last for a few more min. This has worked for me on my old digi camera, clocks, flashlights with AA batteries.
- mitrovarr, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2A laptop cooling pad would probably be a good idea, too. That might make the laptop last longer itself as well as improving the battery longevity.
- gamesector, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Don't let your batteries heat up? I have a Macbook Pro ffs, I'd have to turn it off every 20 minutes.
- redsoxfan1144, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2so i should take my battery out if i pluged my laptop in??
please help!- Pixelpaws, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2That's what most of the advice I've heard suggests. I use my laptop plugged in almost constantly, but by leaving the battery in while it was plugged in, I killed four cells on a six cell battery in less than a year. By a minor miracle I got the computer company to honor the one-year warranty on the battery.
- aduzik, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0The most important tip in the article is to avoid running your laptop on AC power all the time with the battery in. I killed my first PowerBook battery by running it on AC power all the time. My second battery still has something like 80% capacity after three more years. Definitely makes a difference.
- magus_melchior, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"The safety circuit isn’t full proof of course..."
*foreheadslap*
Nor, apparently, is the spell checker... - gage006, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Hrm...I need a switch on my laptop to just disable the battery that way I can be lazy.
- ozydingo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Seriously; with it being known for so long that leaving them plugged in and fully charged is not good for their lifespan, I don't know why more manufacturers--at least in a Laptop with a software trigger--don't make it easier to operate a device plugged in without charging the battery.
- GRTWHT, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Because then they couldn't sell you an endless supply of highly overpriced replacement batteries.
- CoolWind, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3If you remove the battery while your laptop is plugged in you lose the benefit of having an un-interruptible power supply. People who use desktops are willing to pay a lot of money for that feature. Losing 20-30% of capacity every year is worth it in my opinion. Also, as was already suggested, it may help to occasionally use the laptop on battery power alone.
It's not just leaving the battery plugged in all the time that causes the loss of capacity, it's also a matter of being subjected to high heat.- 44sunsets, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Leaving your laptop plugged in to mains power does not ruin your battery, that is an urban myth and a completely ridiculous one at that. In fact it's best to keep your lappy plugged in whenever possible and to top up the battery as often as possible. Laptop batteries are intelligent and have built in controllers that regulate the charge, that's why they cost so much.
And don't run your laptop without the battery in, that's just stupid. Your laptop most likely won't run at full power and you risk data loss if the power is interrupted.
- 44sunsets, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Leaving your laptop plugged in to mains power does not ruin your battery, that is an urban myth and a completely ridiculous one at that. In fact it's best to keep your lappy plugged in whenever possible and to top up the battery as often as possible. Laptop batteries are intelligent and have built in controllers that regulate the charge, that's why they cost so much.
- spacedigger, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Awesome tips! thanks!
- kaneinf, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Content ripped off another site, uncool
- leszek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1test
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test - leszek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Pfff ...
In concordance to the murphy law, it seems that the deletion of the line breaks only happen when you don't want it.
I'm stopping here.
- leszek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1test
- leszek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1In case you are wondering I am testing how many line breaks the new comment system accepts before deleting them all.
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