Is this good or bad for li-ion or li-poly battery`s in a notebook

[TinderBox (UK)]

You guys are the experts when it comes to battery`s , I need a answer if doing a full discharge once a month as apple recommends is bad for the battery.

From the apple website below.

Standard Maintenance

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her MacBook Pro on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month.

http://www.apple.com/uk/batteries/notebooks.html

 

[bulbman]

if you do that your battery wont last very long:green:

 

[AnAppleSnail]

I'm sure they do recommend that, as they sell the darn things!

 

[45/70]

The problem here has to do with the laptop's "battery gauge". It's true that laptop batteries will last longer if they are not fully discharged and fully charged all the time. Shallow discharges would be ideal.

The problem is the way the "battery gauge" is implemented. In order for it to work properly, the pack needs to be discharged once in a while to keep it "in sync" with the system.

Dave

 

[SilverFox]

Hello TinderBox UK,

As Dave indicated, the full discharge is not for the benefit of the battery, but allows the power management to re-calibrate. You may want to try putting that off for 3 - 6 months. The down side is that your estimate of remaining run time minutes may be a little optimistic.

If you run the battery down to were you only have 2 - 3 minutes left, and don't save your data regularly, follow the monthly discharge recommendation. On the other hand, if you charge when your time gets down to 15 minutes, put it off for a few months.

Tom

 

[Battery Guy]

Dave and Tom hit it right on the mark. :thumbsup:

The only thing I would add is that I wish Apple would provide an option in the Energy Saver Preferences to only charge the battery 50% when the notebook is plugged in. Constantly keeping the battery at 100% state-of-charge causes the battery to degrade faster. My understanding is that some of the new Dell computers offer this option, so hopefully Apple follow sometime soon.

Doing a complete discharge once per month will do almost nothing to help or hurt the actual lithium-ion cells in the battery pack.

And yes, I am writing this reply on my relatively new MacBook Pro. :grin2:

Cheers,
Battery Guy

 

[fishinfool]

Is it better for the laptop battery to take it out of the laptop when used at home and having it plugged in most of the time? :thinking:

 

[Closet_Flashaholic]

I can't speak for everyone else, but my experience over the last 15 years 8 of them with lithium-ion batteries in laptops is:

1) Yes it makes a big difference how much heat the batteries are exposed to. When I know I am going to be in the office using a docking station, I discharge (or charge) the battery to 40% and then remove it. I have an original battery from a ThinkPad T30 (Circa 2002) that still has about 93% health.. At the time, I traveled about 25% for 3 years using that same battery. It's still good, laptop is a little old, but hey it still does XP ok.

2) Storing Lithium-ions at 40% makes a big difference. (I have proven this to myself over and over again, with many different batteries/cells )

3) The calibration thing is true, but I generally keep track of the health of the battery so I know what to expect. I used to do a full discharge about every 6 weeks or so back when I was travelling regularly.

4) I have actually had pretty good luck with lithium-ions, more than I had originally expected, but you really have to be informed and take care of them - They just can't be abused like NiCads or NiMH can - and they're too damn expensive, besides....

5) I know about those Dell laptops that you can set the charge to. It's a great idea. Even the higher end ThinkPads had this feature, mine does not. I even have a Dell M90 and a new Dell M6400 and neither of them have it. I think it is a combination of software and some hardware support for the feature to be enabled. - So I am back to the "pull the battery" routine, but I don't travel as much anymore, so it's not as quite a pain as it used to be.

 

[fishinfool]

I never thought about my laptop batteries until I started reading and learning about them on CPF and BLF. So recently I started removing the battery when I know it's going to be docked most of the time.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

On my Sony VAIO , I can set the battery charge level to anything i want, it has two easy setting 80% charge and 50% charger , or you can set your own level, as i use my notebook as a desktop replacement i use the 50% charge option.

Thanks for the advice guys, I think i will only do a full discharge/calibrate every 2-3 months.

 

[Battery Guy]

On my Sony VAIO , I can set the battery charge level to anything i want, it has two easy setting 80% charge and 50% charger , or you can set your own level, as i use my notebook as a desktop replacement i use the 50% charge option.

I am so jealous! I can't believe that Apple does not have this option, especially since the batteries are built into the computer and cannot be changed by the owner.

Cheers,
Battery Guy

 

[Mugrunty]

I cannot give you a screenshot yet (I'm on my iPod touch during lunch break!), but like closet_flashaholic said, most thinkpads have a powermanager utility that let's you do the same thing. Not only that, you can set the point at which the battery starts charging and where it stop. So maybe set it to only charge when below 40% and stop at 70%. Plus it gives you full charge capacity in Wh, cycles, manufacture date, temperature and everything!

 

[DLF]

Just got an iPhone 4, and the first app I purchased was Battery Doctor Pro, which keeps track of normal and "full" (deep) charge cycles, as well as total health (based on 400 total cycles->80% health).

 

[Chrontius]

Is it better for the laptop battery to take it out of the laptop when used at home and having it plugged in most of the time? :thinking:

Not with a Macbook. On the other hand, they've got one of the better smart chargers that's been built into a laptop, these days.

 

[VidPro]

""A breakthrough battery for a breakthrough notebook. With the MacBook Pro, Apple engineers have taken the radical step of eliminating the removable battery, and have embedded a battery with a capacity great enough to run for up to 10 hours on the 13-inch MacBook Pro (8 to 9 hours on the 15- and 17-inch models). They’ve developed advanced chemistry and a charging method that extend the battery’s lifespan up to 1000 recharges. And they’ve done it all in the thin and streamlined ""

bla bla bla . . . bla bla . . bla

then we turned around and unloaded the heat of the processing curcuits and regulators on it , and . . . bla bla bla . . bla bla . . . bla :crackup:

Mac , its all in the user :D thier "Jobs" (as in steve) to believe.

 

[Quension]

The battery's in front under the trackpad, while the CPU (and independent GPU when applicable) is near the back center. The sinks and fans pull heat toward the back.

It's not like the plastic shell on removable batteries is much of a thermal insulator anyway.

Or was that post a reference to something I missed?