2008/11/23 Brian Troisi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Let it charge to 100%, then unplug it. LEt it run down to 0%.
Lithium based batteries should never be fully discharged. This will harm the battery. Rule of thumb with Lithium is: 1) Never leave on charge for extended periods after you hit 100%. The charge circuit will cut off at 100%, yes, but it'll either keep topping up the battery or bypass the battery and leave it fully charged. Leaving Lithium batteries charged at 100% for extended periods of time will irreversably damage their capacity.* 2) Never fully discharge a Lithium based battery. The Lithium battery is chamically unstable when it becomes uncharged and this can pretty much prevent it from recharging successfully. If nothing else, it'll reduce the capacity. ** The best way to ensure your battery lasts (as in, continues to function, not "retains a charge") for the longest amount of time is to charge fully whenever you hit about 20% and NEVER leave the laptop on power with a battery in place for extended periods. It's also a good idea to work on power, then recharge when you immediately you hit low levels. Lithium based batteries have a finite recharge cycle, but the recharge cycle is measured in "complete" charges and discharges. The partial charges accumulate in the same way as the "full" charges, but are supposedly kinder to the battery. Matt * Anyone who had an iPod that they left docked for long periods of time can verify this. I've often heard people complaining about their iPod battery life after about a year. Mine is over 3 years old (5th gen) and still holds about 70% of the original charge. I hardly ever leave it plugged in via USB. It gets used daily (~ 2 - 3 hours) at least for audio, but often Video and gets recharged about twice a week (depending on how much video I watch.) ** personal anecdote - I killed a Dell Latitude battery by running BeOS on the laptop - BeOS has no power management and just used "all" of the juice. By the time the BIOS safetly check kicked in, it was too late. The battery *never* recovered. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Low End Mac's G-Books list, a group for those using G3 iBooks and PowerBooks (we run a separate list for G4 'Books). The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g-books?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
