Depending on your MFG, this may or may not be true. For the Ni-Cad and NI-MH batteries in toshibas, for example, have a small circuit built in to protect from any kind of polarity reversal. I believe Thinkpads do as well.
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Merrill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 7:53 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Linux laptop battery al johson wrote: > You should also NEVER run Ni-cad or NI-MH batteries until they are dead > either!! If you do, you will risk reversing the polarity of one of the cells > and the battery will never recharge properly again. (a battery is composed Either this is not true, or the chance of it happening is very, very small. I have always fully drained my NiCad batteries after use prior to storage or charging. A few particular sets (used in a walkman during college) went through literally _hundreds_ of cycles - most of which had a _full_ discharge: which (for me) meant discharge to the point where they would not even warm the filament of a 3W light bulb. I have NiCads that have been used in this manner for >10 years - and they work fine. I have never heard of 'reversing the polarity' of a dry cell, or any other battery, for that matter. From what little I remember from chemistry 101 it is not chemically possible in wet cells. I am very interested in this 'reversing polarity' concept - Do you have some sources of information on this? I'd also like to see the NASA research paper...since I have seen research to the contrary (I wish I had a copy...). ********************************* Chris Merrill [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********************************* _______________________________________________ TriLUG mailing list http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
