How to properly charge and prolong the life of Lithium batteries

[austonia]

good information for HD-MP3 player owners:

How to prolong lithium-based batteries
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Charging lithium-ion batteries
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm

[asbradbury]

Thankyou for the links, although I'd visited before. It's articles like that which make me really glad my Zen Xtra has a user-replaceable battery - ultimately, if I misuse or abuse my battery, the most it's going to cost is £25 for a replacement a couple of months down the line.

[Luke]

Interesting. I've seen the first link before, but not the second. I always wonderered why the JB1 had a 9 volt AC charger, and the JB3 had only a 5 volt AC charger. The second link seemed to explain this. It also seems to explain why I can't find a AA or AAA rechargeable li-Ion battery. My digital camera accepts a Li-Ion battery (in place of two AAA batteries), but it's not rechargeable. You have to use it until it's dead, then throw it away (er, dispose of it properly).

[Duncan]

Informative links... I'm going to put them up as a sticky thread for a while, to make sure that they get plenty of exposure, especially considering the number of HDAP owners there are here...

Thanks Austonia

[chadbang]

Great links, Austonia. I was going to buy a back-up replacement battery for my iPod. Now I know that the batteries start to deteriorate when they come off the manufacturing line. It's better not to have one "just sitting around". I'll wait until the battery in my iPod dies, then I'll purchase a new one. Cheers.

[real_person]

Originally Posted by austonia

good information for HD-MP3 player owners:

How to prolong lithium-based batteries
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Charging lithium-ion batteries
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm

I just bought 'old' stock Li-Ion batteries for my six-year old (Nokia 6190) cellphone (one of the two original now six-year old Li-Ion batteries, package dated 1/1998, had given up the ghost). The replacement stock batteries were 'deep discounted' to 10% of their typical purchase price (package date coding of the replacement batteries is 8/1999).

My point being, the first link admonishes against ever buying 'old' stock, but, I'm finding this is one heck of a bargain, and the charge/recharge cycle is as good as you'd ever want and well within labelled specs (nb. they were 'partially' charged when I opened the package, which is the optimum storage mode according to the links). Maybe at some point I'll notice my five years on the shelf replacement batteries do not hold out for a further six years or so of active use, maybe not.

The articles also remark that the lifespan of even freshly manufactured Li-ion batteries is perhaps a couple of years. That seems awfully pessimistic from my limited experience of cellphone Li-Ion batteries. Hmm, I wonder if their theme about 'on-going' improvements in metal combinations leading to improved Li-Ion battery performance is valid -- it sounds reasonable, but, is it conjecture as the other points appear to have been, or based on research?

(a former chemist)

[akubacki]

Are there any words of wisdom re: using, discharging, and recharging NI-MH batteries?

Thanks!!

[azesty]

While the advice on that site is good, they did seem to miss one thing.

The accuracy of battery charge remaining circuits often benifit from running the battery flat every now and then.

[bobeau]

azesty, the first link says

"Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges."

[eCs_LCS]

I have a question. You know how it says to like fully discharge every 30 or so times. Would that be just waiting till the player dies by itself. Or after it dies turn it back on and wait till it dies again, etc.?

[Guust-Fi]

Originally Posted by eCs_LCS

I have a question. You know how it says to like fully discharge every 30 or so times. Would that be just waiting till the player dies by itself. Or after it dies turn it back on and wait till it dies again, etc.?

This only account for Lithium-ion batteries with an online fuel gauge (eg laptops) I believe this is a built-in system in the battery with led's that indicate its level of charge.
The tabel in the end says there is no additional maintainance needed. Li-Ion batteries should not be discharged completly once in a while, shallow discharges are best.

For NiMH batteries: "Discharge to 1V/cell every 3 months to prevent memory."
I believe that would be untill the device shuts down.

[eCs_LCS]

So like with the Creative Zen Micro, you should never discharge completely?

[Guust-Fi]

To keep the battery indicator working correctly, you should do a complete discharge/charge about every 3 months or so.

[paradio]

BTW, I also have a question, and look forward to some comments:

When I use 1hr fast charger to charge the AA NiMH batters, I found a strange problem ( all devices are new):
each time I put batteries to charger ( batteries were empty/disacharge enough)
the charger will indicate "end of charge" after 5 or 10 minutes.
Then I switched off charger and turned on again, I will face another round of this phenomenon.
After 3 or 4 rounds, everything goes well ( will end of charge around 1 hr).

The batteries I used are Sanyo 1800mA (total 8 pieces have the same issue)
When I use another AA NiMH from Hitachi 1500mA, no such problem.
All above batteries were bought from Singapore.

Who has any good comments?

[kravenz]

Hi

So.....Does the SONY NW-HD3 mp3 player have fuel gauge (laptops) battery ?

Should I discharge completely the battery once a month?

Thaks

Regards

Kravenz