[skitlets]

Does not fully charging a new lithium-ion battery degrade its performance? When I received my dell DJ, I only charged it for about half an hour before unplugging it and loading my songs. On cell phones, it always states to fully charge the battery before using it. Does it really degrade performance if I do not? I've never tried running the battery till its empty and calculating battery time. Maybe I can try that.

 

[Stephonovich]

Li-Ions are pretty hardy, due to all the on-board controller stuff. I'm not an expert, and may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure not charging fully the first time isn't going to damage it any. I have many friends who eagerly grabbed their PDAs and whatnot after only charging for an hour or so, and haven't suffered reduced battery life.

I mean, these are the batteries that can be run down, constantly charged, you name it, and they keep ticking. Every now and then (monthly or so, maybe quarterly if you don't use the device that often) you may want to run it all the way down or near, and then charge it. Not for memory effect (which doesn't exist on Li-Ion, and only existed on NiCad under certain conditions that most home users never met), but because the onboard battery monitoring can get mucked up if you don't do this. (so I've read) It usually happens with me anyway every now and then, due to having my phone with me too often or something, so I don't really worry about it. The rest of the time I keep it always topped off, and have never had a battery life issue. It'll still sit for 2-3 days on standby no problem.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[Nospam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephonovich ...Every now and then (monthly or so, maybe quarterly if you don't use the device that often) you may want to run it all the way down or near, and then charge it. Not for memory effect (which doesn't exist on Li-Ion, and only existed on NiCad under certain conditions that most home users never met), but because the onboard battery monitoring can get mucked up if you don't do this. (so I've read)... (-:Stephonovich

Yeah, I've read about this too, and I've seen it happen with laptop batteries. However, you want to be careful about doing this too often. Li-Ions don't like to be run down all the way; it shortens their already short life.

BTW, ever notice that with each new type of "better" battery, the charge-recharge cycles seem to get cut in half?

 

[Stephonovich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nospam Yeah, I've read about this too, and I've seen it happen with laptop batteries. However, you want to be careful about doing this too often. Li-Ions don't like to be run down all the way; it shortens their already short life. BTW, ever notice that with each new type of "better" battery, the charge-recharge cycles seem to get cut in half?

Yeah, I usually don't run 'em all the way if I can help it. 25% or so. As I said, it usually happens just from using the phone and forgetting to charge it.

As for the one step forward two steps backwards, yeah, it does. NiCads can be charged thousands of times; NiMH is around 1000 times, Li-Ion is about 500 times, and I think Lithium Polymer is even worse. Still, that's what you get for smaller, lighter, and more powerful.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[BlindTiger]

I know you' all talking bout the advanced batteries like li on and ni mh but I just made some battery packs for my commercial band hand held radio using nicads.
I was told to slow cycle them 3 times. Charging at around 50ma for 24 hrs then using it to drain and again two more times. They are still advanced cells that were matched and 1200mah.
And, I was just going to slap them in my one hour quick charger. anyway, I've noticed increased run time each time the pack was cycled so I'm glad I did it.

 

[skitlets]

Thanks for the help. I was scared I might have hurt the Dell's 20 hour run time

 

[Skipinder]

This page from batteryuniversity .com might help answer some of your questions, http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm