[P1] Accidental battery life development, continued

[Wiebe Wilbers]

I must say I agree with Joe on this one too... I haven't had this iBook 500
long enough to test the problem, but I have a lithium ion battery in a
mobile phone, which I only charge when it starts to ask for it (i.e., it
says 'battery low' every 1/2 hour or so) My friend, with a similar phone,
doesn't wait, but rather charges his phone every night. My phone still holds
about a weeks charge, whereas his doesn't go more than 2 days. This is after
one year of use by the way.

I realise mobile phones are off-topic for the list, but I thought batteries
would be OK :-)

Meanwhile, I posted here asking for advice on reviving a battery: I tried
the 
 thing in open firmware, which made a small difference, but the original
battery with this machine still won't hold more than 30-40 minutes of
charge. I think it is destined to be nothing more than a REAL emergency
battery... :(

Wiebe.


On 18/7/03 12:34 AM, "Joe Jones" <joham at jo-ham.com> wrote:

> I'm afraid I beg to differ here.
> 
> Lithium batteries have a finite number of recharge cycles, and they do
> need to be conditioned to keep them at peak capacity. There's no
> counter that runs down to zero and then kills the battery, but you're
> only going to get 500 or so charges out of it. Every month you're
> supposed to run the battery down until the computer goes to sleep on
> its own, then charge it up to full.
> 
> I make a habit of never charging my battery unless the sleep warning
> comes on (at about 7% charge). As a result, over a year later my
> battery still gives me 5 hours per full charge if I'm careful (ie, no
> DVD watching with the screen on full brightness).
> 
> Joe
> 
> On Thursday, Jul 17, 2003, at 08:37 Europe/London, Zoki wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> *** One thing **NOT** to do with the new batteries like the icebook's,
>> and
>> this should be a note with flashing lights around it on every desk, is
>> <flash> **NOT** </flash> to drain it to zero. These batteries do not
>> have a
>> memory and they can be charged when they're half empty. Same thing
>> with the
>> iPod's batt.