[P1] battery

[Life Long Learner]

on 3/1/03 1:19 AM, Ian Sidle at macmouse4 at attbi.com wrote:

> From experiences and some "rumor/rants" on pages
> out there, some say it is better to have li-ion batteries topped of
> (plugged in whenever possible) instead of waiting for the battery to go
> all the way out. Some say it could actually cause damage while others
> say it is just fine. My feeling is at a mid-point (from experience with
> my ibook battery) is draining it all the way won't "hurt" it but it
> will give it less life, because the battery has been ran more not
> because the voltage has dropped.

I've lost the Apple Knowledgebase article on this; however, the basics are:
for long term storage (longer than a month) it's better, but not mandatory,
to store the battery at a lower charge. It's also NOT ever good to
completely drain these batteries. Your laptop won't let you, anyway, it
shuts down when they get nearly drained. It won't completely drain them in
normal use. Recharging a half-full battery or a 3/4 full battery will not
introduce any problems. Recharge when you can.

The worst thing you can do to them is to drop them onto a concrete floor.
Hard drops can damage them and they aren't to be used if there's any sign of
damage.

If you have more than one battery, as I do for the Pismo, I would keep them
both charged and swap them out weekly or twice monthly. They last about 3
years before fading, but that can vary widely.

Jeffrey