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Modern Lithium Ion Batteries

F

Father Justin

Flightless Bird
Normally I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. However when the Holy
Spirit is on vacation I rely on a Lithium Ion battery to power my laptop.
Do they eventually stop charging? Back in the days of NiCd and NiMH,
batteries would be able to charge and discharge X number of times.
Is this still true for LiION? One time I received a usenet tip to reset
a setting in the laptop's bios, and freeze the battery that wouldn't
hold a charge. After the battery was frozen for 24 hours, it was
brought to room temperature, charged and seemed to work fine - including
holding a charge again. Does that old school trick still work?

--
http://www.vatican.va
 
B

Barry Watzman

Flightless Bird
Lithium batteries have a finite number of charge-discharge cycles; the
number varies but is typically in the mid-hundreds.

You do not have to worry about "memory effect" that was an issue with
NiCD batteries. In fact, practices that were used with NiCads are
actually harmful to Lithium batteries.

If the laptop is plugged in all the time, remove the battery. Being
continuously installed in a laptop that is always plugged in will
destroy the battery over a period of 6 to 24 months. The culprit is a
combination of exposure to high temperatures and over charging, but over
a decade of user experience makes it clear that removing the battery is
the best thing to do on the vast majority of laptop models. [Note, the
battery does need to be "exercised" every 60 or 90 days.]

I've never heard of your freezing trick. I would not recommend that for
a lithium battery, indeed actually freezing the battery (below 32
degrees F) will possibly damage it. Some laptops have battery
calibration software, either in Windows, the BIOS or on a utility
program, I'd say that most don't. Some laptops will "recalibrate" the
battery if you do a full charge-discharge cycle, also, but only some
laptops, not all.


Father Justin wrote:
> Normally I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. However when the Holy
> Spirit is on vacation I rely on a Lithium Ion battery to power my laptop.
> Do they eventually stop charging? Back in the days of NiCd and NiMH,
> batteries would be able to charge and discharge X number of times.
> Is this still true for LiION? One time I received a usenet tip to reset
> a setting in the laptop's bios, and freeze the battery that wouldn't
> hold a charge. After the battery was frozen for 24 hours, it was
> brought to room temperature, charged and seemed to work fine - including
> holding a charge again. Does that old school trick still work?
>
 
M

M.I.5¾

Flightless Bird
"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:higt7s$4vr$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> Lithium batteries have a finite number of charge-discharge cycles; the
> number varies but is typically in the mid-hundreds.
>
> You do not have to worry about "memory effect" that was an issue with NiCD
> batteries. In fact, practices that were used with NiCads are actually
> harmful to Lithium batteries.
>


Agreed. I still cringe when salesmen tell me to charge the battery for at
least 24 hours the first time you charge it. Fortunately the charge circuit
won't actually let you.

> If the laptop is plugged in all the time, remove the battery. Being
> continuously installed in a laptop that is always plugged in will destroy
> the battery over a period of 6 to 24 months. The culprit is a combination
> of exposure to high temperatures and over charging, but over a decade of
> user experience makes it clear that removing the battery is the best thing
> to do on the vast majority of laptop models. [Note, the battery does need
> to be "exercised" every 60 or 90 days.]
>


Information is surprisingly scant here (especially from the battery
manufacturers). My personal belief is that it is purely the heat aspect
that destroys the batteries. If the charge circuit is correctly designed it
should not be possible to overcharge the battery. Li-ion batteries are
destroyed by even moderate amounts of heat. This may be because the boiling
point of the electrolyte is just 34 °C and raising the temperature to
anywhere near this level will almost certainly stress the cell structure.

The available information in the aerospace industry is that the batteries
should be fully cycled every 45 days. However, the lack of information
means that I can no more *prove* that figure is correct than Barry's is
wrong. Having said that, I have several examples of batteries that are now
over 15 years old and still have almost their full capacity that have not
been regularly so charged and discharged (and I doubt that one has ever been
charged and discharged more than a dozen times).

Since the life of a laptop is rarely that long (or anywhere close), the
prevailing wisdom is to remove the battery when on AC and regularly
charge/discharge it.

> I've never heard of your freezing trick. I would not recommend that for a
> lithium battery, indeed actually freezing the battery (below 32 degrees F)
> will possibly damage it. Some laptops have battery calibration software,
> either in Windows, the BIOS or on a utility program, I'd say that most
> don't. Some laptops will "recalibrate" the battery if you do a full
> charge-discharge cycle, also, but only some laptops, not all.
>


The one piece of information that is known is that batteries should never be
placed or stored in a freezer. One discredited source did claim that
batteries should be stored in fridge when not in use (and repeated in many
other places). Quite why batteries should not be stored in a freezer is not
clear as the electrolyte doesn't freeze until cooled to -116 °C.

>
> Father Justin wrote:
>> Normally I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. However when the Holy
>> Spirit is on vacation I rely on a Lithium Ion battery to power my laptop.
>> Do they eventually stop charging? Back in the days of NiCd and NiMH,
>> batteries would be able to charge and discharge X number of times.
>> Is this still true for LiION? One time I received a usenet tip to reset
>> a setting in the laptop's bios, and freeze the battery that wouldn't hold
>> a charge. After the battery was frozen for 24 hours, it was brought to
>> room temperature, charged and seemed to work fine - including holding a
>> charge again. Does that old school trick still work?
>>
 
F

Father Justin

Flightless Bird
On 1/11/10 11:19 PM, Barry Watzman wrote:
> Lithium batteries have a finite number of charge-discharge cycles; the
> number varies but is typically in the mid-hundreds.
>
> You do not have to worry about "memory effect" that was an issue with
> NiCD batteries. In fact, practices that were used with NiCads are
> actually harmful to Lithium batteries.
>
> If the laptop is plugged in all the time, remove the battery. Being
> continuously installed in a laptop that is always plugged in will
> destroy the battery over a period of 6 to 24 months. The culprit is a
> combination of exposure to high temperatures and over charging, but over
> a decade of user experience makes it clear that removing the battery is
> the best thing to do on the vast majority of laptop models. [Note, the
> battery does need to be "exercised" every 60 or 90 days.]


That I didn't know. I consistently wear my Macbook Pro 15" battery to
the brink of shutting down - and charge it overnight.

>
> I've never heard of your freezing trick. I would not recommend that for
> a lithium battery, indeed actually freezing the battery (below 32
> degrees F) will possibly damage it. Some laptops have battery
> calibration software, either in Windows, the BIOS or on a utility
> program, I'd say that most don't. Some laptops will "recalibrate" the
> battery if you do a full charge-discharge cycle, also, but only some
> laptops, not all.


It was a trick to buy some time. I think it only worked once - then it
was time to toss the battery into the closest river.
Bless you, my son.

--
http://www.vatican.va
 
C

Charlie Hoffpauir

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:32:06 -0500, Father Justin
<justin@nobecauseihatespam.com> wrote:

<snip>
>It was a trick to buy some time. I think it only worked once - then it
>was time to toss the battery into the closest river.
>Bless you, my son.


Hopefully you are just kidding about the river... I can't think of a
worse place to put a spent battery.
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <n6nsk5dt9bhm2q4ctu0ops2r4f9o7tvf7g@4ax.com>,
Charlie Hoffpauir <invalid@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>Hopefully you are just kidding about the river... I can't think of a
>worse place to put a spent battery.


Fireplace!
 
B

Barry Watzman

Flightless Bird
Lithium + Water = HELL FIRE !!

== SERIOUSLY, and literally ==

Father Justin wrote:

>
> It was a trick to buy some time. I think it only worked once - then it
> was time to toss the battery into the closest river.
> Bless you, my son.
>
 
M

mike

Flightless Bird
Father Justin wrote:
> On 1/11/10 11:19 PM, Barry Watzman wrote:
>> Lithium batteries have a finite number of charge-discharge cycles; the
>> number varies but is typically in the mid-hundreds.
>>
>> You do not have to worry about "memory effect" that was an issue with
>> NiCD batteries. In fact, practices that were used with NiCads are
>> actually harmful to Lithium batteries.
>>
>> If the laptop is plugged in all the time, remove the battery. Being
>> continuously installed in a laptop that is always plugged in will
>> destroy the battery over a period of 6 to 24 months. The culprit is a
>> combination of exposure to high temperatures and over charging, but over
>> a decade of user experience makes it clear that removing the battery is
>> the best thing to do on the vast majority of laptop models. [Note, the
>> battery does need to be "exercised" every 60 or 90 days.]

>
> That I didn't know. I consistently wear my Macbook Pro 15" battery to
> the brink of shutting down - and charge it overnight.
>

I think you have to run it until it ACTUALLY DOES shut down to make any
difference. But I know nothing about Mac's
 
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