//Batteries and questions about them\\ - General Questions and Answers

I have been studying and researching about batteries to find out how treat them. Even thought I have found many different opinions I have learnt something. However I still have some questions on which I haven't got answer.
Currently I own 2types of rechargeable batteries(actually 3 but those NiCD's I have are useless since they are 600mAh), new (hybrid)NiMH SANYO eneloop AA and AAA series that I bought recently and other Li-ion battery which is in my phone(950mAh).
So what I know about those new (hybrid)NiMH SANYO eneloop batteries is that they are ready to use batteries which means I can directly put them into device when I bough them without needing to charge them before, but I don't know how should I care about them later. Should I charge them when capacity reaches 10% or less or should I charge them more frequently(like Li-ion), also does these batteries have no, small or full memory effect(remember those are new hybrid NiMH series)?
OK now Li-ion batteries I know they have no memory effect and that it is better to charge them more frequently and that I should fully charge and discharge them every 30 days or so. However I don't know what to do with them when I buy them brand new(separately or with new phone) should I first charge them to full and than use the phone/device or should I first turn on device and discharge battery and then fully charge battery to reset the digital circuit of a 'smart' battery to improve the state-of-charge estimation?

Anybody can help?

Related

Early Battery Care

I know you want the phone's battery to fully charge and fully drain, but which do I start with? It comes with a partial charge... so should I charge it first? Or drain it first?
Thanks.
thehyecircus said:
I know you want the phone's battery to fully charge and fully drain, but which do I start with? It comes with a partial charge... so should I charge it first? Or drain it first?
Thanks.
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i always charge my phone before using it for the first time.. then let it drain completely then charge it completely. i try to do this a couple times. So far it's worked out for me on all my electronic devices... never had battery problems.
Please do not ruin your batteries as far as i know Lithium-Ion batteries don't need to be drained and charged.
Go down to the second bulleted list, the third bullet
I have never ran my battery completely down, and my Kaiser will last for a full day, and i use it a fair amount.
Wow. Thats good to know.
from my understanding it's mandatory for NiCad batteries to be fully drained but Li-Ion are not. :-D i don't want anyone to have a dead battery :-D
mikemorris said:
Please do not ruin your batteries as far as i know Lithium-Ion batteries don't need to be drained and charged.
Go down to the second bulleted list, the third bullet
I have never ran my battery completely down, and my Kaiser will last for a full day, and i use it a fair amount.
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LMAO.
From the above link:
"-If you completely discharge a lithium-ion battery, it is ruined.
-There is a small chance that, if a lithium-ion battery pack fails, it will burst into flame."
They should be a bit more specific. Lots of people probably think there battery is "completely discharged" when it won't turn on there phone.
Be sure you put it on the charger when you get the low battery notification, or else it may burst into flames!
thehyecircus said:
I know you want the phone's battery to fully charge and fully drain, but which do I start with? It comes with a partial charge... so should I charge it first? Or drain it first?
Thanks.
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If you want to prolong the life of your Lithium-Ion battery, DO NOT let it fully drain. This will decrease your battery's overall charge capacity and you'll find yourself having to recharge more frequently. I'm an electrical engineer by education and profession, so here are a few quick points:
1) You do not have to power cycle a Li-Ion battery. Charge it when it drops to about 70% and typically you don't want it to drop below 50%; extremely low voltage levels could render Li-Ion batteries useless because of the internal circuitry.
2) Charge slowly, with a low current, if possible and avoid rapid chargers.
3) Don't leave your battery charging, unnecessarily, when it is already full--this will also diminish it's maximum potential more rapidly. Only charge it when it needs it and unplug it when at 100%.
4) Keep it away from hot environments (e.g. don't leave it sitting in a black car on a hot Summer day, etc.). Heat kills batteries, along with all electronics.
Battery University is a good resource if you're looking for more information on how to take care of your batteries or just want to understand how they work. Hope this helps.
weaselcossey said:
LMAO.
From the above link:
"-If you completely discharge a lithium-ion battery, it is ruined.
-There is a small chance that, if a lithium-ion battery pack fails, it will burst into flame."
They should be a bit more specific. Lots of people probably think there battery is "completely discharged" when it won't turn on there phone.
Be sure you put it on the charger when you get the low battery notification, or else it may burst into flames!
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It's actually true that a heavily depleted Li-Ion battery may burst into flames. Li-Ion batteries have a much higher energy density than Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries, and a if they lose too much of their charge, their internal circuitry may become damaged. They should have been more specific in that link, but you should definitely be cautious with Li-Ion battery handling. If it wasn't for the voltage/current regulating circuitry protecting the cells of Li-Ion batteries, they could very well be considered bombs.
So I usually plug my phone in when I come home and unplug it when I leave. Thats bad for my battery? How do I stop it when it reaches 100%?
Man oh man have I been misinformed.
I have ALWAYS heard to drain it fully, then charge it fully...
Fu*kin sh*t!!! I've been destroying li-ion batteries for as long as I've been using them.
So, once you've drained it once it's bad for good, or what?
thehyecircus said:
So I usually plug my phone in when I come home and unplug it when I leave. Thats bad for my battery? How do I stop it when it reaches 100%?
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That's potentially bad for your battery. The protection circuitry in Li-Ion batteries these days are refined enough to prevent overcharging, but leaving it plugged in can still make it build up heat, which I mentioned won't help you. For the average cell phone battery, the typical charge time is about 3 hours for a full cycle. So that being the case, my best advice for you is to check your phone's charge indicator after a few hours and unplug it if it shows it's at 100%.
Lithium-ion battery lifespans are inherently limited by their manufactured date and by the finite number of charge cycles (one charge cycle is considered the charging from 0% to 100%). So if you deplete your battery by 25% each day and recharge to 100% each night, it would take 4 iterations of this process to complete one cycle. Over the course of using your battery you can expect the off-the-shelf maximum potential to decrease by about 20% each year.
r603 said:
Man oh man have I been misinformed.
I have ALWAYS heard to drain it fully, then charge it fully...
Fu*kin sh*t!!! I've been destroying li-ion batteries for as long as I've been using them.
So, once you've drained it once it's bad for good, or what?
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Power cycling by fully draining is good practice for NiMH batteries, since they have different properties. But again, for Li-Ion batteries you should avoid doing this. One full depletion may not destroy it necessarily, but there's a good chance that it will have become damaged. This depends on the battery manufacturer's build quality and specifications. You can pretty much be guaranteed a permanently reduced total capacity with a complete discharge though, sorry to say But I guess now you know for future practice to steer clear of the full drain.
orlandojumpoff said:
i always charge my phone before using it for the first time.. then let it drain completely then charge it completely. i try to do this a couple times. So far it's worked out for me on all my electronic devices... never had battery problems.
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Just FYI, most batteries that are included with new cell phones are pre-charged to approximately 70% in order to maintain a charge above the protection circuit breakdown voltage. The end-user shouldn't have any problems just using the battery out of the box, in this state, but it's a good idea to charge the phone before the first use, just to make sure you're starting from a good reference voltage. Lots of manufacturers include charging recommendations with their lithium-ion batteries stating something along the line that the first charge should be 8+ hours. This is excessive and unnecessary. They probably had some inventory of those notes for some older battery technology or carrying on an obsolete heritage practice. All you have to do is let the phone charge till the full-charge indicator lights up.
Power cycling is helpful from time to time to calibrate the sensor (which is different from the reason you want to do this for nicd)
For everyday use, just charge it whenever you can
It's batteries these days are smart enough to not recharge when already full
I'd carry a retractable mini usb cable to charge it frequently (this will help reduce # of cycles used)
Honestly, I think one of the biggest advantage of having a user-replaceable battery is the fact that you could use the phone without worrying too much about all this
I go by the "I'll put my convenience over the battery's" mentality
Dramacydle said:
Just FYI, most batteries that are included with new cell phones are pre-charged to approximately 70% in order to maintain a charge above the protection circuit breakdown voltage. The end-user shouldn't have any problems just using the battery out of the box, in this state, but it's a good idea to charge the phone before the first use, just to make sure you're starting from a good reference voltage. Lots of manufacturers include charging recommendations with their lithium-ion batteries stating something along the line that the first charge should be 8+ hours. This is excessive and unnecessary. They probably had some inventory of those notes for some older battery technology or carrying on an obsolete heritage practice. All you have to do is let the phone charge till the full-charge indicator lights up.
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The initial overcharge and draining is to compensate for the meter's accuracy (or the lack of it) when a battery is first installed
It's entirely possible for the device to report 0% when the battery is actually alive and well
For example, IBM (now Lenovo) has a little software for their laptops that alerts the user when such power cycling is helpful, and so far, I've benefited from it
We should get such software on Windows Mobile!
How much do you think batteries for this phone will cost? And I'm assuming my local AT&T stores will carry them.
Dramacydle said:
3) Don't leave your battery charging, unnecessarily, when it is already full--this will also diminish it's maximum potential more rapidly. Only charge it when it needs it and unplug it when at 100%.
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Sorry, but as far as I know if the battery meter is 100% the device will prevent overcharging. If you let the device charging overnight in the morning the device will have a normal temperature (it's not getting hot as you said in other post), thus the device doesn't get more that it needs.
thehyecircus said:
We should get such software on Windows Mobile!
How much do you think batteries for this phone will cost? And I'm assuming my local AT&T stores will carry them.
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I can't vouche for the quality, but batteries out of Hong Kong are available at 2 for just under $20 (including shipping) on eBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Battery-x2-for-...14&_trkparms=72:1205|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318
thehyecircus said:
How much do you think batteries for this phone will cost? And I'm assuming my local AT&T stores will carry them.
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According to the leaked documents from a few days ago, the retail price for the standard battery via AT&T will be $42.00 and $65.00 for the extended battery.
Obviously you can do much better than that with non-OEM products, as noted elsewhere in this thread.
weaselcossey said:
LMAO.
From the above link:
"-If you completely discharge a lithium-ion battery, it is ruined.
-There is a small chance that, if a lithium-ion battery pack fails, it will burst into flame."
They should be a bit more specific. Lots of people probably think there battery is "completely discharged" when it won't turn on there phone.
Be sure you put it on the charger when you get the low battery notification, or else it may burst into flames!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's actually true that a heavily depleted Li-Ion battery may burst into flames. Li-Ion batteries have a much higher energy density than Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries, and a if they lose too much of their charge, their internal circuitry may become damaged. They should have been more specific in that link, but you should definitely be cautious with Li-Ion battery handling. If it wasn't for the voltage/current regulating circuitry protecting the cells of Li-Ion batteries, they could very well be considered bombs.
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I understand, but I think you would agree that the general public probably doesn't understand what "completely discharged" or "heavily depleted" battery really means when we're talking about cell phone batteries becoming flaming bombs.
I just thought there wording was pretty funny.
Strangely I found that after a full charge at night, if I continue to charge via usb either in my car or on my computer for several hours, the battery will last all day with only very little loss...like 10%.
This also works if I hook my phone to the computer when I get home around 6pm and then hook up to wall plug by my bed (I use it for my alarm) it will also work!
Otherwise with just the single night charge (7hrs) it only will last about 12hrs.
I think the Fuze's circuitry shuts off charging before it is fully charged. I'm ordering a seperate battery charger (I have 2 HTC batteries) when the charger comes in I will see if it does a better job than the phone.
Anyone else have similar stories?

Is it true charging li-ion no more than 80% increase its life?

From http://www.wmskins.com/blog/how-to-increase-battery-life-of-windows-mobiles:
1. A Lithium Ion battery should never be charged to 100% or fully Discharged. The famous 80-20 rule is applicable here as well, though in a different way. Charging to 80% increases battery life.
2. Don’t wait for full discharge, charge it frequently. Keeping the battery near to 80% always, gives better life. This is also what many vendors claim as “memory effect”.
I followed that advice and then after a few weeks, when once I charged it to 100%, it dropped quickly to 80%! and has been like that since. now I don't give a damn to that rule and charge my phone to 100% instead.
At this point, I would advise you do a full charge and deep discharge of your phone. Just to allow the phone to calibrate itself to the battery again.
However, I would advise against running programs to intentionally drain it at a high draw. So instead of playing 5 hours of FPSECE to drain it flat, just let it sit on standby and use it as you normally would, until it dies. Then charge it back up in one continuous charge (refrain from unplugging until it goes back to 100%). Hopefully that will restore the accuracy of your battery meter by a bit.
And IMHO, the article you included discusses things about batteries that are no longer true....
2. Don’t wait for full discharge, charge it frequently. Keeping the battery near to 80% always, gives better life. This is also what many vendors claim as “memory effect”.
No. "Memory effect" is, in laymen terms, the battery not being able to hold above a certain charge after being repeatedly discharged from the same capacity. E.g. being discharged at 80%. It doesn't "give battery life" -- in fact it kills your battery's capacity.
This is a term more relevant for old NiCd batteries. LiONs and most NiMH batteries have very weak/no memory effect.
3. Every battery has limited Full charge-discharge cycles. Of the order of 300+. In other words a typical phone battery can be fully charged/discharged 300 times. Doing more frequent charges, as specified in point #2, will increase overall life.
Partially true. Every battery can be charged a number of times before its ability to hold a charge deteriorates. Usually this is around 300, though the exact number varies between individual batteries. However, the concept of a "cycle" isn't exact -- just because you charged from 60-80% (or whatever) doesn't mean you didn't use a cycle. It's really a continuum, and should only be conceptualized as the battery losing its ability to be charged and hold a charge, the more times you charge it.
4. During first time use (when the battery is new) don`t use it till its fully charged. This is why it is always written on manuals “let the device charge for 2-3 hours”.
The necessity of preconditioning is controversial now. There is little evidence to suggest that devices nowadays benefit from preconditioning, and likewise there is little evidence that not doing so harms battery longevity. Many manuals these days simply omit to mention preconditioning.
5. Best way to increase battery life is Not to use it. If you keep AC power plugged in on your phones, keeping the battery at 80% (as in #1), your battery will last longer. Though discharging it once in a month would be must in such cases.
Partially true. Not using your battery does indeed help its longevity, but not by plugging into the AC. Heat is a LiON battery's enemy, and plugging it into your wall will generate heat that is ultimately bad. This translates to laptop batteries as well -- if you want to store a laptop battery, the best bet is to discharge it to 40%, then put it somewhere cool (even the fridge if you want).
Also I would say doing a deep discharge once a month is too frequent. Once every 2 or even 3 months is more appropriate.
Finally, LiON batteries themselves have a shelf life. So even if you let them sit there, they will lose their function after a few years. Just so yo uknow.
6. Surrounding temperature contributes a lot. Colder weather gives better battery life. So make sure your cellphone doesn’t overheat, if it does, find ways to keep it cool.
True. And that's why you shouldn't leave it plugged in.
Learn more about batteries here: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/
felixdd said:
E.g. being discharged at 80%. It doesn't "give battery life" -- in fact it kills your battery's capacity.
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is that so? why? so i guess now my battery's capacity has lessened. damn the article.
have drained my battery to 1% and charged it to 100%. let's see how it goes from here..
good subject for discusion. WM user or not the battery life and the tricks of LION only a few knows.
1.i have two batteries for my HTC. he original battery and one with 2800mAh. Does my phone cofused if i change tha batteries aternately?
2. if ai want to work with my phone for hours is it better to connect it with the charger?
3. Wich kind of charging is better? with USB cable from pc or wall charger.
I have the option in my BIOS for my laptop which says an 80% charge will prolong the lifespan of the battery.
Batteries must undergo a fair bit of research (for environmental impact reasons if nothing else!) and to have such a bold statement to me indicates that its an obvious fact to battery researchers.
Given ive lay in bed this morning messing about on facebook and setting up rss feeds on my phone and emptied a full battery I dont think Id ever stop charging at 80%. Ill just buy another battery!
i really doubt cold weather improves battery life, numerous times my family and I brought electronic products to cold countries and the Battery life always drops at a much quicker rate
dan138zig said:
is that so? why? so i guess now my battery's capacity has lessened. damn the article.
have drained my battery to 1% and charged it to 100%. let's see how it goes from here..
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You are taking what i said out of context.
What I'm saying is that IF your battery had a memory effect as the original article claimed, then charging the battery to only 80 will create a memory at 80, which would be worse for your battery. I'm merely trying to point out an inconsistency in there article.
However, I went on to say that li ON batteries do not have a memory effect. So more relevant to the real world is the fact that our batteries will not experience memory as claimed by the article.
Two main things kill lithium batteries, heat and time as they promote deposits forming in the electrolyte, which reduces the capacity of the battery.
So, buying a "spare" battery at the time you buy a phone with a plan on using it when the original battery starts to fail is a bad idea as the spare battery would be slowly deterorating on the shelf.
Deep charges rather than top up charges are bad as they produce more heat inside the battery, although doing it if your battery doesn't seem to be holding it's chage is a good idea as it should recalibrate the phone's battery level software.
To paraphrase the old saying, " blogs and opinions are like a##holes, everyone has one "
I have followed the links in this thread and so far I have just read unsubstantiated opinion.
I have used " cordless " electronics for most of my life and have used all kinds of batteries extensively as well as talked to company reps and battery " experts ".
Nickel Cadmium batteries had memories. The batteries had to be conditioned and fully charged and discharged. The new Lithium Ion batteries were advantageous , not only because they held a bigger charge and lasted longer, but also because they have NO memory. The latest example being, I regularly charged my Tilt battery to all levels of charge. Mostly 100% everyday and ran it down to 5% most times before charging it again. I used it a lot and charged it a lot. and it lasted 2 yrs.
The only difference I have really noticed in batteries has nothing to do with the way you charge it. It has to do with " getting what you pay for " I have had quality batteries really show their quality and $ 12 batteries give me up to and only my $12 worth.
Charging Lithium Ion Batteries to 80%
denco7 said:
To paraphrase the old saying, " blogs and opinions are like a##holes, everyone has one "
I have followed the links in this thread and so far I have just read unsubstantiated opinion.
I have used " cordless " electronics for most of my life and have used all kinds of batteries extensively as well as talked to company reps and battery " experts ".
Nickel Cadmium batteries had memories. The batteries had to be conditioned and fully charged and discharged. The new Lithium Ion batteries were advantageous , not only because they held a bigger charge and lasted longer, but also because they have NO memory. The latest example being, I regularly charged my Tilt battery to all levels of charge. Mostly 100% everyday and ran it down to 5% most times before charging it again. I used it a lot and charged it a lot. and it lasted 2 yrs.
The only difference I have really noticed in batteries has nothing to do with the way you charge it. It has to do with " getting what you pay for " I have had quality batteries really show their quality and $ 12 batteries give me up to and only my $12 worth.
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I have a Nissan Leaf. It is clear that the engineers have spent a LOT of time thinking about how to maximize the life of the battery in the car. One of the options the car come with is to ALWAYS charge the batteries to 80%. In fact, they've gone as far as to add a button on the dashboard to override that setting in cases where a 100% charge is needed. According to the documentation that comes with the car, this is the single most important step to prolonging battery life. Next is frequent charges. Next is monitoring battery temperature which is constantly shown in a BIG display on the dashboard. In general, a good way to think about a lithium ion battery is that over its life you're trying to maximize the amount of power stored and then subsequently removed from the device. From the research I've done, if the "charging/discharging life" of the battery were cycles that swung from 100% to 0% you might get X kwHrs of power "moved" through the battery, yet if you were to limit charges to 80% and constantly charge it after each use, you could expect at least 2X! So it's a big deal. I live in Bellevue, Washington which has a very mild climate and have put 26,000 miles on this car in the last 2 years, making mostly small 3-to-20 mile trips, and I routinely charge the car when I pull into the garage, and would estimate that the battery has been charged well over 1000 times. To date, there is no detectable loss in battery capacity; the first indication of which would appear on the car's instrumentation when just over 4% of the charging capacity of the car has been lost.
My Sony VAIO Pro 13 actually offers the 80/20 option in Power Settings. However, I do not use it.

[Q] Does hot swapping batteries kill their life over time?

When I first got my Galaxy S3 (Verizon) the OEM battery lasted at least a good 9 or 10 hours, usually plenty to last the day. But I wanted more than that so I got a pack of 2x QCell 2300mAh batteries for cheap on amazon, with one of the wall chargers that you pop the battery into. That was July of last year and I promptly lost one of the batts at school, so in May of this year I got another pack of 2 batts, this time EZOPower, 2100mAh.
Both brands worked pretty well while I had them and I would generally just start the day taking my GS3 off the charger and putting the extra battery in my pocket, and at ~8pm or so I'd switch them out and have more than enough for the rest of the day, and some for the next day if I didn't make it home for some reason that night.
But recently that time to switch has been creeping down earlier and earlier, and lately I've noticed I wake up to the battery icon showing the circle but no percentage (just switched from AOSP to Pacrom, dunno if that makes a difference) and when I take it off it's about 95%. When I switch batts, which is now at about 2 or 3pm if I wake up at 10, the second one (coming off the cheap battery-only wall charger) is at 75% or thereabouts and each lasts less than 5 hours.
Attached are my stats from the other day. I keep all my radios on all day usually but lately I've been having to selectively put it on airplane mode whenever I can afford to, if I want to have enough juice to last through the evening. This sucks. I know batteries die over time but I've literally had these ones for a few months and they're terrible already. Is it because of my hot swapping habits? Does that drive down the battery life over time, or is it something to do with how android pegs the amount of juice left on each battery? Is there a way to wipe the battery stats, or would that even help? There used to be an option for it in CWM but I looked today and I suppose it's gone. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I've never had battery life this bad on any phone.
tl;dr bought a pair of non-OEM batteries with a wall charger, been hot-swapping them for more power throughout the day, but in just a few months their life is approaching nil. What am I doing wrong?
Bump. Anyone knowledgeable on this? I'm pretty sure it could apply to just about any phone and I know plenty of other people do the same thing I do with these battery pairs on Amazon so this would be useful for progeny.
Do you leave them in the charger until you need them? Usually, the longer a battery charges while it's fully charged, the more the total charge will diminish. So, the longer you keep it charging more than it needs to, the faster the battery dies out. Also, when you get a new rechargeable battery, or even a new phone or tablet with a rechargeable battery in it, the first thing you should do is use it till it's drained. Don't immediately plug it in to the charger. Keep in mind, though, that no matter what you do your batteries will diminish. Cheaply made batteries will diminish faster than higher quality ones, so that may attribute to how fast your batteries are dieing.
I could be wrong, though.
I actually do keep it on the charger long after it's charged. And I have heard that before - but don't most chargers have a built in feature that cuts off the current once the battery is fully charged?
Anyway I'm not sure that's the sole reason for the batteries being so ****ty. Although idk, I also could be wrong, lol.

What is a charge cycle?

A Li-ion battery has a limited numer of charge cycles, but what constitutes a charge cycle? According to some people a charge cycle is used every time the charger is connected. Another opinion is that only a charge from 0 - 100% consumes one charge cycle. So how is it really? If the first assumption is true then one should only charge when the battery is almost emty. If the other one is true then it's ok to charge at any time.
Tom200 said:
A Li-ion battery has a limited numer of charge cycles, but what constitutes a charge cycle? According to some people a charge cycle is used every time the charger is connected. Another opinion is that only a charge from 0 - 100% consumes one charge cycle. So how is it really? If the first assumption is true then one should only charge when the battery is almost emty. If the other one is true then it's ok to charge at any time.
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A charge cycle is the process of charging a rechargeable battery and discharging it as required into a load. The term is typically used to specify a battery's expected life, as the number of charge cycles affects life more than the mere passage of time. Discharging the battery fully before recharging may be called "deep discharge"; partially discharging then recharging may be called "shallow discharge.
Apple Inc. clarifies that a charge cycle means using all the battery's capacity, but not necessarily by full charge and discharge; e.g., using half the charge of a fully charged battery, charging it, and then using the same amount of charge again count as a single charge cycle. -Wikipedia
Hit thanks if I helped
Rumple007 said:
A charge cycle is the process of charging a rechargeable battery and discharging it as required into a load. The term is typically used to specify a battery's expected life, as the number of charge cycles affects life more than the mere passage of time. Discharging the battery fully before recharging may be called "deep discharge"; partially discharging then recharging may be called "shallow discharge.
Apple Inc. clarifies that a charge cycle means using all the battery's capacity, but not necessarily by full charge and discharge; e.g., using half the charge of a fully charged battery, charging it, and then using the same amount of charge again count as a single charge cycle. -Wikipedia
Hit thanks if I helped
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Ok, but that means that charging the battery a lot instead of waiting until it's almost completely drained, shortens its lifespan.
Ideally, a Lithium based battery is "healthiest" at or about mid level. A full charge cycle is technically not 0-100%, as these batteries (at least in consumer electronics) have circuitry built-in to prevent overcharging, overdischarging, and shorts. Overdischarging can cause what's called runaway discharge, where it'll keep discharging even if not connected to anything or the device is turned off. Heat, possible fire, and even explosion. Those Dell and Sony laptops that were catching fire several years ago? That was because the protection circuitry was faulty. And why you should always buy OEM factory batteries, or ones made by reputable companies like Zerolemon or Anker, and not cheap Chinese knockoffs. Hobbiests (flashlights, R/C equipment) often use unprotected batteries since they can get a bit more capacity out of them, but this is dangerous and requires monitoring and judgement.
So the answer is a charge cycle is from 0-100% and back down to 0% (or the opposite; charged, discharged, then charged - depending on your point of view), where 0% is the point where the circuitry within the battery and/or the device itself cuts the power.
There is no need to "condition" lithium rechargeable batteries (ie: fully drain them, don't use until fully charged, etc); this is a holdover from the days of nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cad) batteries, which did require conditioning for optimal performance.
The main destroyer of a lithium battery really isn't even the charge/discharging of it, but rather the heat associated with it. For example, one can keep a battery charging and charged at 95-100% while playing an intense game, downloading a large file, or running a wi-fi hotspot, but this sill quickly destroy the battery, even there's no actual "cycle" happening. The ~500 charge cycle figure assumes a typical usage of training and charging. The reason a battery is "healthiest" at mid levels is that this is where there's the least heat being generated.
Yeah, I have kind of adapted to the thought that charging whenever doesn't impact the battery in a negative way. So if my charge is 80% and I'm going out for the day, I still charge it to full 100%. If however (as the first answer suggests) this consumes an extra cycle then it would be best not to charge it. In the past this didn't matter so much but with many phones these days it's hard or even impossible for the user to replace the battery. This makes the answer to my question more important...
Tom200 said:
Yeah, I have kind of adapted to the thought that charging whenever doesn't impact the battery in a negative way. So if my charge is 80% and I'm going out for the day, I still charge it to full 100%. If however (as the first answer suggests) this consumes an extra cycle then it would be best not to charge it. In the past this didn't matter so much but with many phones these days it's hard or even impossible for the user to replace the battery. This makes the answer to my question more important...
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80-100% is not a cycle, it's 20% of a cycle. However, it is the worst part of the cycle (higher voltages, more heat). Ideally, for the battery's health and longevity over the months/years, it'd be best to keep it between, say, 30-70%. But this is impractical, potentially impossible for some, and, frankly, dangerous.
That's why I'll only buy phones with replaceable batteries. Either instantly, or without terrible difficulty when the battery hits that ~500 cycle mark. I have 3 phones: A Galaxy S4 (with a couple spares, including a 7800mAh Anker), a Nexus 4, which I've replaced the battery on, and a OnePlus One, which I know I can replace if/when I need to. I'll never get something like a S6 or Note5 or iPhone where battery replacement is nigh-impossible.
Planterz said:
80-100% is not a cycle, it's 20% of a cycle. However, it is the worst part of the cycle (higher voltages, more heat). Ideally, for the battery's health and longevity over the months/years, it'd be best to keep it between, say, 30-70%. But this is impractical, potentially impossible for some, and, frankly, dangerous.
That's why I'll only buy phones with replaceable batteries. Either instantly, or without terrible difficulty when the battery hits that ~500 cycle mark. I have 3 phones: A Galaxy S4 (with a couple spares, including a 7800mAh Anker), a Nexus 4, which I've replaced the battery on, and a OnePlus One, which I know I can replace if/when I need to. I'll never get something like a S6 or Note5 or iPhone where battery replacement is nigh-impossible.
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Yeah, it's very annoying that not batteries on all cell phones are user replaceable. And we can exchange them on some phones anyway with a little trouble, but as you write it's completely impossible with some. I put in the charge if my battery is 50% or something and I'm going out later. This should consume only half a a cycle and it's practical for me.
I now charge when the battery is like 75% before I'm going out. Is this ok or should I let the battery drain and then charge? The latter I did for a long time with a phone I had, and the battery had great performance until I sold it.

Some questions.

Hi I bought a new S6 and I got a few questions about it. 1)what will happen if I don't charge it right after starting it for the 1st time? 2)is it okay to keep it connected to the quick charger overnight? 3)is it OK for the battery to be consumed faster than usual in the first few days?. Thanks in advance
Brand new batteries, like long-term-storage Lithium batteries, are best supplied at least half fully charged. It is ok if you don't charge it first time. If you look at unboxings brand new phones on Youtube, they don't bother charging them.
1) It's ok to keep it on charger with the factory charger. Using a 3rd party charger might be risky, because of possible bad manufacturing. 2) Batteries, phones & good chargers have suto-limiting functions built in, to avoid damage caused by any kind og overcharging, or most other mistakes.
3) Battery consumption too fast or too slow is ok, if you choose the software that you want to run, that is consuming so much power. Not sure whether you are complaining about heavy battery consumption? It is very easy to waste battery energy. Perhaps you are doing this?

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