Get Most out of your Laptop Battery

Lithium Ion batteries are most used rechargeable battery in Consumer Electronics devices such as Notebooks,MacBooks,SmartPhones and it powers your iPods too.

There are some misconceptions about using your devices to get better battery lifespan.In this articles I am going to break those myths and will let you know the best ways to use your devices to maintain good battery life.

Don’t drain the battery completely

Its a bad idea to drain your battery every time you use.This applicable for people who work with computers all day long.The best practice is to discharge it up to 20% but Its good to keeping it charged when you are working for long time.

Calibrate your battery once in a Month

Most battery producers recommend this practice.Here is how you can calibrate your battery

1. Drain the battery completely till it turns off automatically.
2. Keep it power off for at-least 5 hours after the total discharge.(Keep it in some cool place).
3. Now charge your battery till it gets 100% charged.

Note that this may not be applicable to Smartphones which runs on Lithium Ion batteries.

Take care of your Battery Charge Cycles

There is a big misconception on calculating the battery charge cycle.Most people think that if battery is completely drained then it count as one charge cycle or Charge cycle increases by one every time you recharge the battery.

Neither case is True.Let me illustrate with an example.

Lets say your battery is 60% when you charge it then the charge cycle is counted when its fully charged and discharges again to 60% battery level.

So it is good to discharge it up to 20%-30% before charging it again.

Also it doesn’t mean that after all your charge cycles exploited the battery will be dead.Actually it just losses some percentage of its memory capacity.For example mid 2012 macbook losses 20% of its battery capacity after 1000 charge cycles.

Number of battery cycle depends on your battery type,Most of the modern MacBooks come with 1000 battery cycles and here is how you can see the current battery cycle count.

Contact your device manufacturer to know more about this.

Don’t store the battery Fully charged or Fully Discharged

If you intend to use your notebook rarely then this step applicable to you. Don’t store it full charged for a long time,this may cause battery capacity loss.Similarly it is bad idea to store it fully discharge.Sometimes it may even completely make your battery dead.

Use Hight End applications while your battery getting charged

This is one of the best tip.Never ever use high end applications such as High Graphic games while running on battery.This is may drastically improve your battery capacity and lifespan.

The Temperature matters

Lithium Ion batteries are very sensitive to heat.Its a good practice to keep your battery in cool place.Never expose the battery in sunlight or to other heating devices.

So final Take down

Charge your Battery up to 70-80% and discharge it up to 20-30% before charging it again.

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