Saturday, January 24, 2009

To Charge or Not to Charge


It seems to me that many of my eletronic items have very poor battery life. And these are top of the line items, like my Mac Book or my Canon digital camera. It's frustrating because I've done my research on my products and these are not suppose to have short battery life. Well it turns out, I was doing something very wrong. I was over charging my batteries for these items.

In an article on realsimple.com, they discuss how long you should actually charge your battery. It turns out the type of battery is important to know how and when to charge it. If your battery is an lithium ion battery, then charge the battery as often as you need. However, don't fully charge them when you have to store the item for a long time. Basically, if you must store an item, keep it stored with its batter partially charged but never fully charged.

If the battery is a nickel metal hydride battery, which are common among digital cameras and laptops, then a monthly deep discharge will prolong the battery life. This deep discharge means letting your battery drain away fully, then recharge the battery to maximum capacity again. The same holds true for nickel cadmium battery, common among power drill and cordless phones. These also do best when the battery undergoes a monthly deep discharge.

All this seems like a lot of informatin and a lot of work, but think about the money you'll be saving on battery or product replacement! Just learn what type of battery your product use, which should be on the owner's manual, and follow the simples steps to preserve the battery life.

Orginal article
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