Battery Life Practice

What should i do with my battery to have it live the longest? I was told the few first timing it i should let it completely drain then charge it. Should i leave it completely drain for a few days? Should i have it completely empty or completely full more often then not? etc etc

Solution 1:

A good reference for this is Battery University. They also have a helpful chart that compares each type of battery and how to treat it.

Basically, there are two ways you need to treat a battery depending on what type it is.

If it is Lithium-Ion, it really doesn't matter so much how you charge it. It copes very well with shallow charging and discharging, and never develops memory. The only downside to shallow discharges is that the charge meter may become inaccurate (without affecting actual battery life), but a full discharge followed by a full charge will recalibrate it. Fully discharging the battery on a regular basis may actually be more damaging to it.

If the battery is Ni-Cad or NiMH, then it prefers to be fully discharged then fully charged. If the battery isn't fully charged or discharged, it may develop memory and have less capacity.

Solution 2:

Universal advice is "don't cook the battery, don't prematurely wear it out by mindlessly charging and discharging"

Full charge-discharge cycles create more wear than partial ones.

Storing some types of battery in their flattened state can be very damaging (particularly lead-acid batteries, but also some types of lithium batteries). You end up with a hardened layer of spent chemical on one or the other electrode inside the cells of the battery.

Reasonable quality information can be found here.

I'm assuming this is for a laptop. Newer laptops have better quality charging systems than older ones. More expensive laptops can have better battery management than cheaper ones, but won't necessarily.