"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
There's no such thing as "memory effect" but there are other problems
with similar symptoms:
<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect>
I am generally suspicious of urban legends, but that of "nicad memory" goes
back at least 50 years. I remember reading (in trade magazines) about
rechargeable toothbrushes "losing" their capacity until being run down. I
didn't disbelieve it then, and I don't disbelieve it now.
There's no way to "fix" a dead or dying battery.
You probably don't remember Motorola's (I think) charger for Honeywell
electronic flashes. It used "pulse" charging -- a heavy burst of current,
followed by briefly shorting the battery. Bert Keppler reported in "Modern
Photography" that it did, indeed, "heal" or "fix" older battery packs with
degraded performance.
There is also a wide variety of good (and bad) advice on how to extend
your battery life. See the various articles at:
<
http://www.batteryuniversity.com>
<
http://gizmodo.com/5952938/everything-you-need-to-know-about-batteries>
I find that the limiting factor to battery life is the charger design,
especially the EOC (end-o-charge) detection. Rather than think about
how one would extend battery life, think about all the ways one could
intentionally destroy a battery with a charger. For example:
1. Charge beyond 100% capacity.
2. Forget to turn off.
3. Re-start the charge cycle when the AC power hiccups.
4. No battery cooling.
5. Quick charge a battery that can't take a quick charge.
6. Overly simplistic charging circuit without stages or EOC
detection.
7. Failure to recognize a dead battery and charge it anyway.
8. EOC detection by battery heating. If the battery gets warm, it's
already overcharged.
9. Failure to recognize that the battery is under load, such as
operating a cell phone while charging.
10. No accommodation for Li-Ion battery inflation when charged.
11. etc.
No argument with any of this.
I've seen all of these in various devices. The problem is that
manufacturers believe consumers are more interested in fast charge
times and long run times, than they are in battery life. So, they set
the charge controller to as close to 100.0% as possible, and charge to
this point as fast as possible. The result is short battery life.
Fortunately, some laptop manufacturers now have a setting in the CMOS
to allow charging to something less than 100.0% in order to extend
battery life.
Two points... Some (if not many) li-ion battery packs have their own chargers.
(The pack for my PDA does.) This increases the probability the battery will be
correctly charged.
When plugged into the charger, my HP notebook won't charge the battery if it's
at 95% capacity or higher. It has to discharge below 95% before the charger
attempts to top it off.
Note that the acceptable range of charge and temperature (green area)
is outside of where literally all users and chargers operate Li-Ion
batteries.
I think you're misreading the graph. The temperature is in Celsius, not
Fahrenheit.