How to prolong li-ion batteries
A lithium-ion battery such as toshiba laptop battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery e.g. PA3331U-1BRS more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.
Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as “digital memory”. Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery’s state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate.
The memory effect in batteries if caused by recharging and is hard to avoid. Inside the battery is chemicals that react to combine into a new substance giving off electricity for your laptop in the process. When you recharge your battery you are splitting the newly formed substance back into its original forms.But each time you recharge it, a little bit doesnt convert back to the orginal form, and this builds up over time. Eventually you will notice that it would hold charge for as long, this is because there is less substances to combine.
To aviod this build up, you can do a few simple things,
1) Dont abuse the fact that it has a battery - If you can run it off the power supply then do so. Run it off the power supply WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
2) If you have to use it on battery, dont just empty the charge say… 25% of the way and then recharge it, use it as much as you can. You dont have to run it flat, but more before recharging is better.
If worst comes to worst and it is significantly decreasing you could always fork out a few $ and buy a new battery e.g. PA3331U-1BRS.
