[xiaohuaxing]

Hey guys,

I noticed a lot of people posting advice on various threads to let your battery drain completely for a few cycles to maximize battery life. I've done some light research in the past, and I'm no electrical expert, but I believe the consensus is that this is actually very bad for lithium ion batteries. However, it seems letting it run down around once a month is okay, to calibrate the power gauge.


Here are a few sources:

"One of the worst things you can do to a Li-ion battery is to run it out completely all the time. Full discharges put a lot of strain on the battery, and it's much better practice to do shallow discharges to no lower than 20 percent."
Avoid Frequent Discharges to Extend Your Phone or Laptop's Battery Life

"Similar to a mechanical device that wears out faster with heavy use, so also does the depth of discharge (DoD) determine the cycle count. The shorter the discharge (low DoD), the longer the battery will last. If at all possible, avoid full discharges and charge the battery more often between uses."
How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

"Unlike NiCad batteries, lithium-ion batteries do not have a charge memory. That means deep-discharge cycles are not required. In fact, it�s better for the battery to use partial-discharge cycles. [...] If a lithium-ion battery is discharged below 2.5 volts per cell, a safety circuit built into the battery opens and the battery appears to be dead. The original charger will be of no use. Only battery analyzers with the boost function have a chance of recharging the battery."
Five tips for extending lithium-ion battery life | TechRepublic

"Repeatedly discharging the battery to zero doesn�t help a lithium-ion; in fact, it will probably shorten its overall life and capacity."
Ask a Geek: Should I Fully Drain My Laptop Battery Before Recharging It? | Popular Science


Hope this helps

[Omnitech]

Yes, it's amazing how many people pass bad information around.

There have been many threads on this here, but most people probably don't read them. Probably should be put in a FAQ instead.

[kirk0209]

It's convincing, thank you

[allinz10]

Called blackberry help. The technician recommended to charge more than 8 hours and drain it completely to help battery life. Now I may have "injure" my crappy z10 battery even more... sigh

[jay gibs]

I was told at my carrier store to drain it all the way upon unboxing then do a full charge....

[Omnitech]

So bizarre. You should NEVER completely drain a lithium-ion battery dead.

[Omnitech]

In theory - they could build some kind of circuit into the device that prevented the battery from completely discharging.

Unfortunately, I'm more inclined to believe that their staff is just poorly-trained.

[pandapurple]

Perhaps this article may help ...

Tip: Condition your new cell phone's battery to make it last longer (but be sure to condition it properly) | Reviews, news, tips, and tricks | dotTech

[tharrison4815]

I believe that although the batteries themselves suffer from flattening the battery the charging software will benefit by calibrating the battery meter on the phone. So I would usually recommend flattening the battery once for calibration. But then I'm no expert.

Posted via CB10

[DAY1000]

I suspect the BB10 battery monitoring software is pretty sophisticated and probably doesn't need calibrating about battery full/empty limits.

Here's a link to the Battery University website that was quoted above. It's a bit of a long read but it contains a lot of very useful information.

Basic to Advanced Battery Information from Battery University

[xamdam]

Put it to this way for years I have done this conditioning cycle on any new phone.

Let discharge to 10-20% do full charge, do this three times and battery will be good for years unless issue with battery of course. The Z10 battery after doing this procedure usually lasts under medium usage 14-16hrs and light usage 17-20hrs.

I have my BOLD 9000 still Original Battery and it is still as good as new and I bought this phone something like 4-5 years ago. The entire phone is Original still, except replaced the BALL this past Dec that's all that has ever been done to it and the phone is still in excellent condition.

Treat your devices right and they will last for a long time.

[All4BeSpinnin]

Just because your gauge shows empty doesn't mean the battery is completely dead. The software could be shutting the phone down at 20% and only fully charging it to 80% but showing a full gauge. I'm not sure if it's doing this or not but something to consider. A good example of lithium ion battery technology is in the Chevy Volt...I believe the software only allows the battery to run in the 30-70% range to get the most life out if it.

[pchandoke]

Hey,

Even I had same problem with my Z10... I went to the service center and even thought of returning my Z10 and get back to 9900 but I happened to meet another proud Z10 owner who helped me a lot.
Firstly, for almost 15 to 20 Days, you would get crappy Battery Backup... My Z10 used to die in less than 4 Hours.
So I read through many blogs and found that first 15 - 20 days your Z10 tries to sync with the network and BB backend as well.
After 2 weeks of use, Try Draining out your battery completely and charge it completely, do this Twice and trust me, you would find an awesome difference in your battery backup...

I used to get less than 4 Hours of backup and now I am getting 12-13 Hours easily...!!! If I change my network to 2G from 3G, I get an additional 2 to 3 hours...!!!!

Trust Me, It actually works this way...!

Cheers....

[pandapurple]

Let discharge to 10-20% do full charge, do this three times and battery will be good for years unless issue with battery of course. The Z10 battery after doing this procedure usually lasts under medium usage 14-16hrs and light usage 17-20hrs.

After 2 weeks of use, Try Draining out your battery completely and charge it completely, do this Twice and trust me, you would find an awesome difference in your battery backup...

The guideline is never drain out a lithium battery.

[independentvolume]

Yes it's bad for these batteries to run completely dead. The good thing is they don't. Phones shut down before that point do feel free to run your phones empty whenever.

[pandapurple]

Bumping this up for new Z10 owners.

PS: There's a search function on this forum.

Posted via CB10

[BlackberryNerd]

As terrible and bold as this may sound we are Blackberry Z10 users and have the option to remove and replace our batteries. I find it way to stressful to listen to every single new article and opinion on how to charge your device.

My policy has been if you are going to bed and or plan on being away from a power outlet for a while just charge your device. Better safe than sorry! Phones are emergency communication tools first and everything else second.

For example we had an unexpected power outage in toronto area for a few days in december and guess which people were sorry and had no phone power, the people who only charge their phone less frequently in hopes of getting more charging cycles. Now guess who had a full battery and was able to manage through this power outage, me someone who knows that having a full battery is far more valuable than having more "charge cycles" what ever that may mean aha. If your battery ezperience is really bad simply buy a new battery and if that does not solve any issues I recommend you switch phones. Phones are great especially Blackberries but they are not all powerful and will let you down if we all just remembered that from time to time we would be able to lower expectations and plan ahead for realistic situations rather than plan around what someone had expected based on some specs.

Thank you, and sorry once again Crackberry community if that came off as rude.

Posted via CB10

[enzo_mmx]

Great article. Thanks.

Z10 Black.

[Richard Buckley]

As with many things the confusion comes from several competing requirements.

It is absolutely true that any discharge/charge of a Lithium battery results is a small reduction in capacity or wearing of the battery. The deeper the discharge beyond 50% the greater the relative wear. So it becomes a matter of diminishing returns to routinely discharge the battery below 20%, unless you need to make one final call to close a large sales deal. In that case, I would make the call

Discharging a Lithium battery to 0% of its capacity (not as reported by the system) will destroy it. So all system will attempt to shut down before the battery gets to that state. If your phone shuts down because of low battery you should recharge it soon (as in that day or the next few days) since it will continue to loose capacity in the phone, and at a slower rate out of the phone. So that is one factor, when your phone or lap top says the battery is a 0%, it isn't really chemically at 0% since it would be junk. It is as low as the manufacturer is comfortable with it getting under the warranty period. When I bought my last laptop it offered an automated battery management process that would limit maximum and minimum charges to 80% and 20% and perform a monthly cycle (100% - 0% - 80%).

Assessing the current capacity of a Lithium battery is very difficult. There is an interesting question/answer here from an electronics/chemistry point of view. As you read that imagine trying to do some of those things while also allowing the user to use the phone. Your phone can't weigh the battery, so it has to occasionally see it in a low capacity state to get an idea where that is. I say the phone, but with so called smart batteries this level of assessment is often done in the battery itself. This is where the periodic "cycling" of the battery comes from. It isn't to improve the battery capacity, in fact it adds to the wear on the battery. But if you don't do it very often the actual amount of wear is not noticeable. I've never had to do this with any of the Lithium batteries I use.

In the end the best advice is to treat it like a car gas tank. There are lots of good reasons to fill up with gas before the tank is empty. Few good reasons to let it get below 1/4. I can't think of any reason it would ever be a good idea to run out of gas. It probably isn't worth the effort to put less than a gallon or two in the tank. Charge your battery any time you might have long enough to get it to a full charge, but don't be afraid to use your phone. Taking the battery below 20% when you need to probably won't result in a shorter life, running it dead every day definitely will. If you think your phone is miss reporting the capacity of your battery cycling it once up to full, down to 5% and back to full might fix that up.

Edit:

If you really want to obsess over getting the most out of you battery there are a couple of good articles about all of this:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...ased_batteries

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...ry_calibration