I am on the planes a decent amount of the time (100,000 miles by late May) and tend to spend a chunk of my flights using my laptop. Most of the time it’s productive, but it can also include a DVD or the occasional game (either Nethack or Battle for Middle-Earth 2, which are obviously similar). When I was a-hunting for a laptop, battery life was a key criterion in my selection process, as was weight. While I like my Vaio VGN SZ-160P, the standard battery was lasting about 3 hours (the extended life clocks in under six hours before my tweaks), not enough for the SFO-JFK route (now switching to SFO-EWR as a default due to Manhattan traffic, which is a huge bummer because United’s P.S. flights have standard AC outlets on board).
So I did a lil’ Googlin’ for tips on extending battery life, and I found them all pretty, well, lacking. Stuff like “don’t try to do real-time 3d rendering” or “fully charge up your battery before flying.” One of them even said “buy an extra battery.” Not exactly helpful (Sony’s tips are in the picture on the right). The most common tip that I’ve found truly deceptive is on disabling wireless: many claim it makes a huge impact to disable it, but personally I’ve only noticed a minor difference. I do in fact disable it (and Bluetooth) but on my Vaio the difference was about 10 minutes over 3 hours (but as I state below, it all adds up).
Alas, I’ve gone and done a lot of experimenting and have a list of my tips to really maximize battery life for my laptop.
Key to this process is having some good methodology. While testing, I kept a plain text file on my Desktop (creatively called “battery.txt”) tracking the real clock as well as Windows’ expected battery life. The problem with the Windows tool, is it really just tells you the current state of the battery based on the current system activity. This means if you start with 3 hours remaining then spend 30 minutes doing something that rapidly consumes the battery, you’ll be down to 2 or less. In other words, you need to track the actual history/lifespan of your battery if you want to get the best information out of your system. You can check out my little tracking file for inspiration.
And now, with no more delay, here’s Jeremy’s Tips for Maximizing Your Battery, or How to Fly From San Francisco to New York City With an Average Battery and Not Have to Watch an Ernest Goes to Anywhere Movie):
Brightness: how low can you go? Without any question, the fastest way to suck the life out of a battery is leaving your brightness high. Turn it down as low as you possibly can without needing to up your glasses prescription. On my Vaio, I can select from one of 8 levels. During one test, at brightness level 3 my system reported 60% full, with 3:52 (all times are hours:minutes) of life to go. I switched up to level 5 and in 17 minutes of use, I was down to 52% full, with 3:06 to go. In other words, 17 minutes used 46 minutes worth of battery (all other variables were held constant). You can even be so bold as to lower your brightness all the way down when sitting idle for a minute or two (for example, if you are writing a long blog post and pause to clarify your thoughts before typing).
Don’t use any external devices. USB and PC-Cards (aka PC-MCIA) use your battery to function, even when you aren’t using them! Have an EVDO card or maybe a USB mouse? Remove them if you can. Even a memory card reader in your PC-MCIA slot uses power just by being in there. The effect varies based on the type of device, but even a few minutes here and there (as you’ll see) add up significantly.
Single-task, not multi-task. The more you are doing at the same time with your PC, the more memory and CPU usage increases. Both of which directly use up battery. Close any applications you aren’t using, even the small ones. When doing some experimentation, I found it more efficient to run a single application at a time, then close it and open a new one when ready to move on. While your hard drive uses the battery too, if you are doing anything ‘productive’ you are probably hitting the drive on a regular (even if infrequent) basis anyway.
Keep it cool. You can take a page out of the extreme gamer’s handbooks, and have your system perform more optimally by keeping it cool. Make sure your air vents (inflow and outflow) aren’t blocked by anything, which often occurs by poorly positioning your notebook on your lap (which is known to have some other side-effects too, by the way). Heavy CPU and memory use all contribute to heat as well, hence my comment on multi-tasking above.
Shut down unused services. MSN Messenger, Google Desktop Search, QuickTime, wireless managers, etc. They’ve all gotta go. You probably aren’t going to use them, and they all eat up valuable resources. Especially things that ’scan’ anything. For advanced users, I also recommend launching Windows Task Manager and getting rid of anything not used in-flight. In fact, I put together another little text file with a list of all the services I don’t use, and I go down the list and manually shut down each one. If you really want to get this one right, a little bit of research is in order. While online, I launched the task manager (control-shift-escape) and for each service that has my User Name, I googled it. There are a few good web sites out there which chronicle what all these mysterious services do, and you should be able to figure out which you need, and which you don’t. Important warning: if you aren’t comfortable with this lingo, you should skip this step, or get some techie friend to help you out. Less important warning: you may end up in a situation where you need to do a reboot after you get to your destination.
Do Hibernate, Do Not Suspend. I’ve found that my Vaio tends to use way too much battery when in suspend mode. Not sure why, but the ‘instant-on’ effect isn’t worth the extra 30-60 seconds it takes to get out of hibernation. Furthermore, the minor hit to the hard drive is unlikely to have a significant impact to your overall battery time. Also, if you weren’t aware, going in and out of hibernate is much better than a full startup/shutdown sequence. Note that you might need to manually enable Hibernate as a system option (once you have, the quick shortcut into it is ‘windows button’ followed by U followed by H, and some PCs will have even faster shortcuts available as well). If you make a run to the bathroom, however, that’s worth a quick Standby, but anything over 10 minutes and I’d Hibernate instead.
Tweak advanced settings. Virtually all laptops manufactured in the past 24 months have some advanced power options. Mine, for example, allows me to go into 16-bit color mode, force the CPU into a power-saving mode, disable my LAN port, and more. This might seem obvious, but if you aren’t doing it already, go find these settings (probably in the control panel, or possibly through custom software provided by your manufacturer) and get aggressive with them! If you don’t have any extra control, one good extra tip is to manually force your screen into lower color modes, as they use less CPU overall and can make a huge difference in the long run. While you are at it, you might want to change your Alarms settings, as many laptops default to shutting down with as much as 10% of your battery still available (my Low Battery is just an alert at 5%, and my Critical is force hibernate at 1%)!
Choose Wisely. Good: Word, Excel, Outlook, Text Editors. Bad: anything by Adobe (you think Microsoft has bloatware, have you noticed how long even Acrobat takes to launch these days???), all Google plugins, many ‘Widgets’, ‘Gadgets’, etc. All I can say is pick your battles wisely. 50 minutes of a video game ate up over 2 hours of my battery time, whereas writing email or documents tend to use up less than what Windows predicts (about 105% of the estimate on average). I’ve also found WinDVD is right on the money for battery consumption, and Windows Media Player is a little power-hungry (by the way, if you are using your laptop to play music make certain you disable visualizations). On that note, don’t use your laptop to play music unless absolutely necessary, it’s a real resource killer.
Watch That Hard Drive. I just wrote, don’t play music, but the reason is mostly about your drive. The more it spins, the more power it takes. Make sure you’ve set your basic power option to turn off your drive relatively fast, but not necessarily too fast. Some drives use more power getting started than staying running for short periods of time. I set my Vaio to turn off the disk after 3 minutes of inactivity, you may want more, you may want less. At the end of the day, if you are doing anything that prevents the hard drive from spinning down ever, you are draining your battery more than needed.
Like a Boy Scout, Be Prepared. I make a point of configuring my ‘flight mode’ prior to getting on the plane. It may only take 5-10 minutes to get your system setup properly, but that just eats into your battery life if you wait to do it on the plane. Once done with all the settings, the last thing I do before unplugging my power supply is hibernating the PC.
I hope some of these tips help you out. Personally, I add around 30 minutes (or more) to the longevity of my standard battery (3:30 on average now), and almost an hour on the extended one (6:30 or so). This gives me almost 10 hours of combined life (4 full DVDs guaranteed), which suits me quite well.
2007年6月25日星期一
Should I Remove the Laptop Battery For A Desktop Replacement Laptop?
I have a laptop at home which I use as a desktop replacement. As such, 99% of the time the laptop is being used it is plugged in. I wonder if I should remove the battery so that it is not permanently being charged, or does the laptop cut off the current to the battery once it is fully charged? I do unplug the laptop when I turn it off.
A.
When using a laptop as a desktop replacement the battery should not be left in for long periods of time. The laptop will over time discharge the battery. Remove the battery – making sure that it is charged to 40% and store it in a dry, warm place. Ensure that it is wrapped protectively and nothing will be dropped on it.
The battery should be re-installed every 3-4 weeks and allowed to fully discharge. Leaving a battery in storage for longer than this without using could cause the battery to fully discharge as the circuitry of the battery itself consumes power.
Leaving a battery in a laptop while using an electrical outlet for long periods of time will keep the battery in a constant state of charging up and that will reduce the life cycle of the battery.
Remember that when you have removed the battery from a laptop while using with an electrical outlet – the automatic battery backup is no longer functional. Make sure to plug your laptop into an uninterrupted power source (UPS) not directly into an outlet or surge protector.
A.
When using a laptop as a desktop replacement the battery should not be left in for long periods of time. The laptop will over time discharge the battery. Remove the battery – making sure that it is charged to 40% and store it in a dry, warm place. Ensure that it is wrapped protectively and nothing will be dropped on it.
The battery should be re-installed every 3-4 weeks and allowed to fully discharge. Leaving a battery in storage for longer than this without using could cause the battery to fully discharge as the circuitry of the battery itself consumes power.
Leaving a battery in a laptop while using an electrical outlet for long periods of time will keep the battery in a constant state of charging up and that will reduce the life cycle of the battery.
Remember that when you have removed the battery from a laptop while using with an electrical outlet – the automatic battery backup is no longer functional. Make sure to plug your laptop into an uninterrupted power source (UPS) not directly into an outlet or surge protector.
2007年6月8日星期五
10 Tips on Maximizing Laptop Battery Performance
And now, with no more delay, here’s Jeremy’s Tips for Maximizing Your Battery, or How to Fly From San Francisco to New York City With an Average Battery and Not Have to Watch an Ernest Goes to Anywhere Movie):
Brightness: how low can you go? Without any question, the fastest way to suck the life out of a battery is leaving your brightness high. Turn it down as low as you possibly can without needing to up your glasses prescription. On my Vaio, I can select from one of 8 levels. During one test, at brightness level 3 my system reported 60% full, with 3:52 (all times are hours:minutes) of life to go. I switched up to level 5 and in 17 minutes of use, I was down to 52% full, with 3:06 to go. In other words, 17 minutes used 46 minutes worth of battery (all other variables were held constant). You can even be so bold as to lower your brightness all the way down when sitting idle for a minute or two (for example, if you are writing a long blog post and pause to clarify your thoughts before typing).
Don’t use any external devices. USB and PC-Cards (aka PC-MCIA) use your battery to function, even when you aren’t using them! Have an EVDO card or maybe a USB mouse? Remove them if you can. Even a memory card reader in your PC-MCIA slot uses power just by being in there. The effect varies based on the type of device, but even a few minutes here and there (as you’ll see) add up significantly.
Single-task, not multi-task. The more you are doing at the same time with your PC, the more memory and CPU usage increases. Both of which directly use up battery. Close any applications you aren’t using, even the small ones. When doing some experimentation, I found it more efficient to run a single application at a time, then close it and open a new one when ready to move on. While your hard drive uses the battery too, if you are doing anything ‘productive’ you are probably hitting the drive on a regular (even if infrequent) basis anyway.
Keep it cool. You can take a page out of the extreme gamer’s handbooks, and have your system perform more optimally by keeping it cool. Make sure your air vents (inflow and outflow) aren’t blocked by anything, which often occurs by poorly positioning your notebook on your lap (which is known to have some other side-effects too, by the way). Heavy CPU and memory use all contribute to heat as well, hence my comment on multi-tasking above.
Shut down unused services. MSN Messenger, Google Desktop Search, QuickTime, wireless managers, etc. They’ve all gotta go. You probably aren’t going to use them, and they all eat up valuable resources. Especially things that ’scan’ anything. For advanced users, I also recommend launching Windows Task Manager and getting rid of anything not used in-flight. In fact, I put together another little text file with a list of all the services I don’t use, and I go down the list and manually shut down each one. If you really want to get this one right, a little bit of research is in order. While online, I launched the task manager (control-shift-escape) and for each service that has my User Name, I googled it. There are a few good web sites out there which chronicle what all these mysterious services do, and you should be able to figure out which you need, and which you don’t. Important warning: if you aren’t comfortable with this lingo, you should skip this step, or get some techie friend to help you out. Less important warning: you may end up in a situation where you need to do a reboot after you get to your destination.
Do Hibernate, Do Not Suspend. I’ve found that my Vaio tends to use way too much battery when in suspend mode. Not sure why, but the ‘instant-on’ effect isn’t worth the extra 30-60 seconds it takes to get out of hibernation. Furthermore, the minor hit to the hard drive is unlikely to have a significant impact to your overall battery time. Also, if you weren’t aware, going in and out of hibernate is much better than a full startup/shutdown sequence. Note that you might need to manually enable Hibernate as a system option (once you have, the quick shortcut into it is ‘windows button’ followed by U followed by H, and some PCs will have even faster shortcuts available as well). If you make a run to the bathroom, however, that’s worth a quick Standby, but anything over 10 minutes and I’d Hibernate instead.
Tweak advanced settings. Virtually all laptops manufactured in the past 24 months have some advanced power options. Mine, for example, allows me to go into 16-bit color mode, force the CPU into a power-saving mode, disable my LAN port, and more. This might seem obvious, but if you aren’t doing it already, go find these settings (probably in the control panel, or possibly through custom software provided by your manufacturer) and get aggressive with them! If you don’t have any extra control, one good extra tip is to manually force your screen into lower color modes, as they use less CPU overall and can make a huge difference in the long run. While you are at it, you might want to change your Alarms settings, as many laptops default to shutting down with as much as 10% of your battery still available (my Low Battery is just an alert at 5%, and my Critical is force hibernate at 1%)!
Choose Wisely. Good: Word, Excel, Outlook, Text Editors. Bad: anything by Adobe (you think Microsoft has bloatware, have you noticed how long even Acrobat takes to launch these days???), all Google plugins, many ‘Widgets’, ‘Gadgets’, etc. All I can say is pick your battles wisely. 50 minutes of a video game ate up over 2 hours of my battery time, whereas writing email or documents tend to use up less than what Windows predicts (about 105% of the estimate on average). I’ve also found WinDVD is right on the money for battery consumption, and Windows Media Player is a little power-hungry (by the way, if you are using your laptop to play music make certain you disable visualizations). On that note, don’t use your laptop to play music unless absolutely necessary, it’s a real resource killer.
Watch That Hard Drive. I just wrote, don’t play music, but the reason is mostly about your drive. The more it spins, the more power it takes. Make sure you’ve set your basic power option to turn off your drive relatively fast, but not necessarily too fast. Some drives use more power getting started than staying running for short periods of time. I set my Vaio to turn off the disk after 3 minutes of inactivity, you may want more, you may want less. At the end of the day, if you are doing anything that prevents the hard drive from spinning down ever, you are draining your battery more than needed.
Like a Boy Scout, Be Prepared. I make a point of configuring my ‘flight mode’ prior to getting on the plane. It may only take 5-10 minutes to get your system setup properly, but that just eats into your battery life if you wait to do it on the plane. Once done with all the settings, the last thing I do before unplugging my power supply is hibernating the PC.
I hope some of these tips help you out. Personally, I add around 30 minutes (or more) to the longevity of my standard battery (3:30 on average now), and almost an hour on the extended one (6:30 or so). This gives me almost 10 hours of combined life (4 full DVDs guaranteed), which suits me quite well.
Brightness: how low can you go? Without any question, the fastest way to suck the life out of a battery is leaving your brightness high. Turn it down as low as you possibly can without needing to up your glasses prescription. On my Vaio, I can select from one of 8 levels. During one test, at brightness level 3 my system reported 60% full, with 3:52 (all times are hours:minutes) of life to go. I switched up to level 5 and in 17 minutes of use, I was down to 52% full, with 3:06 to go. In other words, 17 minutes used 46 minutes worth of battery (all other variables were held constant). You can even be so bold as to lower your brightness all the way down when sitting idle for a minute or two (for example, if you are writing a long blog post and pause to clarify your thoughts before typing).
Don’t use any external devices. USB and PC-Cards (aka PC-MCIA) use your battery to function, even when you aren’t using them! Have an EVDO card or maybe a USB mouse? Remove them if you can. Even a memory card reader in your PC-MCIA slot uses power just by being in there. The effect varies based on the type of device, but even a few minutes here and there (as you’ll see) add up significantly.
Single-task, not multi-task. The more you are doing at the same time with your PC, the more memory and CPU usage increases. Both of which directly use up battery. Close any applications you aren’t using, even the small ones. When doing some experimentation, I found it more efficient to run a single application at a time, then close it and open a new one when ready to move on. While your hard drive uses the battery too, if you are doing anything ‘productive’ you are probably hitting the drive on a regular (even if infrequent) basis anyway.
Keep it cool. You can take a page out of the extreme gamer’s handbooks, and have your system perform more optimally by keeping it cool. Make sure your air vents (inflow and outflow) aren’t blocked by anything, which often occurs by poorly positioning your notebook on your lap (which is known to have some other side-effects too, by the way). Heavy CPU and memory use all contribute to heat as well, hence my comment on multi-tasking above.
Shut down unused services. MSN Messenger, Google Desktop Search, QuickTime, wireless managers, etc. They’ve all gotta go. You probably aren’t going to use them, and they all eat up valuable resources. Especially things that ’scan’ anything. For advanced users, I also recommend launching Windows Task Manager and getting rid of anything not used in-flight. In fact, I put together another little text file with a list of all the services I don’t use, and I go down the list and manually shut down each one. If you really want to get this one right, a little bit of research is in order. While online, I launched the task manager (control-shift-escape) and for each service that has my User Name, I googled it. There are a few good web sites out there which chronicle what all these mysterious services do, and you should be able to figure out which you need, and which you don’t. Important warning: if you aren’t comfortable with this lingo, you should skip this step, or get some techie friend to help you out. Less important warning: you may end up in a situation where you need to do a reboot after you get to your destination.
Do Hibernate, Do Not Suspend. I’ve found that my Vaio tends to use way too much battery when in suspend mode. Not sure why, but the ‘instant-on’ effect isn’t worth the extra 30-60 seconds it takes to get out of hibernation. Furthermore, the minor hit to the hard drive is unlikely to have a significant impact to your overall battery time. Also, if you weren’t aware, going in and out of hibernate is much better than a full startup/shutdown sequence. Note that you might need to manually enable Hibernate as a system option (once you have, the quick shortcut into it is ‘windows button’ followed by U followed by H, and some PCs will have even faster shortcuts available as well). If you make a run to the bathroom, however, that’s worth a quick Standby, but anything over 10 minutes and I’d Hibernate instead.
Tweak advanced settings. Virtually all laptops manufactured in the past 24 months have some advanced power options. Mine, for example, allows me to go into 16-bit color mode, force the CPU into a power-saving mode, disable my LAN port, and more. This might seem obvious, but if you aren’t doing it already, go find these settings (probably in the control panel, or possibly through custom software provided by your manufacturer) and get aggressive with them! If you don’t have any extra control, one good extra tip is to manually force your screen into lower color modes, as they use less CPU overall and can make a huge difference in the long run. While you are at it, you might want to change your Alarms settings, as many laptops default to shutting down with as much as 10% of your battery still available (my Low Battery is just an alert at 5%, and my Critical is force hibernate at 1%)!
Choose Wisely. Good: Word, Excel, Outlook, Text Editors. Bad: anything by Adobe (you think Microsoft has bloatware, have you noticed how long even Acrobat takes to launch these days???), all Google plugins, many ‘Widgets’, ‘Gadgets’, etc. All I can say is pick your battles wisely. 50 minutes of a video game ate up over 2 hours of my battery time, whereas writing email or documents tend to use up less than what Windows predicts (about 105% of the estimate on average). I’ve also found WinDVD is right on the money for battery consumption, and Windows Media Player is a little power-hungry (by the way, if you are using your laptop to play music make certain you disable visualizations). On that note, don’t use your laptop to play music unless absolutely necessary, it’s a real resource killer.
Watch That Hard Drive. I just wrote, don’t play music, but the reason is mostly about your drive. The more it spins, the more power it takes. Make sure you’ve set your basic power option to turn off your drive relatively fast, but not necessarily too fast. Some drives use more power getting started than staying running for short periods of time. I set my Vaio to turn off the disk after 3 minutes of inactivity, you may want more, you may want less. At the end of the day, if you are doing anything that prevents the hard drive from spinning down ever, you are draining your battery more than needed.
Like a Boy Scout, Be Prepared. I make a point of configuring my ‘flight mode’ prior to getting on the plane. It may only take 5-10 minutes to get your system setup properly, but that just eats into your battery life if you wait to do it on the plane. Once done with all the settings, the last thing I do before unplugging my power supply is hibernating the PC.
I hope some of these tips help you out. Personally, I add around 30 minutes (or more) to the longevity of my standard battery (3:30 on average now), and almost an hour on the extended one (6:30 or so). This gives me almost 10 hours of combined life (4 full DVDs guaranteed), which suits me quite well.
How to prolong lithium-based batteries
Battery research is focusing heavily on lithium chemistries, so much so that one could presume that all portable devices will be powered with lithium-ion batteries in the future. In many ways, lithium-ion is superior to nickel and lead-based chemistries and the applications for lithium-ion batteries are growing as a result.Lithium-ion has not yet fully matured and is being improved continuously. New metal and chemical combinations are being tried every six months to increase energy density and prolong service life. The improvements in longevity after each change will not be known for a few years. A lithium-ion 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 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. (Read more in 'Choosing the right battery for portable computing', Part Two.) Aging of lithium-ion is an issue that is often ignored. A lithium-ion battery in use typically lasts between 2-3 years. The capacity loss manifests itself in increased internal resistance caused by oxidation. Eventually, the cell resistance reaches a point where the pack can no longer deliver the stored energy although the battery may still have ample charge. For this reason, an aged battery can be kept longer in applications that draw low current as opposed to a function that demands heavy loads. Increasing internal resistance with cycle life and age is typical for cobalt-based lithium-ion, a system that is used for cell phones, cameras and laptops because of high energy density. The lower energy dense manganese-based lithium-ion, also known as spinel, maintains the internal resistance through its life but loses capacity due to chemical decompositions. Spinel is primarily used for power tools. The speed by which lithium-ion ages is governed by temperature and state-of-charge. Figure 1 illustrates the capacity loss as a function of these two parameters.
Figure 1: Permanent capacity loss of lithium-ion as a function of temperature and charge level. High charge levels and elevated temperatures hasten permanent capacity loss. Improvements in chemistry have increased the storage performance of lithium-ion batteries.The mentioning of limited service life on lithium-ion has caused concern in the battery industry and I will need to add some clarifications. Let me explain: If someone asks how long we humans live, we would soon find out that the longevity varies according to life style and living conditions that exist in different countries. Similar conditions exist with the batteries, lithium-ion in particular. Since BatteryUniversity bases its information on the feedback from users as opposed to scientific information derived from a research lab, longevity results may differ from manufacturer' specifications. Let's briefly look at the various living conditions of the lithium-ion battery.The worst condition is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures, which is the case with running laptop batteries. If used on main power, the battery inside a laptop will only last for 12-18 months. I must hasten to explain that the pack does not die suddenly but begins with reduced run-times.The voltage level to which the cells are charged also plays an important role to longevity. For safety reasons, most lithium-ion cannot exceed 4.20 volts per cell. While a higher voltage boosts capacity, the disadvantage is lower cycle life. Figure 2 shows the cycle life as a function of charge voltage.
Figure 2: Effects on cycle life at different float charge levels (Choi et al., 2002)Higher charge voltages boost capacity but lower cycle life.
There are no remedies to restore lithium-ion once worn out. A momentary improvement in performance is noticeable when heating up the battery. This lowers the internal resistance momentarily but the condition reverts back to its former state when the temperature drops. Cold temperature will increase the internal resistance.If possible, store the battery in a cool place at about a 40% state-of-charge. Some reserve charge is needed to keep the battery and its protection circuit operational during prolonged storage. Avoid keeping the battery at full charge and high temperature. This is the case when placing a cell phone or spare battery in a hot car. Running a laptop computer on the mains has a similar temperature problem. While the battery is kept fully charged, the inside temperature during operation rises to 45°C (113°F). Removing the battery from the laptop when running on fixed power protects the battery from heat. With the concern of the battery overheating and causing fire, a spokesperson for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission advises to eject the battery of affected laptops and to run the machines on a power cord. It should be noted that on a power outage, unsaved works will be lost.The question is often asked, should the laptop be disconnected from the main when not in use? Under normal circumstances, it should not matter with lithium-ion. Once the battery is fully charged, no further charge is applied. However, there is always the concern is malfunction of the AC adapter, the laptop or the battery.A large number of lithium-ion batteries for cell phones are being discarded under the warranty return policy. Some failed batteries are sent to service centers or the manufacturer, where they are refurbished. Studies show that 80%-90% of the returned batteries can be repaired and returned to service.Some lithium-ion batteries fail due to excessive low discharge. If discharged below 2.5 volts per cell, the internal safety circuit opens and the battery appears dead. A charge with the original charger is no longer possible. Some battery analyzers (Cadex) feature a boost function that reactivates the protection circuit of a failed battery and enables a recharge. However, if the cell voltage has fallen below 1.5V/cell and has remained in that state for a few months, a recharge should be avoided because of safety concerns. To prevent failure, never store the battery fully discharged. Apply some charge before storage, and then charge fully before use.All personal computers (and some other electronic devices) contain a battery for memory back up. This battery is commonly a small non-rechargeable lithium cell, which provides a small current when the device is turned off. The PC uses the battery to retain certain information when the power is off. These are the BIOS settings, current date and time, as well as resource assignment for Plug and Play systems. Storage does shorten the service life of the backup battery to a few years. Some say 1-2 years. By keeping the computer connected to the main, albeit turned off, a battery on the PC motherboards should be good for 5-7 years. A PC should give the advanced warning when battery gets low. A dead back-up battery will wipe out the volatile memory and erase certain settings. After battery is replaced, the PC should again be operational.
Longevity of high-power lithium-ionGenerally speaking, batteries live longer if treated in a gentle manner. High charge voltages, excessive charge rate and extreme load conditions will have a negative effect and shorten the battery life. This also applies to high current rate lithium-ion batteries. Not only is it better to charge lithium-ion battery at a slower charge rate, high discharge rates also contribute the extra wear and tear. Figure 3 shows the cycle life as a function of charge and discharge rates. Observe the good laboratory performance if the battery is charged and discharged at 1C. (A 0.5C charge and discharge would further improve this rating.)
Figure 3: Longevity of lithium-ion as a function of charge and discharge rates. A moderate charge and discharge puts less stress on the battery, resulting in a longer cycle life.
Battery experts agree that the life of lithium-ion depends on other factors than charge and discharge rates. Even though incremental improvements can be achieved with careful use of the battery, our environment and the services required are not always conducive to achieve optimal battery life. The longevity of a battery is often a direct result of the environmental stresses applied.
Simple Guidelines
Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.
Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level.
Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)
Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing dates. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.
If you have a spare lithium-ion battery, use one to the fullest and keep the other cool by placing it in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the battery. For best results, store the battery at 40% state-of-charge.
Figure 1: Permanent capacity loss of lithium-ion as a function of temperature and charge level. High charge levels and elevated temperatures hasten permanent capacity loss. Improvements in chemistry have increased the storage performance of lithium-ion batteries.The mentioning of limited service life on lithium-ion has caused concern in the battery industry and I will need to add some clarifications. Let me explain: If someone asks how long we humans live, we would soon find out that the longevity varies according to life style and living conditions that exist in different countries. Similar conditions exist with the batteries, lithium-ion in particular. Since BatteryUniversity bases its information on the feedback from users as opposed to scientific information derived from a research lab, longevity results may differ from manufacturer' specifications. Let's briefly look at the various living conditions of the lithium-ion battery.The worst condition is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures, which is the case with running laptop batteries. If used on main power, the battery inside a laptop will only last for 12-18 months. I must hasten to explain that the pack does not die suddenly but begins with reduced run-times.The voltage level to which the cells are charged also plays an important role to longevity. For safety reasons, most lithium-ion cannot exceed 4.20 volts per cell. While a higher voltage boosts capacity, the disadvantage is lower cycle life. Figure 2 shows the cycle life as a function of charge voltage.
Figure 2: Effects on cycle life at different float charge levels (Choi et al., 2002)Higher charge voltages boost capacity but lower cycle life.
There are no remedies to restore lithium-ion once worn out. A momentary improvement in performance is noticeable when heating up the battery. This lowers the internal resistance momentarily but the condition reverts back to its former state when the temperature drops. Cold temperature will increase the internal resistance.If possible, store the battery in a cool place at about a 40% state-of-charge. Some reserve charge is needed to keep the battery and its protection circuit operational during prolonged storage. Avoid keeping the battery at full charge and high temperature. This is the case when placing a cell phone or spare battery in a hot car. Running a laptop computer on the mains has a similar temperature problem. While the battery is kept fully charged, the inside temperature during operation rises to 45°C (113°F). Removing the battery from the laptop when running on fixed power protects the battery from heat. With the concern of the battery overheating and causing fire, a spokesperson for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission advises to eject the battery of affected laptops and to run the machines on a power cord. It should be noted that on a power outage, unsaved works will be lost.The question is often asked, should the laptop be disconnected from the main when not in use? Under normal circumstances, it should not matter with lithium-ion. Once the battery is fully charged, no further charge is applied. However, there is always the concern is malfunction of the AC adapter, the laptop or the battery.A large number of lithium-ion batteries for cell phones are being discarded under the warranty return policy. Some failed batteries are sent to service centers or the manufacturer, where they are refurbished. Studies show that 80%-90% of the returned batteries can be repaired and returned to service.Some lithium-ion batteries fail due to excessive low discharge. If discharged below 2.5 volts per cell, the internal safety circuit opens and the battery appears dead. A charge with the original charger is no longer possible. Some battery analyzers (Cadex) feature a boost function that reactivates the protection circuit of a failed battery and enables a recharge. However, if the cell voltage has fallen below 1.5V/cell and has remained in that state for a few months, a recharge should be avoided because of safety concerns. To prevent failure, never store the battery fully discharged. Apply some charge before storage, and then charge fully before use.All personal computers (and some other electronic devices) contain a battery for memory back up. This battery is commonly a small non-rechargeable lithium cell, which provides a small current when the device is turned off. The PC uses the battery to retain certain information when the power is off. These are the BIOS settings, current date and time, as well as resource assignment for Plug and Play systems. Storage does shorten the service life of the backup battery to a few years. Some say 1-2 years. By keeping the computer connected to the main, albeit turned off, a battery on the PC motherboards should be good for 5-7 years. A PC should give the advanced warning when battery gets low. A dead back-up battery will wipe out the volatile memory and erase certain settings. After battery is replaced, the PC should again be operational.
Longevity of high-power lithium-ionGenerally speaking, batteries live longer if treated in a gentle manner. High charge voltages, excessive charge rate and extreme load conditions will have a negative effect and shorten the battery life. This also applies to high current rate lithium-ion batteries. Not only is it better to charge lithium-ion battery at a slower charge rate, high discharge rates also contribute the extra wear and tear. Figure 3 shows the cycle life as a function of charge and discharge rates. Observe the good laboratory performance if the battery is charged and discharged at 1C. (A 0.5C charge and discharge would further improve this rating.)
Figure 3: Longevity of lithium-ion as a function of charge and discharge rates. A moderate charge and discharge puts less stress on the battery, resulting in a longer cycle life.
Battery experts agree that the life of lithium-ion depends on other factors than charge and discharge rates. Even though incremental improvements can be achieved with careful use of the battery, our environment and the services required are not always conducive to achieve optimal battery life. The longevity of a battery is often a direct result of the environmental stresses applied.
Simple Guidelines
Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.
Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level.
Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)
Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing dates. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.
If you have a spare lithium-ion battery, use one to the fullest and keep the other cool by placing it in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the battery. For best results, store the battery at 40% state-of-charge.
2007年6月7日星期四
The Battery World - Types and Applications (Conclusion)
The Battery World - Types and Applications (Conclusion)
The invention of battery brought convenience and efficiency to modern life. You can even guesstimate a country's technology adaptation from the amount of batteries used by that country. The advancements in battery technology leads to new types of batteries with electrical characteristics to better suit the needs of modern high-tech electronic devices. Also, they are more environmental friendly to our modern society. Many countries are either phasing out batteries that are hazardous to our environment or putting more emphasis on recycling them for the sake of nature. Perhaps cars won't be driven by gasoline powered engines in the near future, instead, they may be driven by fuel cell battery powered motors that only utilize hydrogen and air as their main source of energy. One thing is certain, battery and modern human life will have inseparable relationship in the world of future technological advancement
The invention of battery brought convenience and efficiency to modern life. You can even guesstimate a country's technology adaptation from the amount of batteries used by that country. The advancements in battery technology leads to new types of batteries with electrical characteristics to better suit the needs of modern high-tech electronic devices. Also, they are more environmental friendly to our modern society. Many countries are either phasing out batteries that are hazardous to our environment or putting more emphasis on recycling them for the sake of nature. Perhaps cars won't be driven by gasoline powered engines in the near future, instead, they may be driven by fuel cell battery powered motors that only utilize hydrogen and air as their main source of energy. One thing is certain, battery and modern human life will have inseparable relationship in the world of future technological advancement
The Battery World - Types and Applications (part 2)
Batteries have three main components: positive electrode, negative electrode, and the chemical compound. When we refer to a battery, we are speaking of the chemistry of the battery such as alkaline or lithium batteries. Different chemical compounds have different electrical characteristics and applications. The battery industry has developed several types of batteries for today's electronic devices. Common types of batteries are:
COMMON TYPES OF BATTERIES
Chemical Battery
Disposable Batteries
Alkaline
Lithium
Silver-Oxide
Zinc-Air
Zinc-Carbon
Rechargeable Batteries
Lead-Acid
Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd)
Nickel-Metal Hydrate (Ni-MH)
Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)
Lithium-Polymer (Li-Poly)
Fuel Cell
Physical Battery
Solar Battery Applications of BatteryOne might ask: What kind of batteries should I use for my electronic devices? Generally speaking, most household electronics such as radios, clocks, toys, remote controls etc., use disposable batteries. On the other hand, majority of modern electronic devices such as notebook/laptop computers, camcorders, digital cameras, cellular phones, PDA's… etc., use rechargeable batteries with the exceptions that some are designed to use both disposable and rechargeable batteries. When engineers design an electronic device, they determine what is the most suitable battery for the device based on the device's operating voltage requirements, the available space, and the power consumption characteristics. Due to the environmental concerns and long term operating costs for the device, in most cases, rechargeable batteries along with chargers are chosen as the sources of energy. Reusable energy is what makes portable electronics a convenient reality. Below are the applications and descriptions of common batteries.
TYPE
MODEL/SHAPE
APPLICATION
REMARK
DISPOSABLE BATTERIES
Alkaline
D, C, AA, AAA, N, 9V
Boom-box radios, flash lights, remote controls, cameras, CD players, shavers… etc.
Suitable for higher power consumption devices.
Lithium
Button, Cylinder Shape
Measurement instruments, back-up power
Suitable for most electronic devices require stable operating voltage.
Silver-Oxide
Button Shape
Watches, calculators, cameras… etc.
Suitable for small and staple power consumption devices
Zinc-Air
Button shape
Hear-aid
Zinc-Carbon
D, C, AA, AAA, N, 9V
Radio, flash light, remote control, toy… and other
Suitable for low power consumption electronic devices
RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES
Lead-Acid
Packs, usually cubical
Back-up power, transportation equipment
Economical reusable energy, but bulky.
Nickel-Cadmium(Ni-Cd)
Cylinder Shape
Power tools, and other electronic products.
Suitable for devices that require instant high power drain or other special environments and requirements.
Nickel-Metal Hydrate(Ni-MH)
Cylinder and Rectangular Shape (*1)
Power tools, back-up power, transportation equipment, and all other electronic devices.
Economical reusable energy offers good price/performance value.
Lithium-Ion(Li-Ion)
Cylinder and Rectangular Shape (*1,*2)
All electronic devices including computer, communication, and consumer electronics.
Mostly used on portable electronic devices.
Lithium-Polymer(Li-Poly)
Rectangular Shape (*1,*2)
All electronic devices including computer, communication, and consumer electronics.
Mostly used on portable electronic devices.
Fuel Cell
Packs,
Transportation Equipment
For use with high power consumption equipment.*1. In real world applications, depends on the requirements of the devices, more than one battery may be used at the same time to create a battery pack.*2. The size of battery can be customized to suit the needs of individual electronic device.
Different types of battery have different electrical characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. There's no single type of battery that can fulfill the needs of all electronic devices
COMMON TYPES OF BATTERIES
Chemical Battery
Disposable Batteries
Alkaline
Lithium
Silver-Oxide
Zinc-Air
Zinc-Carbon
Rechargeable Batteries
Lead-Acid
Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd)
Nickel-Metal Hydrate (Ni-MH)
Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)
Lithium-Polymer (Li-Poly)
Fuel Cell
Physical Battery
Solar Battery Applications of BatteryOne might ask: What kind of batteries should I use for my electronic devices? Generally speaking, most household electronics such as radios, clocks, toys, remote controls etc., use disposable batteries. On the other hand, majority of modern electronic devices such as notebook/laptop computers, camcorders, digital cameras, cellular phones, PDA's… etc., use rechargeable batteries with the exceptions that some are designed to use both disposable and rechargeable batteries. When engineers design an electronic device, they determine what is the most suitable battery for the device based on the device's operating voltage requirements, the available space, and the power consumption characteristics. Due to the environmental concerns and long term operating costs for the device, in most cases, rechargeable batteries along with chargers are chosen as the sources of energy. Reusable energy is what makes portable electronics a convenient reality. Below are the applications and descriptions of common batteries.
TYPE
MODEL/SHAPE
APPLICATION
REMARK
DISPOSABLE BATTERIES
Alkaline
D, C, AA, AAA, N, 9V
Boom-box radios, flash lights, remote controls, cameras, CD players, shavers… etc.
Suitable for higher power consumption devices.
Lithium
Button, Cylinder Shape
Measurement instruments, back-up power
Suitable for most electronic devices require stable operating voltage.
Silver-Oxide
Button Shape
Watches, calculators, cameras… etc.
Suitable for small and staple power consumption devices
Zinc-Air
Button shape
Hear-aid
Zinc-Carbon
D, C, AA, AAA, N, 9V
Radio, flash light, remote control, toy… and other
Suitable for low power consumption electronic devices
RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES
Lead-Acid
Packs, usually cubical
Back-up power, transportation equipment
Economical reusable energy, but bulky.
Nickel-Cadmium(Ni-Cd)
Cylinder Shape
Power tools, and other electronic products.
Suitable for devices that require instant high power drain or other special environments and requirements.
Nickel-Metal Hydrate(Ni-MH)
Cylinder and Rectangular Shape (*1)
Power tools, back-up power, transportation equipment, and all other electronic devices.
Economical reusable energy offers good price/performance value.
Lithium-Ion(Li-Ion)
Cylinder and Rectangular Shape (*1,*2)
All electronic devices including computer, communication, and consumer electronics.
Mostly used on portable electronic devices.
Lithium-Polymer(Li-Poly)
Rectangular Shape (*1,*2)
All electronic devices including computer, communication, and consumer electronics.
Mostly used on portable electronic devices.
Fuel Cell
Packs,
Transportation Equipment
For use with high power consumption equipment.*1. In real world applications, depends on the requirements of the devices, more than one battery may be used at the same time to create a battery pack.*2. The size of battery can be customized to suit the needs of individual electronic device.
Different types of battery have different electrical characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. There's no single type of battery that can fulfill the needs of all electronic devices
The Battery World - Types and Applications(part 1)
The Battery World - Types and Applications
As the electronic technologies advances, our lives are filled with more and more battery operated products including toys, household appliances, computer, communications, consumer electronics, and transportation equipment. Batteries play an important role in supplying energy to these electronic products. With the use of batteries, human life becomes more convenient and efficient. But with all the kinds of batteries being used in the market, do you know what kind of battery you are using? Let's explore the world of batteries. Types of BatteriesTo simply put, batteries are "electricity" storage devices that in general, are divided into 2 categories: chemical battery and physical battery. When most people talk about batteries, they are referring to the chemical batteries that utilize chemical compounds as the source of energy which convert the reactions between chemical and conductive materials into electricity. On the other hand, physical battery utilizes light or heat and converts them into electricity. Since there aren't too many physics battery applications in the computer, communication, and consumer electronics products in the market, we will focus only on the chemical batteries in this article. Chemical battery can be further broken down into two sub-categories: Disposable and Rechargeable Batteries. Disposable Batteries - An example of disposable batteries are the common alkaline batteries found in a regular store. Disposable batteries are thrown away after the electricity had been used up. Disposable batteries are convenient but they are more costly in the long run and could create more hazards to our environment. Rechargeable Batteries - Examples of rechargeable batteries are Nickel-Metal Hydrate (Ni-MH) and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries. Although they are rechargeable, they do have limited number of charging and discharging life cycles. Depending on the chemical used in the batteries and the individual's usage patterns, the number of charging and discharging life cycles range approximate 300 ~ 1000 times, making rechargeable batteries more economical in the long run and a lot more environmentally friendly than disposable batteries.
As the electronic technologies advances, our lives are filled with more and more battery operated products including toys, household appliances, computer, communications, consumer electronics, and transportation equipment. Batteries play an important role in supplying energy to these electronic products. With the use of batteries, human life becomes more convenient and efficient. But with all the kinds of batteries being used in the market, do you know what kind of battery you are using? Let's explore the world of batteries. Types of BatteriesTo simply put, batteries are "electricity" storage devices that in general, are divided into 2 categories: chemical battery and physical battery. When most people talk about batteries, they are referring to the chemical batteries that utilize chemical compounds as the source of energy which convert the reactions between chemical and conductive materials into electricity. On the other hand, physical battery utilizes light or heat and converts them into electricity. Since there aren't too many physics battery applications in the computer, communication, and consumer electronics products in the market, we will focus only on the chemical batteries in this article. Chemical battery can be further broken down into two sub-categories: Disposable and Rechargeable Batteries. Disposable Batteries - An example of disposable batteries are the common alkaline batteries found in a regular store. Disposable batteries are thrown away after the electricity had been used up. Disposable batteries are convenient but they are more costly in the long run and could create more hazards to our environment. Rechargeable Batteries - Examples of rechargeable batteries are Nickel-Metal Hydrate (Ni-MH) and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries. Although they are rechargeable, they do have limited number of charging and discharging life cycles. Depending on the chemical used in the batteries and the individual's usage patterns, the number of charging and discharging life cycles range approximate 300 ~ 1000 times, making rechargeable batteries more economical in the long run and a lot more environmentally friendly than disposable batteries.
2007年6月5日星期二
4 tips to extend the life of your laptop battery
3.
Let your laptop do the saving. Not every computing device handles a power source in the same way. Some of the more sophisticated laptops, which are designed with business travelers in mind, are misers when it comes to using power. And that's a good thing — if you can remember to take advantage of it. "Most users make the mistake of simply not choosing to use a product's built-in ability to conserve battery life," says Dan Coffman, a senior product manager for PC manufacturer ViewSonic. How do you harness your PC's built-in ability to save? Consult your user manual. Often, calibrating your laptop is as easy as double-clicking on the battery icon in the toolbar.
4.
Always, always carry a spare device that uses batteries. How obvious is that? Well, if you're trying to keep under the onerous new airline weight-limits, it isn't. But as Rick Thompson, director of engineering at Valence Technology in Austin, Texas, observes, "the availability of 'free' power outside of your hotel room is not predictable." That's a nice way of saying it. In fact, I sometimes think airport terminals, car-rental facilities and hotels try to hide the power outlets from us to keep us from accessing their free power. Thompson recommends a system that can simultaneously charge a second portable device such as a cell phone or PDA, allowing you to multitask your battery operations.
If you've stuck with me long enough to hear my pitiful excuse for running my laptop battery down, here it is: My 2-year-old-son, Aren, uses my laptop to watch "The Wiggles" while I'm on the road (if you don't know who "The Wiggles" are, consider yourself fortunate). Aren decided to pull the power chord while he was watching an episode and used up all the power to run the DVD player. By the time I got to the PC, all the juice was gone.
I should probably thank Aren. He taught me how fast a DVD can run down a lithium-ion battery (in almost no time). Incidentally, he's also demonstrated how impact-resistant a battery can be (surprisingly) and that at least some of those warnings about the battery coming into contact with liquids are exaggerated. You'd be amazed at how well a battery holds up to liquids, especially whole milk.
Reality (battery) check
If you rely on a battery to get work done while you're away, you should, however, give yourself a reality check. Because while batteries can extend your productivity while you're on the road — in a plane, at a remote site or sitting in hotel lobby — they won't last you long enough. And if Buchmann is correct, they never will last you long enough.
I mean, even if you've taken all of these precautions, you can probably still think of several instances where you had a brilliant argument on the tip of your fingers, only to have the laptop power down under a faltering battery. I took the steps, and even without my toddler's interference, it was probably only a matter of time before my battery ran dry at an inopportune time.
The point is, while these tips will help extend the life of your battery, they won't make them last indefinitely. PC manufacturers may make it seem as if their laptops will run forever, but most of us know otherwise
Let your laptop do the saving. Not every computing device handles a power source in the same way. Some of the more sophisticated laptops, which are designed with business travelers in mind, are misers when it comes to using power. And that's a good thing — if you can remember to take advantage of it. "Most users make the mistake of simply not choosing to use a product's built-in ability to conserve battery life," says Dan Coffman, a senior product manager for PC manufacturer ViewSonic. How do you harness your PC's built-in ability to save? Consult your user manual. Often, calibrating your laptop is as easy as double-clicking on the battery icon in the toolbar.
4.
Always, always carry a spare device that uses batteries. How obvious is that? Well, if you're trying to keep under the onerous new airline weight-limits, it isn't. But as Rick Thompson, director of engineering at Valence Technology in Austin, Texas, observes, "the availability of 'free' power outside of your hotel room is not predictable." That's a nice way of saying it. In fact, I sometimes think airport terminals, car-rental facilities and hotels try to hide the power outlets from us to keep us from accessing their free power. Thompson recommends a system that can simultaneously charge a second portable device such as a cell phone or PDA, allowing you to multitask your battery operations.
If you've stuck with me long enough to hear my pitiful excuse for running my laptop battery down, here it is: My 2-year-old-son, Aren, uses my laptop to watch "The Wiggles" while I'm on the road (if you don't know who "The Wiggles" are, consider yourself fortunate). Aren decided to pull the power chord while he was watching an episode and used up all the power to run the DVD player. By the time I got to the PC, all the juice was gone.
I should probably thank Aren. He taught me how fast a DVD can run down a lithium-ion battery (in almost no time). Incidentally, he's also demonstrated how impact-resistant a battery can be (surprisingly) and that at least some of those warnings about the battery coming into contact with liquids are exaggerated. You'd be amazed at how well a battery holds up to liquids, especially whole milk.
Reality (battery) check
If you rely on a battery to get work done while you're away, you should, however, give yourself a reality check. Because while batteries can extend your productivity while you're on the road — in a plane, at a remote site or sitting in hotel lobby — they won't last you long enough. And if Buchmann is correct, they never will last you long enough.
I mean, even if you've taken all of these precautions, you can probably still think of several instances where you had a brilliant argument on the tip of your fingers, only to have the laptop power down under a faltering battery. I took the steps, and even without my toddler's interference, it was probably only a matter of time before my battery ran dry at an inopportune time.
The point is, while these tips will help extend the life of your battery, they won't make them last indefinitely. PC manufacturers may make it seem as if their laptops will run forever, but most of us know otherwise
4 tips to extend the life of your laptop battery
Don't even think about it," my laptop screen flashed back at me contemptuously (I'm paraphrasing the error message a little here). "I'm out of juice."
And then, before I could find an electrical outlet — Sea Tac has recently increased the number of available outlets, by the way; finally a reprieve for business travelers whose budget for airline club membership has been cut — the laptop expired.
The irony, of course, is that I had spent most of the previous week researching this column on how to extend your PC's battery life while you're on the road.
In a 2002 survey by chipmaker Intel, 57% of laptop users said they wished their batteries lasted longer. And that is wishful thinking, according to Isidor Buchmann, president and founder of Cadex Electronics in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He suggests that although batteries become about 10% more efficient every year, the average PC's power needs also increase by about the same amount. Result: The average battery life is still painfully short (just three to four hours for most laptop models).
But you don't have to end up sitting in a waiting area, staring at a darkened screen, like I was. Here are four tried-and-true tips to extend the life of your laptop battery. Why should you take advice from a guy who couldn't keep his own unit charged? Read on if you want to hear my sad excuse.
1.
Power down all nonessential functions. Switch it off if you're not using it. Many business travelers already know that you don't want to take the DVD player for a spin on the plane, and that every time you hit "save" it can set the hard-drive whirring, which devours even more power. "But users often also forget to turn off their wireless card when they are no longer using it but are still using their computer," notes Mike Fuller, executive vice president of PC Laptops, a Sandy, Utah, laptop manufacturer. "When the wireless card is on, it still continually searches for networks." In Windows XP, click on "Power Options" in your control panel. It allows you to reduce the power consumption of any number of your computer devices or of your entire system.
2.
Stay out of extreme temperatures. The technology that powers you battery isn't terribly complicated. But it's important to understand a little bit about the chemistry behind batteries, and how that can affect your work. Specifically, temperatures can affect the performance of your battery. It's best to use (and especially charge) your batteries at room temperatures. Extreme conditions can drain your battery quickly. Also, avoid partial charges and use the battery until it is dead. Battery experts liken partial charges — and discharges — to eating a cup of lard every day. It significantly shortens your battery's life. Considering that a lithium-ion battery can explode if it's improperly used, it could also shorten your life.
And then, before I could find an electrical outlet — Sea Tac has recently increased the number of available outlets, by the way; finally a reprieve for business travelers whose budget for airline club membership has been cut — the laptop expired.
The irony, of course, is that I had spent most of the previous week researching this column on how to extend your PC's battery life while you're on the road.
In a 2002 survey by chipmaker Intel, 57% of laptop users said they wished their batteries lasted longer. And that is wishful thinking, according to Isidor Buchmann, president and founder of Cadex Electronics in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He suggests that although batteries become about 10% more efficient every year, the average PC's power needs also increase by about the same amount. Result: The average battery life is still painfully short (just three to four hours for most laptop models).
But you don't have to end up sitting in a waiting area, staring at a darkened screen, like I was. Here are four tried-and-true tips to extend the life of your laptop battery. Why should you take advice from a guy who couldn't keep his own unit charged? Read on if you want to hear my sad excuse.
1.
Power down all nonessential functions. Switch it off if you're not using it. Many business travelers already know that you don't want to take the DVD player for a spin on the plane, and that every time you hit "save" it can set the hard-drive whirring, which devours even more power. "But users often also forget to turn off their wireless card when they are no longer using it but are still using their computer," notes Mike Fuller, executive vice president of PC Laptops, a Sandy, Utah, laptop manufacturer. "When the wireless card is on, it still continually searches for networks." In Windows XP, click on "Power Options" in your control panel. It allows you to reduce the power consumption of any number of your computer devices or of your entire system.
2.
Stay out of extreme temperatures. The technology that powers you battery isn't terribly complicated. But it's important to understand a little bit about the chemistry behind batteries, and how that can affect your work. Specifically, temperatures can affect the performance of your battery. It's best to use (and especially charge) your batteries at room temperatures. Extreme conditions can drain your battery quickly. Also, avoid partial charges and use the battery until it is dead. Battery experts liken partial charges — and discharges — to eating a cup of lard every day. It significantly shortens your battery's life. Considering that a lithium-ion battery can explode if it's improperly used, it could also shorten your life.
Notebook batteries Society
Of course, lithium-ion batteries are wrong, such as high prices and provide discharge less, and so on. Only the number of lithium batteries provide 400-600 discharge times, but also through special improvement products 800 times. By charging a daily basis, but also the best lithium batteries for more than two years. And nickel-hydrogen batteries charge number to reach 700 or more, some good quality products made discharged to 1200 times, such a comparison, the nickel-hydrogen batteries longevity than lithium batteries, nickel hydrogen batteries and lithium batteries lower than prices. In view of this, there is as yet no perfect notebook batteries.
Common brand for the vast majority of notebook batteries folk. Markets have a small number of normal cells Chaobo notebook use, such as the Sony 505 series, Toshiba protege series. Cell materials and models based on the weight change, such as the shape of the same capacity and nickel hydrogen and lithium call, but a lot of weight.
Capacity primarily from the size indicated mAh battery to judge its Chinese name is milliampere. Milliampere-hour notebook size is directly related to the use of time, but also can not be generalized. The use of time with notebook battery configuration has a lot to do with, for example Well, Hewlett-Packard 6100 notebook introduced PIII-M, Mobility Radeon Xianqia many energy-efficient technologies such as hardware, with 4000mAh batteries, the use of time-four hours. Using the desktop CPU Toshiba 1800, although equipped with 4500mAh batteries, the use of time can only reach three hours. Working to meet the general needs. It also showed the notebook to use the time not only with mAh batteries, hardware energy-saving technologies is very important.
Second, notebook batteries - new technologies
The battery is achieved through mobile notebook computers from desktop office an important feature, and limited battery capacity, unlimited use of time to meet requirements of the growing notebook computer hardware configuration for battery consumption is also growing, and notebook computer batteries from lithium batteries are still not widely used after the major breakthrough to meet the growing power consumption, and to guarantee the use of time, then some of the new energy-saving technology becomes very important
Common brand for the vast majority of notebook batteries folk. Markets have a small number of normal cells Chaobo notebook use, such as the Sony 505 series, Toshiba protege series. Cell materials and models based on the weight change, such as the shape of the same capacity and nickel hydrogen and lithium call, but a lot of weight.
Capacity primarily from the size indicated mAh battery to judge its Chinese name is milliampere. Milliampere-hour notebook size is directly related to the use of time, but also can not be generalized. The use of time with notebook battery configuration has a lot to do with, for example Well, Hewlett-Packard 6100 notebook introduced PIII-M, Mobility Radeon Xianqia many energy-efficient technologies such as hardware, with 4000mAh batteries, the use of time-four hours. Using the desktop CPU Toshiba 1800, although equipped with 4500mAh batteries, the use of time can only reach three hours. Working to meet the general needs. It also showed the notebook to use the time not only with mAh batteries, hardware energy-saving technologies is very important.
Second, notebook batteries - new technologies
The battery is achieved through mobile notebook computers from desktop office an important feature, and limited battery capacity, unlimited use of time to meet requirements of the growing notebook computer hardware configuration for battery consumption is also growing, and notebook computer batteries from lithium batteries are still not widely used after the major breakthrough to meet the growing power consumption, and to guarantee the use of time, then some of the new energy-saving technology becomes very important
Notebook batteries Society
Next notebook computers introduced nickel hydrogen (NlMH) batteries, such batteries have better Xingjiabi and greater power, and "nickel-hydrogen batteries is one of the most environmentally friendly batteries, and pay attention to environmental countries strongly advocated the use of nickel-hydrogen batteries, which are recovered reuse, and the destruction of the environment is also the smallest. But nickel-hydrogen batteries and lithium electricity compared still some shortcomings. charging time, a heavier weight, capacity than lithium -- small, battery discharge time is too short continuing, and memory effects, although unlike its memory nickel cadmium batteries so big, but still need to discharge, the user must be exhausted before charging. Nickel-hydrogen batteries will be lithium-ion (Li-ion) cell replacement. Lithium power long ago have started to use it, not security, often there will be in charge of burning, burst, it might be too active because lithium elements reasons. Later there will be a version of the lithium-ion batteries and joined the active ingredients can contain lithium elements, so that the real power lithium reached safety, efficiency, convenience, and the consequent elimination of the old lithium. They are also very simple distinction, from the logo, we can identify the cells, lithium call for Li, lithium-ion batteries for Li-ion. Now, notebook use of the so-called lithium call actually lithium-ion batteries. Lithium ion battery Chuneng density, may at any time charging and continuous discharge time, the general in about three hours. Battery capacity from the size of the main shows mAh (milliampere hours) to judge the value, such as 3000mAh, 4000mAh, the greater the value, the greater battery capacity
Notebook batteries Society
With notebook computer prices declined, presumably many friends have notebook. For notebook, the overall performance level is inextricably linked with the merits of the cell, its importance is no less than CPU, main board, hard disks and other components. To highlight the following on the notehttp://www.battery-export.com/book computer battery life, we hope to better use notebook computers helpful.
1, notebook computer battery profiles
Notebook computer battery is its flexibility and stability of the fundamental, mainstream notebook computer standard configuration rechargeable battery system. Rechargeable battery system, including charging batteries and power management systems. And batteries is reflected important aspects of portable notebook computers.
Notebook computer batteries used three main sub : 1. Nickel chromium batteries, 2. Nickel-hydrogen batteries, 3. Lithium batteries; They generally expressed as : Ni-Cd nickel cadmium, nickel hydrogen Ni-MH, lithium call Li. Is the first notebook computer use Ni-Cd nickel-cadmium batteries, the battery technology is not as advanced, it is a headache for many nickel cadmium batteries have shortcomings, such as : size, weight, the capacity of small, short life span, memory effects. Thus the current nickel-cadmium batteries has already been eliminated, it is not detailed.
1, notebook computer battery profiles
Notebook computer battery is its flexibility and stability of the fundamental, mainstream notebook computer standard configuration rechargeable battery system. Rechargeable battery system, including charging batteries and power management systems. And batteries is reflected important aspects of portable notebook computers.
Notebook computer batteries used three main sub : 1. Nickel chromium batteries, 2. Nickel-hydrogen batteries, 3. Lithium batteries; They generally expressed as : Ni-Cd nickel cadmium, nickel hydrogen Ni-MH, lithium call Li. Is the first notebook computer use Ni-Cd nickel-cadmium batteries, the battery technology is not as advanced, it is a headache for many nickel cadmium batteries have shortcomings, such as : size, weight, the capacity of small, short life span, memory effects. Thus the current nickel-cadmium batteries has already been eliminated, it is not detailed.
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