[Noisebridge-discuss] lithium-ion battery questions

[John Magolske]

Thank you everyone for the helpful advice!

* <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> If no one on this list is an expert, I can forward your question
>>> to a friend who is quite an expert.

I believe David's post pretty much pointed me towards why the full
charge-discharge cycling was recommended, but I would like to get a
better sense (if that's possible) of the risk involved in using a
"no-name" replacement battery rather than the official Lenova brand.
The official battery costs about $70 more, but stories of Li batteries
emitting flaming gases are somewhat disconcerting.

* David Yao <kudegra+nb at gmail.com> [091219 21:19]:
>> A possible reason for his recommendation to cycle the battery like
>> this is that the OS/BIOS could need to re-calibrate with the new
>> battery. [...] Doing a full charge-discharge cycle a few times
>> ought to re-calibrate it.

I think that's it. Here's a post on the linux-thinkpad list refering
to recalibration via full charge-discharge cycling:
http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/2006-March/032836.html

>From all I've heard, deep draining an Li battery is pretty hard on it,
so I think I'll just live with an inaccurate "% left" indication for
now till I can implement a less harsh re-calibration, possibly using
the Lenovo battery management utilities Gian suggested:

* Gian Pablo Villamil <gian.pablo at gmail.com> [091219 22:06]:
> If you are using Windows, the Lenovo battery management utilities
> are pretty decent, and will prompt you through the calibration
> process.

I'm running Debian Linux. But if the calibration is something that
happens to the battery itself, I'm wondering if I could just get
out my old hard-drive with Windows on it, boot into that, do the
calibration, then switch back to the Linux hard drive. Would that
work? Or am I overlooking something?

John


-- 
John Magolske
http://B79.net/contact