How to properly charge a new laptop battery to ensure maximum use? Modern lithium-ion batteries make quite high demands on the operating mode, however, following simple rules will significantly increase the battery life. It is important from the first day after purchase to ensure the device is in the correct mode of operation.
Charging a new laptop battery
Charging a new laptop battery is carried out according to a special scheme: this is necessary in order to "train" the battery and prepare it for work, as well as to avoid too rapid discharge in the early days. Immediately after purchase, the battery must be fully charged: they are usually stored in warehouses with an incomplete charge of about 60% - this is necessary for maximum preservation of battery capacity.
The battery must be installed in the laptop, then connect it to the mains without pressing the power button. The first charge lasts about 4 hours, its completion can be seen by turning off the indicator. After that, you can turn on the laptop and use it until it is completely turned off. In this case, it must be disconnected from the network. Then the cycle of charging and discharging is repeated one more time, after which the battery can be used normally.
Such a "training" for the battery in the future is recommended to be carried out every few months. The calibration process allows you to eliminate any malfunctions in the controller and prevent a decrease in battery capacity due to them.
Rules for using a laptop battery
How to use a new laptop battery? To make it last as long as possible, you must follow a few simple rules:
- The battery must not be completely discharged and stored in a discharged form. The best option is to stop working with a laptop when the battery level drops to 10-20% or more. Several weeks of storage in a discharged form will lead to the fact that the battery will completely fail.
- It is necessary to avoid overheating and hypothermia of the battery: both of these lead to a rapid decrease in capacity. In winter, the laptop cannot be used immediately after it has been brought into the room from the cold.
- To increase battery life, it is not recommended to keep the battery at 100% charge all the time. If you work with a laptop at home and use it as a desktop PC, it is recommended to disconnect the battery and store it with a charge level of approximately 60%.
- It is important to avoid shock and mechanical damage to the battery. They can lead to a short circuit and completely break the device.
Use your laptop in a cool place - this will increase battery life. Below is a table showing the dependence of the loss of battery charge depending on the temperature in which it was.
Installing the battery in a laptop
Installing a new battery in a laptop does not take much time. It is necessary to disconnect the device from the network, turn it off, after which it is turned over and the battery cover is opened. On older models, it is attached with screws, on newer models it is closed with latches. The old battery is carefully removed, the new one is installed, after which the case is closed in the same way.
If you are purchasing a compatible battery instead of an original one, you need to make sure that it matches the original in size. Even a slight discrepancy will lead to the fact that it will be unusable. If you can’t find the right battery yourself, use professional help: our consultants will choose a battery for any laptop model, and there will be no problems with installation.
Proper maintenance will ensure that the new battery has a long stable use with a long battery life.
Surely, not every car owner knows that even a new battery requires recharging. So, why charge a newly purchased device and how to do it right?
In fact, everything is very simple - the battery could lie in the supplier's warehouse or in the store for a long time and partially lose capacity. That is why it is recommended to recharge it, because a discharged battery will not allow you to start the engine and move off even a centimeter. Before buying a battery, be sure to check with the seller for information about the date of manufacture of the planned purchase. You can see the date of manufacture yourself, but it’s better to focus not on the numbers from the packaging, but on the information on the battery case. Accordingly, the longer the battery is on sale, the lower the level of electrolyte density in it. To recharge new batteries, standard chargers (often referred to as “rectifiers”) and electrolyte are used. By the way, buy electrolyte only in a trusted auto shop that can provide a quality certificate. Before starting the process of charging a new dry-charged battery, fill it with electrolyte and leave it to soak for 4-5 hours. Remove the caps from all jars. Connect the charger terminals to the battery and only then connect it to the mains. Set the "charger" current. An important nuance: you need to charge a new battery only with a small current (the current regulator must be set to min).
The battery is the beginning of the movement of your “iron horse”, so if you don’t want to start the car from the “pusher” one fine morning, take care of properly recharging the new battery and preparing it for operation.
In the life of every car owner, there comes a time when the old battery needs to be replaced with a new one. Since anyone who owns a car is well aware of the fact that the battery needs to be charged, when buying a new power source, he may wonder: do I need to charge a new battery if I just bought it? The easiest way is to immediately put it in the car and start using it, relying on the seller's convincing words that the battery is new and completely ready for use. However, this is often not the case.
How to test a new battery before buying
Of course, each car battery must be checked immediately before its purchase, in the store. The check is not just a detailed questioning of the seller about which company the battery is and what its advantages are. Coming to a car shop, first of all, you should be guided by a few simple rules that will help you avoid unnecessary praise of the goods by sellers and once again insure against an unsuccessful purchase.
When buying a new battery, you should look at the date of its manufacture. If six months or less have passed from the date of manufacture indicated on the case, such a battery can be purchased, and it is considered new. If a year or more has passed since the date of manufacture of the battery, there is a possibility that it has already partially exhausted its resource, and you have every right to ask for a substantial discount from the seller upon purchase.
How to charge a new serviceable battery
If we talk about how to properly charge a new battery, if it belongs to the serviced category, the method is best here when the voltage indicator is adjusted - it changes in the process. So it decreases, and this has a good effect on the further operation of the battery.
Proper charging of a new serviceable battery is carried out as follows:
- set the charger so that the current indicator is 10 percent of the battery capacity;
- during charging, the voltage will increase;
- when it reaches 14.4 V, you need to reduce the current by half;
- you need to charge the battery, constantly monitoring the voltage;
- when U reaches 16 V, it stabilizes - this means that the battery is charging correctly.
It is impossible to say exactly how to properly charge a new battery in time, how many hours it will last. But the approximate figure is 12-14 hours.
Since this is an alternating voltage method, the charging of a new battery must be carried out under constant checking conditions U. If your charger does not have a charge level indicator, you can check the state of charge of the battery using a hydrometer. It measures the density level of the electrolytic fluid. And if it remains unchanged for three hours, the charged battery can be disconnected from the charger.
Charging a new maintenance-free battery
If you purchased a maintenance-free battery, it is recommended to charge it using the method when the voltage is constant. Thanks to this method, the electrolyte inside the battery does not heat up so much.
For a maintenance-free “battery”, it is best to use a charger equipped with a charge level indicator and the ability to automatically regulate U.
After an hour of charging, the battery capacity is restored by more than half (if its indicator was initially much less than that declared by the manufacturer). And after 3-4 hours, you can raise the capacity level to 90 percent or more.
In general, it takes about five hours. If the charger is equipped with an indicator, it will always notify you of the end of the process.
Summing up
So, there is not much difference in how to charge a new battery. And whether it is necessary to charge a new car battery - can be determined based on the voltage indicators that have already been given above. If you find yourself the owner of a new battery, which for one reason or another has already lost part of its resource (for example, due to improper storage or operation), such batteries are charged in the usual way.
Often, after purchasing a new battery, motorists ask when the battery should be charged for the first time. In order to understand if the battery needs it, always check the voltage readings. Remember that the battery may need the first charge earlier than you expect: for example, when climatic conditions change, as well as in case of unplanned overuse of internal resources.
In order not to have to charge a new car battery too early and often, follow a few simple recommendations:
- After your first ride comes to an end, measure the voltage immediately. The course during the test must be idle, and the vehicle's energy consumers are turned off.
- Do not forget to inspect the battery from time to time for possible mechanical damage and accumulation of dust and dirt, remove dirt regularly.
- Check car terminals to avoid them, watch the tightness of the housing and outlets.
- If you "light" your car from another, do not burn out the wiring , turn off the ignition.
- Check once a month the operating condition of the relay-regulator and the car's alternator. This will help to avoid force majeure situations with the battery.
- Check battery voltage regularly , don't miss his critical drop to 30%.
In order for the new battery to last much longer, be careful and handle it carefully and carefully. In case you are not sure that you can handle it yourself, contact a service station.
Imagine the situation - you have purchased a new smartphone or a new battery for it. Before that, somewhere on the Internet you saw information that the battery needs to be charged for the first time according to a special algorithm. Is this really so, and if so, how to charge the device?
Indeed, if you go over the forums or social networks, you can see that for the first charge you need to use a special procedure that will allow, so to speak, to “pump” the battery of a smartphone or tablet. The bottom line is that the autonomy of modern devices is small - on average, a couple of days in a gentle mode, after which the device needs to be charged. If you use the device constantly, it will be discharged within a few hours. How can you not remember mobile phones that could not be charged for weeks ...
But we digress a little from the main topic. In order for the new battery to hold its charge better, supposedly it needs to be charged according to a special algorithm, otherwise the battery will quickly discharge.
There are a lot of different instructions on the network. Here are some of them:
- Discharge the smartphone completely, and then charge it from the network. After it is charged, do not unplug it for 2-3 hours.
- Let the device work until it is discharged to 10%, put it on charge and charge for 10-12 hours.
- Three times you discharge the device completely (to zero) and all these three times charge it up to 100% of the charger.
It is not surprising that users get confused, ask questions, and sometimes resort to completely unnecessary procedures. Do not rush to charge or discharge your phone or smartphone, read this article to the end!
Batteries and their varieties
There are several main types of batteries that are used in the manufacture of mobile devices:
- Ni-Cd (nickel-cadmium)
- Ni-MH (Nickel Metal Hydride)
- Li-ion (lithium-ion)
- Li-Pol (lithium polymer)
The first two types, namely nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries, were used on old push-button phones. The very ones that were produced many years ago and which, unlike modern smartphones, were primarily a means of communication.
These types of batteries were reliable, but they had drawbacks. One of them is the so-called “memory effect”, which means a reversible loss of capacity, which, among other things, can be caused by a violation of the recommended charging mode, for example, if you start recharging the battery until it is completely discharged. Over time, such batteries really require "pumping". It was then that information appeared about the "pumping" of the battery, including for the newly purchased device.
But times are changing, technology is improving. While nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries were previously used, today lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries are used. They are used everywhere, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. Such batteries are characterized by high power, safety, relatively small size. In addition, they almost completely lack the "memory effect", which we mentioned above, and therefore they do not require any special charge cycles.
What does it mean? This means that if your device is powered by a lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery, charge it in the most usual way, without resorting to the manipulations described in the tips above.
However, if you still use the advice from some forum, it is unlikely that anything will change.
And yet, lithium batteries have their own characteristics. Here are some of them:
- They are sensitive to low temperatures, so try to use the device less in the cold.
- Lithium batteries don't like to be completely discharged, so try not to allow your device to completely discharge.
- There is an opinion that the optimal state of a lithium battery is about 50% of the charge, that is, charging it up to 100% is also allegedly undesirable - 80-90% is enough. Like it or not, it's hard to say.
According to the experience of use, we can say the following - the discharge depends not only on the capacity of the battery, but also on the optimization of the device system. If the optimization is poor, even with a very powerful battery, the discharge will occur very quickly. Of course, other things being equal, including the processor model, screen size, screen resolution, etc. And dancing with tambourines in the form of "pumping" the battery will no longer help.
Reading 3 min. Views 303 Posted on February 11, 2015
Modern cars simply cannot be operated from a standard battery. We do not take into account hybrid cars and electric cars like the Tesla Model S. There are many models of modern cars that cannot even be started without a battery, “with a pusher”. In addition, the constant increase in electronic devices in modern cars leads to an increase in the quality and capacity requirements of the car battery. In this article, we will tell you how to properly maintain a new car battery so that it lasts as long as possible.
Standard batteries for modern cars are batteries filled with electrolyte. They, unlike dry-charged batteries, can be operated at sub-zero temperatures, however, they are discharged faster than in warm weather. When buying a new battery, it must be transported before installation in a car in a normal vertical position, not on its side. Otherwise, the tightness may be broken, and the electrolyte will leak out.
When using a battery in a car, you must keep it clean. All the dust and dirt that accumulates on the walls of the battery can become an excellent conductor of electricity and reduce the charge. In other words, a constantly dirty battery in a car discharges faster than a clean one. Some motorists got the hang of installing a new battery in a car, covering all its walls with polyethylene, a bag or a film. Of course, this may make it difficult to quickly access the battery connectors, but it will ensure its constant cleanliness. In some modern car models (especially in the business class), the batteries are installed in felt cases, and they remain constantly clean.
When washing a car, it is better not to forget to wipe the battery with a cloth soaked in soda solution, which perfectly neutralizes electrolyte particles that have fallen on the battery walls. Also, if the battery is serviced, check the electrolyte level along with cleaning it. Operating a battery with exposed plates inside will quickly lead to failure of the entire battery. After that, it will be given for recycling, it will no longer serve the car.
After installing a new battery in the car, you need to check that you have tightly connected the connectors with wires. This is checked with a conventional voltmeter according to the following algorithm:
- Open the car hood;
- Expose access to the battery connectors on which the wires are put;
- Start the car and let it idle;
- Bring the ends of the voltmeter to the battery connectors;
- With well-fitted wires, the voltmeter should show a voltage of 13.5-14 volts.
If your battery shows a voltage below the prescribed data, it means that either the wires are not worn tightly, or the battery is faulty.
Check the battery charge periodically. Rare trips by car lead to its discharge, as the generator simply does not have time to charge it. A low battery charge will not provide enough current to start the engine starter.
