How to properly charge your laptop

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Do you know how to properly handle your laptop battery? Don't keep plugged in at all times? Let the battery discharge to the "red" mark and fully charge again? The bottom line is that these strategies are actually bad for your laptop's battery. It's time to learn how to charge your mobile friend correctly.

Isidor Buchmann is the CEO of Cadex Electronics. This company is engaged in the development and production of chargers, as well as tools for express testing and diagnostics of batteries, including for industrial needs. In addition, the company is supporting research by Battery University, an educational web project aimed at making information on the correct and most efficient use of batteries more readily available.

In an interview with Wired, Isidor Buchmann spoke about the main and widespread mistake that laptop users make.

The laptop battery cannot be charged to 100% of its maximum capacity. Ideally, the battery should start charging at 40% charge and stop at 80% charge.

This significantly extends the battery life - in some cases more than 4 times. The reason for this is the principle of operation of lithium polymer batteries: the voltage in each cell is proportional to the charge level. A voltage level close to the maximum nominal value wears out the battery faster, which ultimately leads to a reduction in the number of charge cycles and an accelerated decrease in the battery capacity.

Research by Battery University clearly demonstrates the reliability of the statement: when charging up to 100%, the battery regularly produces 300-500 cycles, while when charging up to 70%, the number of cycles increases to 1200-2000.

Unfortunately, maintaining the correct charging amplitude can be extremely difficult. You cannot constantly monitor the battery indicator during operation. Searching for appropriate apps for OS X and Windows did not return any positive results. Some manufacturers supply notebooks with special software that limits the charging level, but not all do this. The only optimal solution here may be to measure the time required to charge and discharge the battery to the desired level. In the future, time intervals are fairly easily monitored using any timer with notifications.

However, if you have your own working ideas for automating charging on / off or at least more convenient tracking of the charge level, then feel free to share them in the comments.