Battery Degradation

[Tatletz]

Hi guys, please excuse my stupidity but how exactly do you calibrate the battery?

 

[nipponham]

Let it drain until the machine shuts off and then recharge to 100% again. And not to nitpick, but you're not recalibrating the battery, it recalibrates the batter meter so it has a better idea of capacity, recharge and drainage wattage and times.

 

[Tatletz]

Let it drain until the machine shuts off and then recharge to 100% again.

Thank you nipponham!

 

[Nicola]

No. I disagree with this. It's a consumer device being sold in masses. The average user has zero idea of calibration. It needs to work out of the box or be calibrated pre shipment.

The good thing is: the average user has no idea of battery wear and ways to know that, so he has no need to know of calibration either.

 

[Chris Grew]

Hi all,

Where are you finding information on % of battery degradation on the SP3?

Regards

Chris

 

[nipponham]

If you do a battery report, it will show you the designed capacity and actual current capacity for the battery and you can can work out the percentages from that. You can also use a utility called BatteryBar and it will show you the degradation in percentages. It's based on the same numbers as the battery report.

 

[Chris Grew]

Thank you Nipponham,

Did a search and found this:

Windows 8 includes a very useful feature for laptop users that lets you see the charging history and capacity of your battery. Over time batteries hold less and less of a change so this report is very helpful to identify if it is time to buy a replacement.

Generating the report is very simple, just open up a command prompt, type in powercfg /batteryreport and hit Enter.

A report will be generated and saved as a HTML file to your users folder such as c:\users\steve\battery-report.html.

Regards

Chris

 

[iLLeStEyECoN]

The good thing is: the average user has no idea of battery wear and ways to know that, so he has no need to know of calibration either.

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make.

 

[Nicola]

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make.

mmmm...
Then I'm missing your point...
What's wrong then with current approach of hiding all this to average user?
The wear level is nowhere shown.

 

[GreyFox7]

If you don't want to know why are you concerned? Use it and forget it.
If you want to know you can find it but it seems silly to complain that you don't want to know but are freaked out by others that do.

 

[GoodBytes]

Please, more information! I've done a lot of personal research into battery tech but I came across batteryuniversity on r\surface and I've never seen any information similar to that found there on battery wear.

I'd love to hear what you think is wrong with it or any information you have to the contrary of what is said there; the info on that website almost makes you paranoid about doing full charge cycles...

It depends on the battery. Some battery models (despite all Lithium-ion), last longer than other. Usually low cost laptops features a battery that needs to be changed every year or so, where the battery still charges fine, but will provide half the capacity it is normally had. Others are very sensitive to heat, while others, like the one in the MacBook's and Surface Pro aren't. Battery University assumes that all Lithium-ion batteries are the same, but much like NiMH rechargeable batteries, they aren't. For example, the dollar shop rechargeable batteries or even Duracell or Energizer rechargeable batteries, despite the same or superior claimed specs, are destroyed by Sanyo (now Panasonic) Eneloop rechargeable batteries.

The fact that fast charge destroys Lithium-ion or even NiMh batteries is false as well. The Surface line devices features fast charge technology, in fact you can't turn it off. The result is that no one is affected. People with the Surface 1 still have amazing battery life. Same for NiMh batteries. Another important fact that battery university ignores is the charger. They are good chargers and sucky ones. And that makes a HUGE difference. In teh case of NiMh, you can visually measure massive difference between a used rechargeable battery using a basic charger, and the same used battery using a smart/good recharger. They are on the market (mostly low-cost budget laptops) with crappy chargers that charges the battery to 100% and if it goes down to 99.98%, it will charge it again to 100%, putting strain on even a good lithium-ion battery which results in fast wear level. This is the devcies you want to pull out the battery when charged at 100%, so battery university is correct on that front, but once again, they assume that all laptops and devices work this way, when it is simply not true. Just look at Apple. Most people don't need to replace their MacBook Air/Pro battery, despite 2-3 year old system, and the fact that you can't disable charging (to my knowledge) and can't remove the battery.

 

[lhauser]

No. I disagree with this. It's a consumer device being sold in masses. The average user has zero idea of calibration. It needs to work out of the box or be calibrated pre shipment.

That's silly. You can't "disagree" with it. Physics doesn't depend on the consumer knowing how to properly maintain a battery. It doesn't matter whether the device is calibrated before shipment or after, the effects of usage will be the same.

Battery education needs to improve, even if it means a warning/alarm built into the system. Of course, many will still refuse to be educated.