Battery charging: Should you let the battery run down totally or charge when half empty?

[magimedi]

Polter was asking this on another thread - is it still the case that if you don't run your battery down fully before charging that it will stop it charging fully?

According to this lithium batteries last longer if they are not allowed to fully discharge. They don't have a 'memory' like older style batteries.

I always run them down until they stop working though and haven't noticed any problems. I've got one istick that's about 2 years old and one that's over a year old, still getting 3+ days out of both (50W).

*Plenty.

I had a feeling you'd know!

Hehe I didn't know, I read your question and then had to find out!

'Battery University' ... who knew?

Yes they are Polter. And yes the 'lock' is a safety thing to stop them discharging fully. I remember when I was looking at mechanical mods there were lots of safety warnings about not using them past the point when the power starts to tail off or they can overheat. Not a problem with regulated mods.

What's a regulated mod?

I've had a lot of trouble with my battery recently. I think mine needs a nap once it starts running out before it starts behaving properly.

It's a mod that has circuitry to control how much power the battery puts out. All the variable voltage / wattage and temperature controlled mods are regulated. Ego batteries are regulated too - they put out a constant 3.7 volts and switch off when they don't have enough power left.

Mechanical mods OTOH are basically just empty tubes that you put a battery in and screw a tank to the top. They put out whatever power the battery is capable of: 3.7 volts for most of the time, but a freshly charged battery will put out about 4.2 volts for a short time and when it's running out will tail off to about 3.4.