[Ham-Computers] Laptop Battery Question

[Philip, KO6BB]

Herb,
Considering the cost of laptop batteries, I read the manual than came with 
my Acer VERY carefully.  This machine uses LithIon (sp?) batteries and this 
may be a slight paraphrase, but here is what it said concerning obtaining 
maximum battery life. . .

1.  When FIRST put into service, fully charge the battery, then run the 
machine on battery until the low battery indicator comes on, and recharge. 
DO THIS THREE TIMES!

2.  If primary use is on the AC power (such as a home or office 
environment), REMOVE the battery when it's not needed, or battery life will 
be greatly decreased.

3.  Following these guidelines, battery life should be good for about 300 
charge/discharge cycles (that's for this Acer machine of course).

As the PRIMARY purpose of my laptop is "backup" for this desktop (should I 
have problems with it), as well as running some Radio decoding software 
(such as Spectran etc) to relieve the workload on this one, I removed the 
battery once I had done the three cycles and recharged it.  It's a very 
simple matter to install it.

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
http://ko6bb1.multiply.com/
http://members.lycos.co.uk/ko6bb/

DX begins at the noise floor!
RADIOS: Yaesu FT-2000, FT-1802, FT-60.
Merced, Central California, 37.3N 120.48W  CM97sh



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herb Gerhardt" <hgerhardt at wavecable.com>


> OK, here is another question regarding laptop power.
>
> I usually (99% of the time) operate my laptop while connected to shore 
> power
> (120 VAC) and hardly ever use the laptop battery.  So, needless to say, 
> the
> laptop battery dies within a year or two and I can not run the laptop on
> that battery for more than a few minutes any more.  It still does prevent
> power glitches since the laptop battery will work for at least 5 minutes 
> to
> take care of any power company switching transients.
>
> So the question is:  Is there any way of preserving the supplied laptop
> battery to make it last longer while connected to shore power?  Is there
> perhaps an internal setting that will shut down the continuous charging of
> the battery while it is connected to shore power?  Is it possible to
> insulate the charging pins to the battery?  You normally can't just unplug
> this battery since this battery contains one or two of the laptop feet to
> keep it level.
>
> I have an old laptop battery from my original laptop that was not 
> installed
> when it was stolen in 1999 and it is still good.  I charge it every month 
> or
> two with an external charger and use this battery for powering some of my
> ham radio equipment when I need a good heavy power source.  So it appears 
> to
> me that it is the continuous charging of the battery that kills it within 
> a
> year or two.
>
> Do to my limited application for needing the laptop battery, it is not
> economical to purchase a replacement battery since they are very costly.
> When mobile, I generally use a small inverter (the $20 Costco one works
> great) and plug the supplied switching 120 V power supply into it.
>
> Herb, KB7UVC
> NW APRS Group, West Sound Coordinator
> Our WEB Site:  http://www.nwaprs.info
>
>
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