training a battery

[allelopath]

My wife has insisted for years that you can 'train' a battery in order to optimize its performance and lifetime. For example, with a cell phone battery, she says it is best to let the battery run out almost completely before recharging it. (as opposed to plugging it into the charger whenever not using it, which is what I do). Bullfeathers, I say. Sounds like an urban legend.

I've tried searching the web, including snopes, but can't find any info on it.
Can any one help?

[gary]

get ready to eat humble pie, for ni-cad batteries your wife is correct, the batteries should be allowed to be exhausted before recharging and then fully recharged to prevent the "memory effect". however for most modern batteries there is little or no advantage to doing this.

[torbjorn]

It might be a good idea for Ni-Cd and possibly also Ni-mh batteries, but it should not be practiced for lead-acid batteries or modern Li-ion, Li-polymer etc batteries.

However, the battery should NOT be discharged so that it becomes totally flat, normally you should limit the discharge to for example 1,0 V/cell. If some of the cells in the battery pack have lower capacity than the others, then those might become reverse charged and this is no good for them.
If there are only a few cells in the pack and you have good control of the discharge current, then it is possible to discharge further, down to, say 0,6 V/cell. But in this case, the discharge current should be maximum C/100 (for example, if the battery's capacity is 1000 mAh, then discharge with 10 mA).

You should also NOT make a such deep discharge on a daily basis, do it just occasionally as it causes some wear to the batteries too. If the battery is in daily use, then perhaps one deep discharge every other month would be suitable.
If a battery has been out of use for a long time and doesn't seem to have full performance, it might be worth trying a few cycles.

Many "intelligent" chargers, used for example in the model aircraft business, can do this kind of cycling automatically.

[Guest]

Funny I should stumble on the site.Buddy, please eat your words with hot sauce so they go down faster. As stated above, the answer is yes to nicads. niMHs possibly. You set up a charge memory.

Now my turn to eat,I have been looking for a source of supply for the 1.2 volt cells that go into the battery packs for rechargeable tools. Yes the little cardboard covered cells that are "C' or D cells. I have several packs I would like to rebuild.. Any answers would be of help. Thanks bob.

[Guest]

Replacement batteries for your power tools are easily found if you look up sub c cells or sub d cells try this and see if it works for you...dls

[Guest]