Better to Leave Z Connected to AC Power? Options

[ArchiMark]

Hi,

Have a C860 but assume this question would apply to everyone with a Z.

When it's convenient and available, is it better to

A) keep your Z connected to AC power or


leave it disconnected and only connect it when the battery shows a low reading?

Thanks for any tips!

Mark

[Tarquin]

Not sure, but having been 'burnt' in the past byt the NiCad memory effect, I personally prefer to let the batteries run down.... :grin:

[grey_moon]

nicad work differently from li-ion, i'm guessing you are talkign about the memory effect of ni-cad
From what ive been told li-ion actually take damage each time they are fully discharged. They get damaged to a point where they stop charging. They guy who told me has 2 phds one in chemistry and another in some other material science thingy. I get really confused when he goes technical on me
I guess with li-ion what u have to be careful about is how the max number of recharge cycles is to be interperated.

[grey_moon]

Hoo hoo I hate it when someone makes a statement without backing it up, so here is a nice bit of info from the web
A lot of information bundles all the battery types into one maintainace info, but this one I find to be quite informative

http://www.buchmann.ca/chap8-page1.asp

"Is the Li-ion a better choice? Yes, for many applications. The Li-ion is a low maintenance battery which offers high energy, is lightweight and does not require periodic full discharge. No trickle charge is applied once the battery reaches full charge. The Li-ion battery can stay in most chargers until used. The charging process of a Li-ion is, in many ways, simpler and cleaner than that of nickel-based systems, but requires tighter tolerances. Repeated insertion into the charger or cradle does not affect the battery by inducing overcharge"

[lardman]

Ran?

There was lots of info/discussion/etc on the devnet. If I remember correctly the general consensus was to let the battery drain with normal use to about 60%, but never to let it go completely flat. Also Li-ions have a set charge cycle life.

Hopefully someone more knowledgable on the hardware front (Ran for example) can set us straight on this.


Si

[desco]

Back to the original question posed, I put my Zaurus on charge/external power ANY time I can. I have a power supply sitting under my desk at home, one at work, and one in the car. Because I've run into the embarassing situation of having it go dead on me, I trained myself to always plug it in every time I get to work or home. I really only use the car charger on longer trips, or when I'm using my Z as an MP3/OGG player.

[grey_moon]

I have to agree with desco here, nothing more useful then a powerless pda, especially if u have a 2 hour meeting to attend and u have 1/4 battery left... and if its boring and u want to catch up on some futurama episodes

[offroadgeek]

I definitely missed that thread on the devnet... bummer. I've been running my batteries completely dry before charging them.... it's actually a pain in the butt doing it.... letting it drain, then turning it on again to drain some more... oops... and I'm almost always near power :oops:

[ScottYelich]

I've been keeping mine plugged in almost 100% when I use it... ('cept when on subway, etc).

I, however, want to leave pdaXrom on my 760 on all day (plugged in) at home, so I can get to my
workstation... er... pda... from work.

Scott

Well, I'm certainly not an "expert": the author of that article that grey_moon clearly knows many times what I do about LiIon batteries.

My interpretation of what he wrote is that the battery is probably going to die in about 3 years, even if used "optimally". Charging it once or twice per day isn't going to have much effect on that, but charging it many times per day, or discharging it to "dead", probably will.

The bottom line seems to be that running the Z off the adapter is a good thing, but isn't going to make enough of a difference in battery life to be fanatical about it if you're using the Z intermittently. If you've got it on a lot of the time (e.g., using it as your MP3/Ogg player at work), though, it's likely to be worth picking up a 3rd-party adapter,

It seems pretty likely that making a fetish of putting the Z on the charger at every opprtunity to "top up" a battery that hasn't been discharged much is also bad. I'd like to hear what grey_moon's chemist friend has to say about that, though. because it's just a conclusion I drew from that webpage on battery life.

Ran

[tumnus]

From my experience you'd be lucky to get a rechargable lithium-ion battery to last 3 years. The battery in my Nokia 6210 started to not hold as much charge after only about a year. I've hardly ever let my phone battery run completely flat and I generally don't charge it when its above 75%.

My Sl-5500 battery lasted about 1 1/2 years before the charge it held, or rather lack of charge, became too frustrating so I had to get a new one. I ran my SL-5500 down a few times, but also kept it topped up on charge most of the time.

No one seems to know what is best, but I have heard repeatedly from eletrical engineering friends and model eletric plane enthusiasts that the worst thing you can do to a lithium battery is to keep discharging it completely.

[lazy8]

Wow, this place has really picked up since Zaurus.com went down. Glad to see it. I've kinda lost interest in my Z since the community collapsed, anyway here's my 2 cents for what it's worth.
I've had my Z for almost 2 years? seems longer than that but I have had the same two batteries since the beggining and discharge them fully before charging again. They have been cycled this way sometimes as many times as 2-3 a day. The batteries have begun to lose their charge faster now and even sometimes die when the Z is on full backlight with half battery still showing but given the number of times they have been charged and discharged I'd say they have held up pretty good over the last two years.

[wigglit]

So, why DID the Zaurus.com forum go down? Been wondering that for weeks...

[tumnus]

The website was being moved to a cheaper host and I guess they decided to revamp as part of it. They couldn't do two things concurrently, like run the old website while developing the new one, oh no (sarcasm). It is supposedly coming back at some point.

Getting back to Lithium batteries, I just remembered my wife's Compaq laptop came with a 'Battery Optimizer' app which charges the battery, completely discharges it and recharges it again. Whether that is really to do with maximising the battery life or just recalibrating the battery meter I don't know.

[ironyengine]

About the AC power issue, I've noticed that the amber LED that appears when the device is charging will inevitably eventually turn off after the battery is completely charged... I'm not sure if it's hardware or software telling it to do so but it seems to be able to recognize when it doesn't need to charge anymore, and stops sucking AC power at that point. I like to leave it plugged in whenever I'm at home, since I usually have the wireless card plugged in which consumes a good deal of power.