Better to Leave Z Connected to AC Power?

[omega]

Get yourselves a ipda usb sync/charge cable. So tiny, and as soon as you plug it in it starts charging happily away.

[bluedevils]

Someone posed this question at work (but it was about aqn ipaq).  I did some research and this is what I came up with.

It is OK to recharge the battery before fully discharge as the li-ion battery does not have memory.

Depending on usage you should drain the battery once in a while (once a week or month?).  This is not because of battery memory, but because there is circuitry in the battery that keeps track of the charge.  I believe this circuit keeps track of charge and when to stop the charger from charging.  If the discharge and recharge are constantly small, then the circuit has a hard time keeping an accurate track.  If you do a long discharge and charge, then the circuit can recalibrate to be more accurate again.

It is bad to fully drain the battery because the battery circuitry will have no power.  This is more of an inconvenience as the circuit just has to relearn things (requiring the long charge time).

I\'ll see if I can find my sources again......

[omega]

most Li-ion battery chargers, monitor by voltage the state of charge. So it automatically stops on that basis. If you use a usb cable to charge, it will charge slower and this also helps to preserve battery lifespan.

[bluedevils]

Here\'s a good place for information about batteries

http://www.batteryuniversity.com

[Inuyasha]

My personal use is to use the Zaurus for a few days without charging (number of days depends on how much I actually use it), and when it\'s down around 10-25%, I plug it in overnight and then go back to using it. Might not be the best way to do it, but so far it\'s worked for me (and for some odd reason the battery seems to last for a longer time than it did when I first got my 5600...)

[waalkman]

This is from when I had my iPAQ, but it applies to the Z as well.

Lithium-Ion batteries have a set number of charge-discharge cycles - 500 cycles if memory serves me. This means that you can do the charge-discharge thingie once a day for about a year and a half and then it dies (iPod owners know all about this).

So by all means keep it plugged in.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?p...9¬Found=true

And ain\'t it sweet that we don\'t have to send the unit back to get a new battery


John

[ScottYelich]

I keep my 760 plugged in all the time.  my 700 is unplugged and is often dead without power.. takes a few minutes of being plugged in before it will even power on... and the 5600 is also not plugged in.