[SOLVED] about the Battery life

[JTRsol]

hey guys i just picked up my zune 8gb last week. Since i've gotton the thing i keep placing the zune in the dock to update my pictures or to add more music. as soon as i add something i immediately place the zune in its dock without thinking twice. In turn i know the thing keeps recharging reguardless if there still is a charge in its internal battery.

Will this effect the longevity batteries life? should i completely wait until the battery is dead before i charge it? Is there a first innitial charge that we are supposed to do like cel phones?

[Scrapz616]

i dont think it matters how much u charge it but sum1 said that if u let it die, it lowers the battery life(dont know if its true though)

[Jon]

No, in fact letting it die will effect the life of batteries.

[Gregory]

You can charge it whenever, the battery will not loose life.

[nathanlawliet]

Originally Posted by Scrapz

i dont think it matters how much u charge it but sum1 said that if u let it die, it lowers the batter life(dont know if its true though)

No. Letting it die lowers it's life, meaning your Zune will die sooner.

[jackluo923]

Too bad it's impossible to let the zune's internal li-ion battery die, meaning you can charge whenever you want. There's a circuit built into zune and many other electronic device from discharge the li-ion battery to a point which it'll damage the battery.

The best way to make the battery last longer is to use it less to a certain point. The li-ion battery loose every time you charge and every day because of li-ion oxidation. It doesn't mattery how many times you charge the batter, it's how much you charge the li-ion battery that's the main factor to battery degration. Thus my best suggestion is to stop charging the zune once it's fully charged.

[The Chicken.]

Originally Posted by jackluo923

Too bad it's impossible to let the zune's internal li-ion battery die, meaning you can charge whenever you want. There's a circuit built into zune and many other electronic device from discharge the li-ion battery to a point which it'll damage the battery.

The best way to make the battery last longer is to use it less to a certain point. The li-ion battery loose every time you charge and every day because of li-ion oxidation. It doesn't mattery how many times you charge the batter, it's how much you charge the li-ion battery that's the main factor to battery degration. Thus my best suggestion is to stop charging the zune once it's fully charged.

The only problem is....If you don't charge it you can't use it lol

On a more serious note. I had never actually heard that fact. good to know thanks

[jackluo923]

"The only problem is....If you don't charge it you can't use it lol"
Welcome aboard captain obvious...

Take a look at the last sentence, "Thus my best suggestion is to stop charging the zune Once it's fully charged

I think you missed the bold part.

[nathanlawliet]

Originally Posted by jackluo923

"The only problem is....If you don't charge it you can't use it lol"
Welcome aboard captain obvious...

Take a look at the last sentence, "Thus my best suggestion is to stop charging the zune Once it's fully charged

I think you missed the bold part.

Does it really hurt the Zune if you charge the battery when it's fully charged? I always do it and my Zune is A-OK.

If it hurts it, then the Zune is gay. Look at the Nintendo DS, it stops charging once it's fully charged..

[saab900]

Originally Posted by Jon

No, in fact letting it die will effect the life of batteries.

Yeah running the battery all the way down isnt very good for the battery. But you guys are saying there is no problem with overcharging?

[nathanlawliet]

Originally Posted by saab900

Yeah running the battery all the way down isnt very good for the battery. But you guys are saying there is no problem with overcharging?

There SHOULDN'T be a problem with overcharging. It's so easy to stop overcharging these days, you'd think the Zune could stop it like the Nintendo DS does. I'm not sure if it does though, so we'll have to wait for someone who knows more information to speak up.

[jackluo923]

Originally Posted by nathanlawliet

Does it really hurt the Zune if you charge the battery when it's fully charged? I always do it and my Zune is A-OK.

If it hurts it, then the Zune is gay. Look at the Nintendo DS, it stops charging once it's fully charged..

It hurts the zune and other electronic's li-ion battery life if you left it plugged in when it's fully charged for a numerous reason.

1) When you plug in the zune, the screen will not turn off thus comsuming power. There's a bug in zune, (at least in zune 30). The zune battery icon will turn green, but after 1 minute (when you're playing a song while charging) or after 10 minute (when the zune is idle), the battery meter would be white and show the charging icon. From this observation, i can conclude that zune is using the internal battery or a combination of the USB power and the internal li-ion when the zune is pluged in.

Over long periods of time, this cycle of charging and discharging will deplete zune's battery capacity thus lowering the battery run time. The effect of connecting the zune to a charger or the computer will be quite noticible after 2 or 3 years. If you don't plan to use your zune for 2 or 3 years, you don't have to worry about it.


2) The battery discharge faster when it's full.
eg. battery at 40% charge will self discharge 1% every month?
battery at 99% charge will self discharge 5% every month?

The number figure isn't very accurate, but simply a bit exagerated to emphasize a point.



Tips and information that you should know about li-ion batteries.
-store li-ion in a cold place at 40%.
-use li-ion battery in room temperature, do not use it in extreme temperature
-if you're outside at minus 20C and your battery just died, go to a warm room and the battery would regain some battery life.
-If you're in a warm room, and go outside to a very cold place, you battery might die quicker than you expected.
-battery looses 5% capacity every year no matter how much you use it.
-battery looses 25-30% of capacity after 200 full charge cycles. Meaning 200 full charges or 400 half charges or 800 quatre charges. etc.
post2
The zune will NOT overcharge.
The zune will not DISCHARGE to the point where it hurts the batter

So charge whenever you want. Don't worry about it.

If you're crazy about battery life, unplug the zune after the charging icon has turned green.

[carnealse]

Older batteries had a memory and full discharges were needed to fix them. As for the newer lithium-ion, here is a blip from http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
You can learn more form there but here is pertinent info;

A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.
Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate.

[jackluo923]

First of all, this article is pretty old thus not entirely true. This website is mainly focused on li-ion battery in a laptop.

Zune's battery meter is a little bit different than a laptop battery meter. I believe zune's battery meter is integrated into the zune's motherboard. Most laptop battery has integrated battery meter on their battery.

The kind of battery meter on zune is probably much simpler than the type on laptop batteries. It's based voltage levels rather than the actual run time of the battery. Li-ion battery do not drop their voltage level consistantly. On a laptop, the chip will make accurate prediction of run time based on the voltage level, temperature, and many other factors. On a zune, it's probably only voltage based thus not very accurate, and it doesn't need to be.

Thus i can conclude that battery reset is not necessary on zune unless you absolutely doubt that the accurate meter is very unreliable and you want to try a useless battery meter reset.

"The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. "

This theory really depends on what type of battery you have. A small capacity battery like the one on the zune won't suffer this effect nearly as much as a high capacity laptop li-ion battery.

[meth0dical]

props to jackluo923 from saving me a lot of typing, he knows what hes talking about and all his info is correct.
li-ion batteries and battery management have come a long way in recent years. pretty much every device have safety features implemented to save you from damaging your battery. he said it all, charge when you want for as long as you want, but it is better to take it off AC when you have a full charge.
jackluo: is it better for my laptop battery if i take it out when i'm on AC power, or does the circuit bypass the battery automatically when it's fully charged?

[carnealse]

Right right, I was posting in favor of the battery not needing to be drained. Like I had said, the older batteries have that "memory" problem but the newer ones are so much better, just like the little beauty in our zunes.
You were pretty much saying what was posted in other words.

[nathanlawliet]

Originally Posted by jackluo923

First of all, this article is pretty old thus not entirely true. This website is mainly focused on li-ion battery in a laptop.

Zune's battery meter is a little bit different than a laptop battery meter. I believe zune's battery meter is integrated into the zune's motherboard. Most laptop battery has integrated battery meter on their battery.

The kind of battery meter on zune is probably much simpler than the type on laptop batteries. It's based voltage levels rather than the actual run time of the battery. Li-ion battery do not drop their voltage level consistantly. On a laptop, the chip will make accurate prediction of run time based on the voltage level, temperature, and many other factors. On a zune, it's probably only voltage based thus not very accurate, and it doesn't need to be.

Thus i can conclude that battery reset is not necessary on zune unless you absolutely doubt that the accurate meter is very unreliable and you want to try a useless battery meter reset.

"The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. "

This theory really depends on what type of battery you have. A small capacity battery like the one on the zune won't suffer this effect nearly as much as a high capacity laptop li-ion battery.

Finally, someone who agrees with me. Props to you, jack, you just got + rep.

[jackluo923]

Originally Posted by meth0dical

jackluo: is it better for my laptop battery if i take it out when i'm on AC power, or does the circuit bypass the battery automatically when it's fully charged?

Yes, there is a circuit on battery which automatically disconnects the battery when it's fully charged.

Why you should take the battery out when you're on AC:
1) Most laptop are "hot", such as macbook/pro, p4 based laptops. This "hottness" will decrease the battery life by a not so significant amount, but it's noticible after a year or so.
2) The battery will self discharge quicker than normal (200%~faster) when you leave it alone and place it near a heatsource (laptop) at 100% capacity. If the charge in the battery is less than 100% the laptop will automatically recharge the battery back to 100% thus making the battery work. This 1% discharge and charging cycle will shorten the battery life by 1 month or so.
3) You have a UPS and don't want to use the battery

Why you should not remove the battery when you're on AC:
1) Laptops such as Dell 1x20 or 1x25 series or HP dv2xxx series have much better cooling than other laptops. It'll not warm up the battery as much as other laptops thus you don't have to worry about accelerated battery discharge as much as on other laptops.
2) You don't want to loose work if the electricity went out.
3) You don't want to break the mechanism which holds the battery
4) You're too lazy.
5) You might loose the battery or spill liquids on it.


YAY, canucks won today. LOL

[Gregory]

Question has been solved. If you want to make a discussion about this, let it be in its own thread.