Should I Charge Up My Cordless Tools All The Time?

Many people have the usual collection of cordless power tools that don’t get used quite as often as they should. And they have read that keeping the battery pack constantly charging is no good for the battery. Then people will have a question that can I keep the cordless tools charged up all the time? Here is a strategy recommend for ensuring the cordless power tools have the power when you need them but maintaining the battery life.
it is no denying the convenience of cordless tools — but there’s also no denying that if you don’t use them regularly, chances are they’ll be entirely out of power when you want to use them. I often find myself thinking “OK, now I need the drill” and then having to hold off while the battery charges up.
If you regularly plan to use your cordless tools, the obvious method is to leave the batteries plugged into the charger all the time. Assuming you have the space in your garage and shed, this means they’ll always be available for use. But is it a good idea? Many of us Indistinctly recall the warnings over battery memory that applied to notebooks and mobile phones, and worry that taking this approach will actually reduce the life of the devices.

However modern lithium ion batteries, it’s not true that constantly charging them will reduce battery life. And this is also true for newer power tools, which are designed to charge the battery more intelligently. Here’s what it says in the manual for a Bosch PSR 18 cordless drill which I’m currently testing:
Due to the intelligent charging method, the charging condition of the battery is automatically detected and the battery is charged with the optimum charging current, depending on battery temperature and voltage. This gives longer life to the battery and always leaves it fully charged when kept in the charger for storage.
This won’t necessarily apply if your cordless tools are older, or you have purchased them from a brand-name supplier. But if you have new modern tools, keeping the batteries in their chargers plugged in and ready to go will make it easier to engage in a spot of DIY when the mood takes you.

MIT Working on More Powerful, Lightweight Batteries

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on lithium-air batteries that could help in generating more powerful, lightweight batteries than available currently. Yang Shao-Horn is an MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering. According to him many research groups are trying to improve on lithium-air batteries. But they have difference of opinions about the types of electrode materials to be used. It has to be noted that electrode materials are responsible for electrochemical reactions happening inside these batteries.

Lithium-air batteries, also known as the lithium-oxygen batteries, work on the same principle as the lithium-ion batteries. Presently lithium-ion batteries are flooding the market and being used in the portable electronics and are a leading contender for electric vehicles. Lithium-air batteries possess a big advantage over conventional batteries. Their main components don’t have the heavy conventional compounds. They have a carbon-based air electrode and with flow of air these air-batteries are quite light hence can be utilized in electronics that themselves can be much lighter. Lithium-air batteries offer three times the energy density than the conventional batteries. They can be easily utilized in electronic devices and hybrid cars. Renowned companies like IBM and General Motors are sensing the potential lithium-air batteries hold that is why they are investing in major research projects on lithium-air technology.
How do lithium-air batteries work? Lithium-air batteries electrochemically couple a lithium anode to oxygen derived from atmosphere. Their biggest advantage is their cathode is a carbon-based air cathode instead of the heavy conventional compounds found in batteries. This culminates in higher energy density because cathode is lighter and oxygen is available in surroundings.
Yang, along with some of the students and visiting professor Hubert Gasteiger are catching up with those electrodes that have gold and platinum working as catalysts. Gold or platinum electrodes exhibit a higher level of activity that naturally leads to higher efficiency. This work may open wider avenues for experimenting with other metals or metallic oxides that are cheaper than gold and platinum.
If we study the chemical properties of lithium we can learn that in metallic form, lithium is highly reactive in the presence of even a tiny fraction of water. But this will not cause any safety issue because in current lithium-ion batteries, carbon-based materials are used for the negative electrode. Shao-Horn explains that the same battery principle can be applied without using metallic lithium. They can choose graphite or some other more stable negative electrode materials leading to a safer system.

Doctoral student Yi-Chun Lu who is lead author of the paper, elaborates further. She explains that this team has devised a technique for analysing the activity of different catalysts in the batteries. They can look into a variety of possible materials as catalysts. She says, “Such research could allow us to identify the physical parameters that govern the catalyst activity. Ultimately, we will be able to predict the catalyst behaviours.” Now researchers at MIT have made a breakthrough that would help the commercial development of lightweight rechargeable batteries.

Snow Leopard encourages battery replacement

MacBook and MacBook Pro users upgrading to Snow Leopard are being encouraged to replace flagging batteries via a new feature in the new OS.
“Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard includes an improved Battery menu bar extra for portable Macs. The Battery menu bar extra provides information about the condition of the battery, as well the amount of time remaining on the current charge, the current active power source, and any current charge status details,” Apple states on a support page.
Users with a unhealthy battery will, once upgraded, get a warning asking them to either “Service Battery”, “Replace Soon”, “Replace Now”, or “Check Battery”.
“If you see “Replace Soon” in the Battery menu, the battery may still be usable and hold some charge, however, you might consider battery replacement,” suggest Apple perhaps hoping to secure extra funds from the cheap upgrade.
Currently MacBook and MacBook Pro batteries cost around £87 in the UK and $129 in the US suggesting a nice sideline revenue earner for the Cupertino based company.
However before you rush out to splash out on a new battery for your Apple laptop, we recommend seeing if a recalibration fixes the issue.
Apple’s instructions for this are:
1. Plug in the MagSafe Power Adapter and fully charge the battery.
2. When the battery is fully charged, the light on the MagSafe Power Adapter connector changes to green and the Battery icon in the menu bar indicates that the battery is charged.
3. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for two hours or longer.
4. You can use your computer during this time as long as the power adapter is plugged in.
5. With the computer still on, disconnect the power adapter and continue to use your computer.
6. When you see the low battery warning, save your work and close all applications. Keep your computer turned on until it goes to sleep.
7. After your computer goes to sleep, turn it off or allow it to sleep for five hours or longer.
8. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged.

A tenfold improvement in battery life?

Stanford University researchers have made a discovery that could signal the arrival of laptop batteries that last more than a day on a single charge.
The researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to give rechargeable lithium ion batteries–used in laptops, iPods, video cameras, and mobile phones–as much as 10 times more charge. This potentially could give a conventional battery-powered laptop 40 hours of battery life, rather than 4 hours.
The new batteries were developed by assistant professor Yi Cui and colleagues at Stanford University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
“It’s not a small improvement,” Cui said. “It’s a revolutionary development.”
Citing a research paper they wrote, published in Nature Nanotechnology, Cui said the increased battery capacity was made possible though a new type of anode that utilizes silicon nanowires. Traditional lithium ion batteries use graphite as the anode. This limits the amount of lithium–which holds the charge–that can be held in the anode, and it therefore limits battery life.
Silicon anodes have the “the highest theoretical charge capacity” according to Cui’s paper, but they expand when charging and shrink during use: a cycle that causes the silicon to be pulverized, degrading the performance of the battery. For 30 years, this dead end stumped researchers, who poured their battery life-extending energy into improving graphite-based anodes.
Cui and his colleagues looked at this old problem and overcame it by constructing a new type of silicon nanowire anode. In Cui’s anode, the lithium is stored in a forest of tiny silicon nanowires, each with a diameter that is a thousandth of the thickness of a sheet of paper. The nanowires inflate to four times their normal size as they soak up lithium, but unlike previous silicon anodes, they do not fracture.
Cui said there are a few barriers to commercializing the technology.
“We are working on scaling up and evaluating the cost of our technology,” Cui said. “There are no roadblocks for either of these.”
Cui has filed a patent on the technology and is considering formation of a company or an agreement with a battery manufacturer. He expects the battery to be commercialized and available within “several years,” pending testing.

Windows 7 Battery Notification Messages

Over the past week we have seen a little bit of blogosphere activity regarding Windows 7 and batteries, specifically the new Windows 7 message “Considering replacing your battery”. Since this is related to the engineering of Windows 7 we’re going to use this blog to provide an update to people. As we have talked about many times, we have a relentless focus on the quality of Windows 7 and we take seriously any reports we receive that indicate a potential problem that could result in a significant failure of the OS. In a previous post we talked about the steps we take when we receive a bug report, in particular when we start to see several reports that appear to be the same. For the past week or so we have been diligently working through these steps and more to see if there is anything in Windows 7 we need to address regarding this issue. At this time we have no reason to believe there is any issue related to Windows 7 in this context.
Several press articles this past week have drawn attention to blog and forum postings by users claiming Windows 7 is warning them to “consider replacing your battery” in systems which appeared to be operating satisfactorily before upgrading to Windows 7.  These articles described posts in the support forums indicating that Windows 7 is not just warning users of failing batteries – as we designed Windows 7 to do this – but also implying Windows 7 is falsely reporting this situation or even worse, causing these batteries to fail.  To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement.
Using all the tools at our disposal including contacting customers reporting this issue on forums, customer service communications, partnerships with our laptop makers, and of course the telemetry in Windows 7, we have been monitoring reports and discussions regarding this new feature, trying to separate reports of the designed behavior from those that might indicate an issue with Windows 7.  In the latter cases we are trying to understand the scope of applicability and obtain hardware on which to reproduce a faulty behavior.   To date all such steps indicate that we do have customers seeing reports of battery health issues and in all cases we have investigated Windows 7 has simply accurately detected a failing battery.   Before I go into our status on this particular issue, we should review the details behind this new feature.

One of the most obvious components of laptop battery life (the runtime you get on battery power) is the battery itself. laptop batteries inherently degrade in their ability to hold a charge and provide power (as is the case for all rechargeable batteries). The cause of this is complex and includes irreversible changes in battery chemistry, and increased internal resistance among other things and those in turn are dependent on the design and manufacturing of the battery. This degradation translates into less battery life for the user over the life of the battery in the laptop.  Ultimately, batteries must be replaced to restore an acceptable battery life.  A quick check of mainstream laptops will show that batteries usually have a warranty of 12 months, which is about the length of time when statistically we expect to see noticeable degradation (meaning that you start to notice the need to charge more frequently). Those of us that have owned the same laptop (or mobile phone, or music player, or anything else with rechargeable batteries) for a couple of years and taken it through regular charge cycles have no doubt “felt” the decline in battery life though we might have attributed to any number of factors since we did not have any information available to us otherwise.
Windows 7 makes use of a feature of modern laptop batteries which have circuitry and  firmware that can report to Windows the overall health of the battery. This is reported in absolute terms as Watt-hours (W-hr) power capacity. Windows 7 then does a simple calculation to determine a percentage of degradation from the original design capacity. In Windows 7 we set a threshold of 60% degradation (that is the battery is performing at 40% of its designed capacity) and in reading this Windows 7 reports the status to you.  At this point, for example, a battery that originally delivered 5 hours of charge now delivers, on average, approximately 2 hours of charge.  The Windows 7 the notification is a battery meter icon and notification with a message “Consider replacing your battery”.  This notification is new to Windows 7 and not available in Windows Vista or Windows XP.

laptop batteries expose information about battery capacity and health through the system firmware (or BIOS).  There is a detailed specification for the firmware interface (ACPI), but at the most basic level, the hardware platform and firmware provide a number of read-only fields that describe the battery and its status.  The firmware provides information on the battery including manufacturer, serial number, design capacity and last full charge capacity.  The last two pieces of information—design capacity and last full charge capacity—are the information Windows 7 uses to determine how much the battery has naturally degraded.   This information is read-only and there is no way for Windows 7 or any other OS to write, set or configure battery status information.  In fact all of the battery actions of charging and discharging are completely controlled by the battery hardware.  Windows only reports the battery information it reads from the system firmware. Some reports erroneously claimed Windows was modifying this information, which is definitely not possible.
As mentioned, every single indication we have regarding the reports we’ve seen are simply Windows 7 reporting the state of the battery using this new feature and we’re simply seeing batteries that are not performing above the designated threshold. Below we’ll talk about the data we have to support this point of view. It should stand to reason that some customers would be surprised to see this warning after upgrading a laptop that was previously operating fine. Essentially the battery was degrading but it was not evident to the customer until Windows 7 made this information available. We recognize that this has the appearance of Windows 7 “causing” the change in performance, but in reality all Windows 7 did was report what was already the case.
The following data points contributed to our understanding of the reports we are seeing. Please keep in mind that all the telemetry we see is opt-in, anonymous, and respects our privacy policy.

• We have seen no reproducible reports of this notification on new hardware or newly purchased laptops. While we’ve seen the reports of new PCs receiving this notification, in all cases we have established that the battery was in a degraded state.
• Our OEM partners have utilized their telemetry (call center, support forums, etc.) and have let us know that they are seeing no activity beyond what they expect. It is worth noting that laptop manufacturers work through battery issues with customers and have a clear view of what is to be expected both in general and with respect to specific models, timelines, and batteries.
• We’ve gone through all the major online support and self-help forums and when appropriate have worked to follow up with any reports of this notification being presented in error. Through this we have identified no reproducible cases where the battery or laptop was new and have only learned of batteries that were degraded in capacity.
• In our telemetry from RTM code customers, only a very small percentage of users are receiving the “Consider replacing your battery” notification, and as expected, we are seeing systems older than ~1.5 years.  We’re seeing relatively fewer notifications compared to pre-release software as the average age of the system decreases.
• Microsoft has received 12 customer service incidents in addition to pulling 8 additional incidents from various forums. To date (for a total of 20 incidents), none of these have shown anything other than degraded batteries.
• Microsoft has been using the technet community moderators to assist in further contacting customers reporting on this notification and we’ve assigned additional customer service personnel to be ready. However, of the 30 or so contacts we have received we have not learned of any new facts or conditions with respect to this notice.
• During pre-release testing of Windows 7 we saw almost precisely this same experience with customers in terms of the display of the notification. In fact, in looking at the hardware distribution of pre-release testing we saw an ever so slightly higher number of systems receiving this notice. This follows from the fact that a large set of customers are buying Windows 7 with new PCs or using the upgrade provided with a recent Windows Vista laptop.
• When looking at the telemetry reports for the machines that have reported displaying this notification we have seen nothing in additional reliability data that indicates any other system anomalies.
• While the information regarding battery status is provided read-only to the operating system through ACPI, we performed a thorough code-review and verified that there exists no code that is capable of modifying battery status information.

This data would confirm our point of view that we are seeing nothing more than the normal course of battery degradation over time. The transparency provided in this new Windows 7 feature produced a notice that previously was not available to customers and did so shortly after upgrade. This is the root cause of the urgency with which we’ve seen postings, but does not change the reality of the condition of the battery. We have no confirmed cases of new machines with the as-purchased batteries.
As we always say with regards to any reports on the quality of Windows 7, we are going to continue to be diligent and use all the tools at our disposal to get to the bottom of a report that has the potential to require a code change we would distribute to customers. We are as certain as we can be that we have addressed the root cause and concerns of this report, but we will continue to monitor the situation. In particular, we will continue to have focused communication with our OEM partners as they monitor their customers and PCs over time.

Battery tips: ten ways to make your battery last longer

As far as battery maintenance goes, I’m the worst ever. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve needed to jump on my lap-top, use my cell phone or any other portable electronic device, only to find myself in the unenviable position of having no juice left on the battery. Simply put, I overuse, poorly maintain, and all in all just wear down all of the batteries I need like it’s going out of style. These bad habits usually leave me powerless when I most need power, so I asked around and came out with these 10 simple things you can do to make any battery last longer.

1. Use the lowest brightness settings on screen displays. This will not work in bright areas like out doors, but sure works well indoors. Cell phones, lap-tops, and even watches have brightness controls that will help stretch the life of any battery.

2. Fully charge and discharge all of your batteries. Try to avoid “topping off” the battery if there’s enough of a charge in there to get by, then remove the battery or unplug from the charger only after it has had a chance to trickle charge at 100%, and your battery will last 2 or 3 years easily.

3. Use programs that take less RAM and keep useless programs closed. A lot of laptops come with cluttered programs since the day you take them home from the store. Stuff like Yahoo messenger or Firefox with 20 tabs open takes a lot of RAM and eats up batteries super fast.

4. Keeping the volume level on all of your music playing devices is key to a longer battery life. You’ll be amazed at how much life loud music sucks out of your battery. This will also do wonders in preserving your ear-drums as well.

5. To go with #4, also turn down the volume on your cell-phone ringer. Long ring-tones may sound cool, but hearing your favorite song play every time your phone rings will drain your  phone battery in a hurry.

6. Turn off your Bluetooth whenever you’re not using it. This can be an easy one to forget about if you’re often switching between using a Bluetooth, and the phone’s ear piece. Most people use their Bluetooth way too much anyhow, so cutting back on it’s use will lengthen the life of your battery.

7. I’ve always heard that when you get a new laptop, or anything with a rechargeable battery for that matter, you should charge it over night. Pull that bad boy out of the box and give it a nice, long, healthy charge. Even if it says full, leave it in and charging for a while.

8. When I was little I would always find batteries in my grandmother’s fridge. I always wondered why, turns out she was onto something. If you have extra batteries for your phone, laptop, or anything else, go ahead and store those in the refrigerator. Just make sure not to freeze them.

9. Programs that are run from a CD or DVD can be copied to and run from the hard drive, which typically consumes less power than an optical drive. If you have music and movies you know know you’ll be playing numerous times, just rip them onto your hard drive and you’ll be styled!

10. Lastly, just using basic common sense will help extend the life of all of your batteries. If you’re not using it, turn it off! If you don’t need it, get rid of it! This is probably the most practical and applicable way to get the most out of all of your batteries.

The Value of Laptop Battery

One of the great advantages of using a laptop computer is its ability to operate it in a portable manner. This is achieved by the use of a battery as its power source. However, most users take the battery for granted and are unaware that it will eventually fail.
Most laptops today are powered by Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. These are a great alternative to the older technologies since they have a much higher power to weight ratio, are not prone to the memory effect phenomenon and are inherently more environmentally friendly. However, much like the older battery chemistries, they do have a limited lifetime. Although the older chemistries rates of failure were proportional to the number of charging cycles, the capacity of today’s Lithium-ion batteries diminish with age.
When you find that your laptop computer does not hold its charge as long as it used to, or when your system’s power management utility software indicates that its charge level is decreasing, you will need to find a replacement laptop battery to maintain your computer’s operating time. Finding the correct battery is generally a matter of searching for a battery that will fit your computer’s make and model number. In addition, the specifications for the battery are usually found imprinted on the charger.

SONY VGP-BPS8 Replacement Laptop Battery

With this information in hand, there are several sources from which you can purchase a new laptop battery. These generally include the computer manufacturer, specialized electronic and computer retailers and a number of Internet sources. You will also find that, in addition to the OEM battery, there may also be a number of generic equivalents available. Buying a replacement laptop battery directly from the manufacturer is the easiest choice, but you will be paying a premium price for this convenience. Secondary sources of OEM batteries will generally charge you as much as the computer manufacturer and in some cases you may even pay more.
This is true of both brick and mortar stores and online sites that sell lapto p battery. But if you are a value shopper, you will soon realize that generic batteries will offer you the same level of performance at a substantial cost savings. Additionally, you may be able to increase your laptop’s operating time by upgrading your laptop battery and choosing one with a higher milliamp rating in the generic equivalent. These higher capacity generic batteries typically cost much less than the OEM’s standard capacity battery.

Dell KG126 Replacement Laptop Battery

Generic laptop battery are produced at the same manufacturing plants that originally produced the laptop battery for the computer manufacturer; laptop battery are simply an out-sourced item for the computer maker. But these laptop battery may also be made at facilities whose standards are not as high as the primary plant’s and the only way to ensure that you have purchased a quality laptop battery is to check the reputation of the supplier or the seller, make sure that they provide a liberal warrantee and test the battery by charging it in your computer soon after it is received.
The author performed a case study and examined the cost to buy a replacement laptop battery for a Dell Inspiron. He found that he was able to save more than 50% on a laptop battery that provided a higher capacity and offered an extended operating time. The shopping for a replacement laptop battery article provides the details. Please visit replacement laptop battery for more buying tips and technical advice regarding laptop battery.