How To: Care for Your Expensive Rechargeable Batteries
In the era of gadget-everything (I’m referring to all sort of portable devices – mobile phones, digital cameras, notebooks, portable music player, portable this, portable that, etc), it is inevitable that every single thing relies on some sort of portable power – Batteries.
While they are all called batteries, there are plenty of types out there, from the typical “use-once-and-throw†alkaline batteries up to the heavy-duty lead-acid batteries uses in cars. Some devices uses common type of batteries (like AA batteries, for example) while some can only use their own specialized type. There’s one thing about these ’specialized’ batteries – they cost a bomb! On the good note, these batteries often are rechargeable. Phew.
Remember one thing though, rechargeable batteries have lifespan too. They will die eventually. However, there’s something we can do to prolong the batteries life. I’m not talking about increasing talk-time or amount of shots you can make on a camera – if you need this, either conserve the power or get a more powerful battery. I’m going to talk about on how to care for your batteries so it can service for an extended time.
Types of common rechargeable batteries
It is important to know what kind of rechargeable batteries that you are using, because the way to take care of them can be totally different from one another. The two most common rechargeable batteries that are often used nowadays are Nickel-Metal Hydrate (also known as Ni-MH) and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion). Let’s take a look on how to care for them one by one.
Nickel Metal-Hydrate (Ni-Mh) Battery Care
These batteries often comes as AA or AAA batteries, although some slightly-aged mobile phones and notebooks still uses these, as they are cheaper to manufacture. You can see the batteries are labeled “Ni-MH” on them (see the image above).
They are a bitch to take care of (However, they are cheap and the only kind of such types easily available)
Why did I say that? Simple – these batteries need to be drained out before a full recharge can be made. That’s why some of their advanced chargers even come with ‘discharge’ feature to help you drain the remaining power from these batteries before a full recharge process begins.
What happened if you recharge them when they still have half of their power? They will still charge to full power, but after repeatedly doing this, you will notice that the batteries’ started to drain out faster than usual, until at one point where they will totally die off even after minutes of use after a full charge.
Keep this in mind : Ni-MH = babies, need lots of attention and care to make them work for you better and lasts longer.
Lithium-Ion Battery Care
This is probably the most popular type of battery to power today’s mission-critical and power-hungry devices such as Notebooks, Mobile Phones and Digital Cameras (I’m referring to those proprietary-made batteries for digital cameras). I love Li-Ion batteries because they often light, small and pack a lot of power and also easy to take care of.
Easy. Really? Yep! Unlike Ni-MH batteries, Li-Ion batteries LOVE to be charged. In fact, draining your Li-Ion battery is never a recommended action. This will shorten their service life rapidly.
Yes. Li-Ion batteries are completely opposite of Ni-MH batteries!
Don’t be afraid to keep recharging your phone, notebook or camera batteries even after a mild use and “the battery bar hasn’t move yetâ€. (But of course, don’t go crazy charging your batteries all over the place!). I always charge my batteries whenever I don’t use the devices – my phone always plugged to the charger when I return home everyday, my camera’s battery is always at full charge, even after I only made a few shooting rounds.
Hope this small tip helps those clueless people on how to take care of the batteries.
Note: If you noticed, the Ni-MH battery I photograph above is 2700mAh rated. I got 8 pieces of them for only RM99, and yes they are real 2700mAh, unlike those fake “Sony 3800mAhs”. If you’d like these batteries, do checkup ShaShinKi – they have free shipping to Malaysia. Completely reliable!
