If you have a lithium-ion battery, you might want to look for ways to extend its life. In this article, we are going to talk about a few ways of achieving that purpose. Nowadays, battery life is of paramount importance, especially when it comes to mobile phones. Given below are a few ways of extending the lifespan of your battery pack.

1: Consider the Room Temperature Limits

Ideally, your room temperature should be 25 degrees max. If your lithium-ion battery is fully charged and exposed to a higher temperature, problems can happen. So, what you need to do is avoid leaving your battery in your vehicle if you have parked it in the sun. As a matter of fact, heat is the number one factor that may reduce the life of your lithium-ion battery.

2: Get a High-Capacity Pack

With the passage of time, batteries tend to deteriorate whether you use them or not. Therefore, it’s important to keep in mind that having a spare battery is not a great idea. Your spare battery won’t give you more power than the one you are using.

So, make sure you understand the aging characteristic prior to buying a lithium-ion battery. It’s better to buy a pack that’s recently manufactured. Another way is to opt for a higher-capacity battery.

3: Allow Partial Discharges

NiCad batteries have a charge memory but the lithium-ion batteries do not. This means is that you don’t need deep-discharge cycles. As a matter of fact, it’s better if the battery makes use of partial-discharge cycles.

However, there is an exception as well. According to battery experts, you should completely discharge a battery after 30 charges. Actually, what happens is that continuous partial discharges lead to a problem known as digital memory, which reduces the accuracy of the power gauge of the device. Therefore, you might want to allow the battery to discharge and then put it on charge. This process will recalibrate the power gauge.

4: Don’t Discharge it Fully

If you discharge a lithium-ion battery below 2.5 volts, the built-in safety circuit opens to stop the flow of charge. As a result, the battery looks like it has no charge. In this case, you can’t use the original charger. In this case, you need to use a battery analyzer that features the boost function to recharge the unit.

Aside from this, it’s not a good idea to recharge a deeply discharged unit if you have stored it for a long time like several months.

5: Store in a cool place at 40% charge

I had an additional battery for my laptop but it wouldn’t do better than the original battery. The reason is that the battery was stored fully charged. In this case, the oxidation rate of the battery was at its peak. It’s better to store this type of battery at 40% discharge in a refrigerator.

The Takeaway

Lithium-ion batteries are much better than other types of batteries. You can enjoy 500 charge or discharge cycles with this type of battery pack. Make sure you follow the tips given above.