How to prolong lithium based batteries • Hacker News Board

Re: How to prolong lithium based batteries

#111

Post by lesinski » Sun, Jun 23, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

Daniel_sk wrote: post #69

lesinski wrote: post #57

Two unconventional things I do to improve my iPhone's battery health (which follow this article's findings): 1) Don't use a case - Otherwise, you are literally wrapping your phone in a rubber insulator 24/7, increasing its overall temperature. 2) Don't charge at night - Turn off your phone at night. Instead, charge it during the day when you're at your desk. This reduces the number of cycles over years (because your…

iOS will not fully charge your battery during the night - it will top off the battery just before you usually take it off the charger in the morning (it learns your usual schedule + it probably also makes sure the battery is ready based on your alarm settings).

This feature doesn’t help. The problem is that the phone is still using energy during the night, draining the battery by, for example 8-10%. Over several nights, this adds up to 1 cycle.

The fact that the OS waits to top up the battery just hides how much energy it used on background activity and notifications during the night.

Re: How to prolong lithium based batteries

#112

Post by cubefox » Sun, Jun 23, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

freehorse wrote: post #109

cubefox wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but a software solution would be better and actually easy to implement.

True, that is what _should_ have been done in the first place. But I have given up on companies caring about battery life of products, when their business model is exactly getting their products obsolete as fast as possible for people to get the new product, and hindering self-repair as much as possible.

I think it is more likely the developers of operating systems are just not aware of some obvious things. E.g. it took them years to introduce a dark mode and to adapt the color temperature of the screen to something warmer during the night.

Re: How to prolong lithium based batteries

#113

Post by Out_of_Characte » Sun, Jun 23, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

Veliladon wrote: post #105

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That defeats the point of having a big battery. You're sacificing battery life to gain battery longevity

Yes and no. A battery's capacity isn't the only variable. You also have internal resistance. If you have a worn out to hell battery where there's dendrites on the anode and you've basically electroplated the cathode the internal resistance is going to be much higher. So if you draw the same current on a worn battery and a new battery the voltage drop is going to be way higher on that worn battery. If you're already a…

I've bought a phone with a big battery so I could do exactly what the GP said, always charge between 30-80%. But that means I'm cutting half of the potential energy in the battery.

I'm lamenting the fact that we have to do this even though film capacitors can be drained from 100% to 0% without damaging the capacitor or reducing its capacity. This is far closer to how you want an energy storage device to operate. Aside from the fact that film capacitors store about a thousand times less energy by every metric.

Re: How to prolong lithium based batteries

#114

Post by 8xeh » Sun, Jun 23, 2024, 8:04 PM UTC

Filligree wrote: post #70

8xeh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LFPs are indestructible and last forever. For general advice, they like it cooler[1] than other kinds of lithium batteries. Try to keep them between 15-25°C. Other than that, charge LFP batteries to whatever percentage you want whenever you want. They are simply better than every other kind of lithium chemistry. Their practical downside is lower cell voltage (3.2 vs 3.8), and slightly lower energy density. I've spent…

A practical concern is that the batteries in question will be powering our cottage, which is entirely off-grid. It’s also unused for half the year, and for much of that half the solar input is effectively zero; for part it’s literally zero. Not enough to even run the Victron gear, never mind a heater. Spring temperatures often drop below -5C. So we’ll winterise it by shutting everything off, BMS included to the degre…

Cold batteries do struggle a bit to deliver power and charge when they're cold, but they're just fine being stored in low temperatures. LFPs are really good at maintaining their charge. Even below -5°C, they should be fine, particularly if they're not being used.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the BMS too much. Unless it's really dumb, when there's no charging or discharging happening it will put itself to sleep for most of that time. Technically it will use power, but likely only a few hundred micro watts to a few milliwatts (nothing that will make a difference on a 5 kWh+ battery). Then when the sunlight comes back in the spring (or whenever the snow melts off the solar panels), it'll see some input voltage and start feeding the battery again.

Re: How to prolong lithium based batteries

#115

Post by Zak » Sun, Jun 23, 2024, 9:41 PM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #99

Zak wrote: post #75

I've been using ACCA[0] to set limits on battery charging on Android devices for years. Note that it requires root. ACCA can limit charge percentage, allowing the device to operate plugged in without charging beyond a certain point. It can also pause charging when the temperature exceeds a threshold, limit the charge rate, and several other tweaks to charging behavior. By default, I use a charge limit of 60% and a ch…

This sounds great and is exactly why having root is valuable. Unfortunately, I've given up having root because the cat-and-mouse of staying ahead of manufacturers updates became too burdensome and I wasn't willing to constrain my phone choices to only device with accessible root.

It is unfortunate few devices come with unlockable bootloaders. I take a harder line on that issue; I see it as a malicious decision by the manufacturer and a very strong reason not to pick a particular device.

I run LineageOS and don't have to concern myself with manufacturer updates. That's not to say everyone should take that approach; it does involve more effort and demand more knowledge than leaving the OS stock.