cliff@cs.arizona.edu (Cliff Hathaway) (08/10/90)
With the plethora of cordless, rechargable appliances and tools in our machine room tool cabinet, the question of the which charging schedule will prolong the life of the batteries and provide a reasonable useful charge has come up. The best information we have is that the batteries should not be recharged until they have been drained to avoid giving them a memory (e.g., if a fully-charged flashlight is consistently used for 5 minutes, and then recharged, it will soon develop a memory, and will only shine for 5 minutes before it is discharged). 1) Will this really happen? 2) Does it only happen to a certain type of rechargable batteries? 3) Is it possible to overly drain rechargable batteries so that they will no longer take or hold a charge? 4) What is the lifespan of a typical rechargable battery? My apologies if this has been covered recently; I just started following these newsgroups. Cliff Hathaway Dept. of Computer Science (602)621-4291 University of Arizona cliff@cs.arizona.edu (internet) Tucson, Ariz. 85721 {cmcl2,noao,uunet}!arizona!cliff (uucp)