Touch Kobo Touch: When should I recharge?

[zux2]

Where should the battery icon's "juice" be before I fully recharge my Kobo Touch to keep the battery living as long as possible?

[John F]

I would say 1/3 at a minimum. The battery indicator once was at about 1/4, and the Kobo Touch wouldn't let me read saying it needed to be charged.

[keepsake]

Modern Li-ion batteries do not have "memory". You can recharge them whenever you want and however frequently you want. Occasionally the battery meter will become inaccurate and you will need to drain it fully to reset the battery, but either way, draining it to 1/2 battery twice and recharging is the same as draining it completely and recharging -- either way, you've used up one charge cycle.

(In fact there is evidence that you should charge more frequently to keep it in good shape as opposed to less frequently.)

[jackastor]

The battery in your touch is a Li-on battery and it has no memory effect. How ever your battery is only good for a max of about 1 thousand recharges. So charging your device should be only done when its totatly dead to ensure maximun life. IF you charge your battery before its dead. You will be reducing the life by the number of times you re charge. So for example if the life of a battery is say 3 days and the recharge number is 365 times that would mean you would get about 3 years out of it if you only charged it when it was dead.. But if you charged it every day you would decrease its life to 1 year. Also every time you charge your battery you decrease the maximun amount of power in your battery by a small amount. So ver time that battery will go from 100 percent down to 50 percent maximum power. So to make it simple the best way to deal with Lion batteries or any rechargeable ones at that is to use them till they are dead then fully charge them to get the maximum life out of your battery.
This link should help you out.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a..._ion_batteries

Its very comprehensive and it provides the best information for you.

regards

Jack

[paulsalter]

Originally Posted by jackastor

The battery in your touch is a Li-on battery and it has no memory effect. How ever your battery is only good for a max of about 1 thousand recharges. So charging your device should be only done when its totatly dead to ensure maximun life. IF you charge your battery before its dead. You will be reducing the life by the number of times you re charge. So for example if the life of a battery is say 3 days and the recharge number is 365 times that would mean you would get about 3 years out of it if you only charged it when it was dead.. But if you charged it every day you would decrease its life to 1 year. Also every time you charge your battery you decrease the maximun amount of power in your battery by a small amount. So ver time that battery will go from 100 percent down to 50 percent maximum power. So to make it simple the best way to deal with Lion batteries or any rechargeable ones at that is to use them till they are dead then fully charge them to get the maximum life out of your battery.
This link should help you out.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a..._ion_batteries

Its very comprehensive and it provides the best information for you.

regards

Jack

Do Kobo's use different types of batteries to Apple devices
http://www.apple.com/batteries/

I have always gone by what is written there with devices and never have any issues, whether it is right or not i do not know

charging from flat is 1 charging
charging at 50% to full is 1/2 a charge

I find it very hard to believe that I can only plug it into the charger 1000 times before the battery dies

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by jackastor

The battery in your touch is a Li-on battery and it has no memory effect. How ever your battery is only good for a max of about 1 thousand recharges. So charging your device should be only done when its totatly dead to ensure maximun life. IF you charge your battery before its dead. You will be reducing the life by the number of times you re charge. So for example if the life of a battery is say 3 days and the recharge number is 365 times that would mean you would get about 3 years out of it if you only charged it when it was dead.. But if you charged it every day you would decrease its life to 1 year. Also every time you charge your battery you decrease the maximun amount of power in your battery by a small amount. So ver time that battery will go from 100 percent down to 50 percent maximum power. So to make it simple the best way to deal with Lion batteries or any rechargeable ones at that is to use them till they are dead then fully charge them to get the maximum life out of your battery.
This link should help you out.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a..._ion_batteries

Its very comprehensive and it provides the best information for you.

regards

Jack

You provided the link to the resources, but you somhow completely failed the reading. Charging Li-On Batteries in full cycles is actually the worst you can do for them as far as wear. (You'll get less battery opperating time before the battery fails that way.) To get best results from Li-on, they should be charged at approx 1/2 discharge. Although the difference isn't going to be drastic either way, so there's no point in getting religious about how you charge the device. When you notice the battery meter is down by by a chunk, just leave it plugged in for a bit.

[JedV]

In my experience with the KT, the battery indicator hasn't been reliable. I know to charge mine every couple weeks or so.

[ltr]

Originally Posted by JedV

In my experience with the KT, the battery indicator hasn't been reliable. I know to charge mine every couple weeks or so.

Since I don't use the Wi-Fi, I find my battery lasts at least a month, so I usually charge on that schedule and buy new books at that time.

So, if I can expect 1000 charges, then that would allow my Touch to last about 83 years. I will expect no less.

ltr

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by rashkae

You provided the link to the resources, but you somhow completely failed the reading. Charging Li-On Batteries in full cycles is actually the worst you can do for them as far as wear. (You'll get less battery opperating time before the battery fails that way.) To get best results from Li-on, they should be charged at approx 1/2 discharge. Although the difference isn't going to be drastic either way, so there's no point in getting religious about how you charge the device. When you notice the battery meter is down by by a chunk, just leave it plugged in for a bit.

Actually most devices shut down way before the battery is completely drained. Which means it has power but will not fire up. So there is always a partial charge when you charging on a regular basis. So one is never really completly draining the battery.
Bottom line is you will probably buy a new ereader sooner then wearing the battery out. Regardless of how you do it.

good luck

jack

[keepsake]

To summarize the information (in more accurate terms), charge your device whenever possible, and try to avoid having it drain to very low energy levels.

1 cycle = 1 full discharge and 1 full charge, this means that if you discharge it to 1/2 and then charge it, that counts as 1/2 a cycle. Usually modern Li-ion batteries last anywhere from 500 to a few thousand charge cycles, but this just means that it'll drop to 50% capacity after that many cycles. Your device will function just as well as it would, it would just hold half the full charge (it won't be dead).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackastor

Actually most devices shut down way before the battery is completely drained. Which means it has power but will not fire up. So there is always a partial charge when you charging on a regular basis. So one is never really completly draining the battery.

While that is true, you have missed something. All batteries suffer from self-discharge. This is loss of charge while sitting doing nothing. So, if you charge a battery, put it on the shelf, eventually it will self-discharge until it has zero charge in it. And going from nearly empty, to empty happens a lot faster. In fact, once the battery hits the measured zero charge level, it continues to drop even further. If this happens with Li-Ion batteries, it can be very dangerous. Li-Ion batteries have a protection circuit built-in to prevent them from being recharged after the charge level has dropped to low.

From my experience with Li-Ion batteries in laptops, phones etc, keepsakes summary is the way to go.

[jusmee]

It occurred to me, while reading this discussion, that, if the theory that ANY recharge counts as a cycle was correct, we'd get lots and lots of cycles used up because of all the times we connect the cable to our computers to load new books, because it charges off the USB a small amount.

[JedV]

Originally Posted by jusmee

It occurred to me, while reading this discussion, that, if the theory that ANY recharge counts as a cycle was correct, we'd get lots and lots of cycles used up because of all the times we connect the cable to our computers to load new books, because it charges off the USB a small amount.

Good observation. More reason to sideload via microSD or calibre content server!

[keepsake]

If power is connected chances are the battery is not being used, and it's directly using USB power until you unpower it at which point it changes to battery power.

I wouldn't worry about charging it while using.