Battery Charging Thresholds - What do you use?

Mine are 70-80%. Most of the time I won't get it below 40% before plugging it in again, but occasionally it drops into the 20% region depending on how heavy what I am doing is.

Never took taking good care of my battery that seriously until recently. I felt like it would be good to try and get more life out of my battery before having to buy a new one. Anyways, questions.

What are your battery charging thresholds? Any recommendations of good points to set them?

Is more small charge cycles better than fewer bigger charge cycles? (5x 70-80% vs 1x 30-80% cycle) Is there any reason not to start charging whenever plugged in until it reaches the threshold?

 

Generally, the idea is to minimize the number of charge cycles, although Li Ion batteries don't like being drained to extremely low charges either. So, in your example, one 30-80% charge cycle is better than 5 70-80% charge cycles.

For my X120e, I have the thresholds at 95/35. For my T500, I have it at 95/45. Essentially, just balance it with how much battery life you'll usually need out of your laptop at one time.

 

I use whatever the default is. I don't worry about battery cycles.

 

Well, the point is that charge thresholds are a simple set-it-and-forget-it way to help your batteries last longer in the long run. It could be problematic if you usually need the entire life of the battery, though (in which case it's probably fine to use the automatic battery management setting).

 

I generally keep my ThinkPads for 12 to 16 months. I have yet to have an issue with the battery wearing down... atleast any noticeable amount.

 

Depending on your usage, yeah, there might not be much wear at all in just one year of use. My X120e battery has no battery wear so far after about a year of use, as reported by Power Manager. My 3+ year old T500 battery, though, has about 77% of original capacity left. Hopefully it'll remain above 50% for the rest of the usable life of the laptop.

 

I set my battery threshold to 40% - 50%

 

10-100. If I'm out, I generally need maximum battery life, after all, that's what the battery is there for. If I'm in, I use it as a UPS. It's not an expensive investment and worth the cost over 3 years.

 

50-90 on my 6-cell T61
50-95 on my 4-cell T61

 

I have the standard ThinkPad setting, and both of my Z61t's 7 cell are still like 97% capacities. My X220 Tablet hasn't really changed, though it has about like 5 charge cycles on it.

 

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

Code:

Depth of Discharge     Discharge Cycles (Partial)     Discharge Cycles (Full)

     100% DoD                        500                      500
      50% DoD                       1500                      750
      25% DoD                       2500                      625
      10% DoD                       4700                      470

So the optimal range would be ((100-x)-50) to (100-x), where x is the optimal reduction from full capacity. If you accept x=5, then the optimal range is 45 to 95, or exactly what you're using on your T500. I use 90 to 95 on my T61, but I only have 103 full cycles on my four-year old seven-cell Sanyo battery (Full Charge/Design 58.88/65.52).