[ltp] hello all... (battery question...)

Richard Neill linux-thinkpad@www.bm-soft.com
Fri, 24 Aug 2001 21:56:21 +0100


I don't know a way to do this in Software, but the battery voltage is 
~12V, so to discharge it at a reasonable rate, say 1 Amp, put a resistor 
rated between 10 -22 ohms across the terminals.
This resistor will need to be rated at at 25 Watts or so. [Adjust 
numbers if desired - recall that Amps = Volts / Ohms, and Watts = Amps * 
Volts].  Look on the battery for the exact voltage
that it is rated at, and dishcarge the cell until the voltage falls to 
about 65 % of this value - do not flatten it to zero! Then recharge, and 
repeat about 5 times.
This will rescue the battery if it isn't totally dead.

Hope that helps

Richard





dhave config wrote:

>hello, just subscribed to the list...
>
>I've searched the archives and browsed them without any firm answer to my question, so I thought I'd post it...
>
>I've just inherited an IBM Thinkpad 380XD with 64Mb ram. Runs linux quite beautifully, I really wasn't expecting to have such an easy time of getting XFree and sound support working so nicely. (it's going to be a gigging machine running jMax.)
>
>Anyhow, I was just wondering if anyone knows of any utility that lets me deep discharge my battery? I'm suspecting that seeing as how it's an Li battery that it's just reached the end of it's life, but am still holding out a sliver of hope...
>
>basically the battery just reports itself (under linux or win98) as being 80% charged, but it's not supplying any charge. If I unplug the ac power, no cigar.
>
>so my sliver of hope is that I can discharge it in some sense.
>
>
>suggestions much appreciated, even if you're telling me it's definitely dead...
>
>
>
>dhave
>



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