[ltp] One battery or two?

[Tino Keitel]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 11:02:07 -0600, Christos Papadopoulos wrote:
> I am facing an interesting dilemma.
> 
> I have both the regular (8-cell) and extended batteries for my X40.
> Which is better for maximizing battery life, leaving the extended
> battery plugged in, or not plugging it in?

In general, keeping the batteries always plugged in one of the worst
things you can do with your batteries. They are exposed to heat, are
constantly recharged and are therefore stressed a lot. You can do
something against the recharge cycles using tp-smapi, see below.

> If I leave the extended battery out, I save it from recharge cycles,

According to http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Tp_smapi, the X40 supports
setting the percentage at which the battery should be recharged. If you
set it very low, the battery will be recharged less often.

I set it to 20% on my X61s. With the 8-cell battery, this gives me at
least one hour of remaining battery time, while keeping the number of
recharge cycles low.

> but "strain" the regular battery more. If I plug it in, both batteries
> may share the load and the recharge cycles (or does one discharge after
> the other?).

When I used 2 batteries in my A30, they were discharged one after
another. With tp-smapi you should even be able to choose what battery
is be discharged first.

Regards,
Tino