Laptop Battery Conditioning and Recycling Laptop Batteries

New Laptop Battery Tips: This document explains how we recommend you should fully condition your new laptop battery, by using a very simple charging cycle. This will ensure a long run time from your battery and greater lifetime.

It is very important that you fully cycle and 'condition' you battery before you use it. All new batteries need to be fully conditioned in the early stages for at least 8-20 cycles (cycle = one full charge, one full discharge) otherwise you will not get the optimum runtime in hours from your battery.

It is very common for customers to believe that there is a fault with the battery when actually they have a perfectly good battery, which simply requires correct conditioning.

When you receive your new laptop battery it will be fully discharged and unconditioned. Please do not turn on your laptop computer as the battery will not work straight away.

Your battery will normally take 8 - 10 charges and discharges to reach its full capacity. However, your battery will not reach full potential until it has been conditioned at least fifty times. Until then you may experience lower performance.

Another common situation you may experience is the LED's and charge indicator on your laptop will not give accurate information until the battery is fully conditioned - it is very common for consumers to believe that their battery is faulty. Please do not blame the battery! Just follow the cycle instructions below.

During the first charge, your laptop may indicate that charging is complete after a short period (of approximately 15 minutes). This is to be expected and considered normal; if this occurs, remove the battery from your laptop and repeat the charging procedure. You should then use your laptop as normal (without the mains power adaptor plugged in), until the battery completely runs down.

Repeat the above procedure for a minimum of eight times over the course of the next few days. Always ensure you allow your battery sufficient time to get a full overnight charge.

What these terms mean

Cycle - One full overnight charge and one full discharge without the AC adaptor plugged in.

Charge - Overnight charge with AC adaptor plugged in the mains.

Discharge - Fully exhausting your battery's power (operating the computer with your fully charged battery in the laptop and the AC adaptor unplugged).

Condition - This is the charge/discharge process you must complete. This will increase both the runtime and the lifetime of your battery.

Runtime - The period of time your battery will last for.

Approximately 577 million household primary batteries (non-rechargeable) were sold in the UK in 1998. These are used in a wide range of everyday appliances such as torches, radios and electric toys.

Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) rechargeable batteries are also common in the household, found in equipment such as power tools, camcorders, laptop computers and mobile phones (there is a separate information sheet about mobile phones).

A dry cell battery requires fifty times more energy to make than it gives out.

There have traditionally been difficulties with recycling technology for general purpose (non-rechargeable) batteries, as efficient separation and collection of the many different kinds of battery is difficult. The battery industry in the UK has now eliminated mercury from their own products, although small numbers of batteries containing mercury are still imported from abroad.

Check with the manufacturer of your batteries to see if they are operating a recycling or take-back scheme. This is particularly necessary for NiCd batteries as they are the most hazardous type of battery found in the home.