Do you completely discharge your Lithium battery?

[vietnamezerice]

I know that it keeps a battery's life span better when you completely discharge it and then recharge it... i was just wondering how many of your guys actually do it and how do you do it?

[TripleXmodder(akaXXX)]

Uh, you need a special charger for liths so don't just plug it into a Rc charger.

[BART]

This style of keeping a pack at its peak went out with Ni-cads. Liths and NIMH batteries do not suffer from "memory" problems and do not need to be constantly dumped before recharging. It is recommended to do it about once a year though on liths to "re-calibrate" the pack.

[dccracing]

how do you discharge a pack? also, if you don't use a lithium ion battery for a while, should you charge it everyonce and a while, or just let it sit?

[XMDrifter]

well, you store it charged. that way, it won't drop below 3v per cell during storage. batteries lose charge the longer you don't use them so discharging and recharging will help after a year to reset the batteries' capacity.

[dccracing]

ok gotcha, so should i recharge them like every month i don't use them?

[XMDrifter]

each month or two if you don't use them

[reaper]

had to jump in here

under no circumstances should you ever discharge a lithium battery

if this type of cell drops below 3v it will ruin the battery

[BART]

Originally Posted by reaper

had to jump in here

under no circumstances should you ever discharge a lithium battery

if this type of cell drops below 3v it will ruin the battery

In this application I would say your right. I was referring to batteries that have an auto cutoff circuit (laptop) where it is recommended to cycle it once in a while.