Battery recharge life cycle, what does that exactly mean?

[baker]

When a battery states that it can be recharged 500 times. Does that mean if you just top it up or make small charges, that it would count as one recharge? eg. say top up from 60% to 70%.

Or do you have to do a full cycle recharge from flat to full or do a large percentage recharge to be counted as one recharge??

 

[Matador]

What kind of battery chemistry?

 

[baker]

NiMh or the Lithium-ion batteries?

For example, Eneloop AA Nimh batteries or the laptop or camera batteries.

Thanks

 

[joaquins]

Li ion batteries are supposed to have less or non memory, so it isn't a problem to do a recharge from 70%, older batteries had memory so if you always charge it from 50% to 90% that range will be the most functional, so if you charge it at 100% the first 10% will run out fast and the last 50% also. I think that NiMh are older, but I don't know the memory properties for them, in the charging cycles I don't know exactly, I 'always' used My macBook wiered and occasionally on batteries and only has about 100 cycles in about 5 years the battery is on it, it is common to charge a bit when unused for a long time but they doesn't count I guess, when they started to count I don't kno exactly.

JS

 

[Matador]

Or do you have to do a full cycle recharge from flat to full or do a large percentage recharge to be counted as one recharge??

There is no set standard:  for most, a cycle means taking the battery from "full" down to "completely discharged".  Some indicate this means 100% to 0%, others means 90% to 10%, etc.

NiMh don't suffer from memory effects (and only very specific kinds of NiCad's did...I never experienced memory effects on NiCad's in decades of using them).  You can charge them whenever. 

The cycles thing is hard to quantify:  about all you can really say is that the lower you discharge them before recharging, the fewer the number of "cycles" you can expect.

 

[baker]

about all you can really say is that the lower you discharge them before recharging, the fewer the number of "cycles" you can expect.

What exactly do you mean here?
- Do you mean the less time I discharge a battery means less life on my batteries, meaning I should discharge my batteries always when I recharge to extend the life of my batteries.
- Or do you mean the lower my battery % is when I discharge before  I recharge them reduces the life of my batteries. eg. 10% discharge then full charge as opposed to 50% discharge then full charge.

Thanks.