Rechargeable batteries, how much left?

[wotsallthis]

My wife tells me that the rechargables on our phone take longer to recharge, (she thinks).

Is it possible to tell if their life is coming to an end please? I just have a multimeter and some basic components.

Regards

 

[studiot]

14 minutes ago, wotsallthis said:

My wife tells me that the rechargables on our phone take longer to recharge, (she thinks).

Is it possible to tell if their life is coming to an end please? I just have a multimeter and some basic components.

Regards

 

 

Yes it's possible, they take longe to recharge and need recharging more often.
Very often they can get rather warm.

 

But before you accuse the batteries have you checked the condition of the terminals in the handset and the batteries?
These may simply need a good clean to bright metal.

[wotsallthis]

Aahh, a good clean, thanks, I'll give it a try.

Best

[StringJunky]

7 hours ago, wotsallthis said:

My wife tells me that the rechargables on our phone take longer to recharge, (she thinks).

Is it possible to tell if their life is coming to an end please? I just have a multimeter and some basic components.

Regards

 

I think a realistic service life for a regularly used Li-ion device is 2-3 years.

[wotsallthis]

Thanks, but is there a way to tell by using any components.

[StringJunky]

14 hours ago, wotsallthis said:

Thanks, but is there a way to tell by using any components.

I think it's quite involved analysing the state of batteries. I use lithium car battery cells for torches and vaping and have about ten of them, all bought about 3 years ago. As StudioT noted, charging takes increasingly longer until they will be on charge indefinitely, which means they've died.  About 4 have failed now. These are high quality Samsungs. If you are noticing increased charge time and shorter runtime, it's time to renew.

Battery University will educate you if you wish to get into the nuts and bolts. Look through the lithium-ion sections.

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/

Edited September 29, 2020 by StringJunky

[Sensei]

My computer mouse, which has 2x AAA batteries, started acting awkward today, interrupted sluggish movement at times. I just checked voltage. 0.96 V and 0.94 V. Not good. They should be 1.5 V. Plugged a new pair, and mouse works perfectly without issues. Yes, it is possible to tell that batteries are exhausted..

The new 2x AAA withstood exactly 100 days of daily use.

On 9/28/2020 at 6:16 PM, wotsallthis said:

Aahh, a good clean, thanks, I'll give it a try.

To clean electronics you should use isopropyl alcohol. Usually sold in shops with electronics.

[MigL]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

If you are noticing increased charge time and shorter runtime, it's time to renew.

Just be aware that sometimes Li-ion batteries fail by recharging very quickly.
Unfortunately that 'full charge' discharges just as quickly as the battery is only taking a false 'surface' charge.

This usually happens with cell phone batteries.
( 3.6 volt Li-ion rechargeable cells, Sensei )

[John Cuthber]

7 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Yes, it is possible to tell that batteries are exhausted..

Because the equipment doesn't work.

But I imagine the OP had something else in mind; specifically the charge storage capacity of rechargeable batteries.

That's rather harder to measure.

 

[Sensei]

19 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Because the equipment doesn't work.

It is not that simple. My mouse worked the most of time. It just misbehaved from time to time. 5 minutes worked fine, then misbehaved for a few seconds, and then back to normal. (similar thing happens when your e.g. neighborhoods have radio equipment operating at similar/the same frequency and there is interference between devices)

Also I have computer, which from time to time, misbehaved. Shutting down without apparent reason.

After ruling out overheating of CPU, overheating of MB chipsets, it turned out that PSU is giving too low voltage. Instead of 3.3 V there was ~ 2.9-3.0 V. Instead of 5 V there was ~4.5 V. Instead of 12 V there was ~ 10.8-11 V. When CPU was starting processing a large amount of data, during HDD operations, during DVD operations, these numbers were even lower. Impossible to record how low they were going, because it was shutting down completely (similar thing happens when CPU is overheating..)

Very cool app to diagnose these kind of problems is HWMonitor.

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Sensei

[StringJunky]

18 minutes ago, MigL said:

Just be aware that sometimes Li-ion batteries fail by recharging very quickly.
Unfortunately that 'full charge' discharges just as quickly as the battery is only taking a false 'surface' charge.

This usually happens with cell phone batteries.
( 3.6 volt Li-ion rechargeable cells, Sensei )

Yes, I've noticed that way too on a laptop I had.

[Sensei]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Yes, I've noticed that way too on a laptop I had.

When you're buying new laptop, new smartphone, you should buy a couple spare accumulators for it. Just in case. When old one will start misbehaving, you won't find them in shops anymore (new devices are made incompatible with older stuff)... Equipment (smartphone/laptop/tablet) without removable/replaceable accumulator? Ignore it! Or after two-three years it will be completely useless... (3 years, everyday recharge of built-in accumulator = 1000 cycles)

[John Cuthber]

3 hours ago, Sensei said:

When you're buying new laptop, new smartphone, you should buy a couple spare accumulators for it. Just in case. When old one will start misbehaving, you won't find them in shops anymore (new devices are made incompatible with older stuff)... Equipment (smartphone/laptop/tablet) without removable/replaceable accumulator? Ignore it! Or after two-three years it will be completely useless... (3 years, everyday recharge of built-in accumulator = 1000 cycles)

I did that with my iPod nano.
The battery lasted for years.

But the connections in the complicated interface plug died.

Does anyone want a spare ipod nano Battery- never been used.

3 hours ago, Sensei said:

It is not that simple.

It is that simple; That's why you checked, and then replaced the battery.


 

[wotsallthis]

Yes John C, thank you, it was what I was getting at, beyond my beginner status.

Greetings everyone.

 

[wotsallthis]

Also thanks String junky, a great website. However  as John C got it right, I wanted to ascertain how to check. Well beyond me. Cheers everyone and keep well.

Alan