Did anyone recalibrate your battery like this?

I just heard someone recalibrate their battery just by freezing it into frig for 2 days. A dead battery just came back to live.

Did anyone have prove for this? Or some relative link to prove this? I mean, man that is simple. I don't want to wait till my battery totally dead to try this. But is it good to do while my battery still have 80% capacity available? I know it should discharge the battery down to 40% before put it into frig.

 

Batteries work by exciting electrons in a chemical reaction. In laptop batteries, cellphone batteries, and also car batteries, this reaction is reversed when you introduce an electric current to it.

Over time, the chemicals inside a battery oxidize. As the amount of oxidization increases, the length of time the battery can output usable electricity decreases. This is called battery wear.

In High school chemistry, you learn that hot temperatures make atoms move faster, and low temperatures make atoms move slower. The same applies to chemical reactions; if you put two chemical reactions together, the one with a higher temperature will react faster. This is why if your cellphone/laptop/Ipod is too cold, it will not work. It's because it's chemicals aren't reacting fast enough to push out enough energy. If a battery is too hot, the process of oxidization occurs more quickly, thereby aging the battery much faster.

Therefore, Putting your battery into a freezer, EVER, won't do anything, except probably decrease the total amount of charge it can hold (the thawing process is not a good thing for it).

Oxidization is NOT user reversible (unless you took apart the battery and bathed its chemical contents in something). If battery wear was that easily reverseable, it is likely that electric cars would be much more prevalent in the world (excluding the influence of Big Oil companies)

Long story short: DO NOT put your battery in the freezer!

Please read this article on how batteries work

 

dont know for sure ,but i did RC racing (you know the little fast cars with speeds of over 60 mph).

and we allways put or batteries in the fridge (not freezing!) for them to keep longer cool during a race ,because a lower temp means higher voltage.

but i dont know anything about batterylife.
just my 2cnt

 

Hum, I guess I really need test this when my battery is Totally dead.

 

With RC cars it's likely that the battery was put under considerable strain (heated) temperatures. The more energy pulled out of the battery, the hotter it gets, because the reaction inside it has to go faster. The reaction produces heat in proportion to the amount of strain put on it.

Also, RC cars probably didn't use Li-ion batteries.. so they probably behave differently in that sense. I do know that Li-ion batteries in Laptops are not manufactured to be totally depleted (i.e. run down to 0% before being charged often). Whereas I remember batteries I used to own from 5 years ago could be run down to 0 and charge back up with no noticeable ill effects... though those weren't the same type of batteries as laptop batteries.

Regardless I am 100% sure that freezing a dead battery won't do diddly squat.

 

Any really good electric RC car will typically use Li-Poly. Technically, they are a step above your traditional Li-ion batt.

 

How new are Li-Poly batteries to mainstream use? Poly meaning polymer?

 

OK, here is another side question.
If the original Lion-Cell is 2000mAh. But there are much cheaper and higher capacity cell out there. Probably, just probably the charging current is higher. Is it safe to change higher capacity cell?

I found 2200mAh, 2400mAh, 2600mAh that are all cheaper than buying a new battery pack from HP or any other store.

 

From Chrisyano's Excellent and very informative Battery Guide:

"Can I use a battery from another system in my new laptop if it fits?
Can I use a generic battery in my laptop?


Li-Ion cells are permanently damaged when their charge drops below certain levels. If the voltage gets too low, the battery will stop working and become unsafe to use. Therefore all systems powered by Li-Ion batteries have a predefined threshold set to shut down at certain levels of discharge. As a result, Li-Ion batteries are made to the exact specifications of the systems they are designed for, and vice-versa. This is where batteries from another system or low-cost generic batteries may not be compatible. If the thresholds of the system and battery do not match, there is a risk of power cutting off at the wrong moment. This may lead to unsaved work being lost, data corruption, or irreversible battery damage.

In addition, generic low-cost batteries are not made with the high safety standards of official batteries. Main-brand batteries use only approved safety circuits in their battery packs whereas there is no regulation of off-brand battery production. This, as well as attempts by notebook manufacturers to ensure approved batteries are used, is responsible for the higher cost of official batteries. There have been reports of notebooks rejecting generic batteries (to avoid usage of potentially dangerous batteries) without software changes (bypassing the security system). Some generic batteries even fail to work altogether.

There are subtle differences in design, manufacture, and the operation of generic and official batteries which may or may not cause problems for you. For every person that has had problems using generic batteries, there is another who has had no problems whatsoever. You must decide if saving a little money on a replacement battery is worth the potential risks."

 

I think putting the battery in the freezer is supposed to ease the effects of "memory" on a NiMH battery. LiON batteries do not suffer those effects, and therefore won't be helped (and will probably be hurt).
Short story: freeze it if its a really, really old battery that still is based on NiMH. Otherwise, don't