Apple Care Agents LIE?!!? iPod Battery?!

[davemacmini]

Hello...

I've had to 2 phone calls with apple care agents and I have been sent conflicting information from them vs. the general ipod consensus via forums (ilounge and apple.com discussions).

First apple agent told me that one partial discharge (from 100 to 80 percent) and its recharge back to 100 is ONE CHARGE CYCLE. Although, people will argue this and even the apple site itself says that a partial discharge to 50 % one day and a recharge, and the same thing the next day is only 1 charge cycle. Hrmmm....

Second apple care agent told me its best to basically use my iPod to the brink of complete battery depletion (based on her manuals in front of her and everything she knows from working at Apple) and then a subsequent full recharge. She says this is the best for battery life -- !!!!! MANY people on this and other forums will state that this type of charge/discharge behaviour for a lithium ion battery is disasterous!! Aren't you supposed to 'top it off' as much as possible?!

Basically, do apple care agents misinform customers with iPod battery life in hopes that they will wear out their battery quicker...in this possibly gaining commision from a 'care protection plan' for the ipod or making the company even more money in battery replacements!?

Just a thought - not assuming anything. The fact that 2 phone calls with conflicting information was making me curious.

Dave

[TheFly]

I know the company that does (at least some of) the Apple iPod telephone support. (Boy, oh boy, do I remember unfondly those day after Christmas support weeks. )

Having worked there years ago supporting other products, I'm really not surprised at their lack of technical training.

The educated user base it much more useful for troubleshooting than technical support. Unfortunately, to get anything done, you have to use the official channels.

[davemacmini]

ahahah...funny you say that The Fly...

I work at a call center doing email support for the one of the world's leading Satellite radio companies (there's only 2 big ones) - I actually began doing phone support...but I know what you mean, more than half of the people telling you how to fix/solve problems with your satellite radio don't know a damn thing themselves, nor have they ever even seen one before. Does apple care work the same way? I certainly hope not

(i'm doing a battery test as we speak...so nervous..hahah)

[moe_4eva]

The type of behavior they are describing is more consistent with old ni-cad batteries, so they may have been going off whatever knowledge they had previously. Li-ion batteries are better in the behavior you described. If you have any other questions, try visiting www.batteryuniversity.com

[davemacmini]

Moe...

do lithium ion batteries want to be topped off in the sense of...using the ipod from full charge to about 90 percent, so basically not using it much at all - and still recharging it back to 100 percent. Is this the behaviour best suited to lithium ion's...or should the discharge be to about 40%, THEN back to 100....how much is 'topping it off' really acceptable?

[Aceon6]

Battery tests here and elsewhere show the best performance is obtained by doing a full charge followed by a full discharge/recharge cycle. After that, keep it topped off. If you notice battery life falling off, try the full discharge/recharge again.

[kornchild2002]

Originally posted by Aceon6
Battery tests here and elsewhere show the best performance is obtained by doing a full charge followed by a full discharge/recharge cycle. After that, keep it topped off. If you notice battery life falling off, try the full discharge/recharge again.

Yep. Completey discharge the iPod then charge it ONCE. After that, keep your iPod constantly charging when not in use and don't let it drain. Apple's recent manuals (for the 4G monochrome iPods and up) state that you should completely drain and charge your iPod once a month. I complretly drain and charge my iPod once every 3 months as newer li-ion batteries really don't need calibrating once every month.

[moe_4eva]

Originally posted by davemacmini
Moe...

do lithium ion batteries want to be topped off in the sense of...using the ipod from full charge to about 90 percent, so basically not using it much at all - and still recharging it back to 100 percent. Is this the behaviour best suited to lithium ion's...or should the discharge be to about 40%, THEN back to 100....how much is 'topping it off' really acceptable?

Basically, topping it off is in the sense that you don't let it drain completely before you charge it. So this could be anywhere from 99% to 10%. Basically what it means is you charge it whenever you can. And as aceon pointed out, it is good for the battery to go through a full discharge/charge cycle (ie letting the battery die before you charge it) once in a very long while, as this will calibrate the battery. Doing this too often, however, has been found to shorten the battery's life considerably.

[davemacmini]

hrmm...top it off...

so lets say I use my ipod for 2 hours and its at about a 90 percent charge, do I top it off by charging it the full 4 hours again? Or top it off with a quick hour long charge?

[moe_4eva]

The charge cycle, no matter how full the battery is, is a full 4 hours, although it will not charge your battery if it has a greater than 80% charge.

[davemacmini]

Whoa...

back up a second....

does draining the battery to 90 percent, then charging back to 100 percent (4 hours?) constitute ONE full charge cycle? I read ALL over the web that at this rate, draining it by ten percent, that'd i'd have to do this ten times before that makes it ONE full charge cycle (complete drain, recharge)

Its funny you mention this, because an apple care agent once told me that using the battery for an hour and then recharging it back to 100 was ONE full charge cycle....

I'm so confused....

[moe_4eva]

Sorry to confuse you, didn't mean to. The cycle that the li-ion battery goes through to charge the battery back up to 100% is 4 hours long. This doesn't mean it constitutes one charge cycle. This just means that it goes through a certain 'procedure' if you will to charge the battery. In technical terms, it basically goes through the same steps of the full charge cycle, only on a lesser scale because the battery is not fully drained. It's more or less hard to explain without getting too technical, but if you want a fuller explanation, it's basically that it does something called a "trickle charge" on the battery which means it supples a given amount of energy to the battery over a given period of time, of which that rate is faster at the beginning (ie the first hour), then slower towards the end (the rest of the 3 hours). So it may not take as long if your battery is only 30% drained, but it might still take 3 hours as opposed to 4. This will only consititute 3/10 of a charge cycle though, as you mentioned. And you would have to discharge it 3 and 1/3 more times at that same % drain to constitute one full charge cycle.

Sorry if that's a little too technical, but I used to work with a lot of batteries. In layman's terms, you are correct in your assumptions. It's just that the battery will take about as long to recharge whether it's 20% drained or 90% drained. This has no effect on whether it's a full charge cycle or not, so forget about that with regards to recharge time.

[davemacmini]

Moe...

Dude, its much appreciated. Thanks for entertaining this thread for me.

[moe_4eva]

No worries, glad I could be of some help. Let me know if you have any other questions (or if none of that made sense, as I just read through it myself and realized 5 am is too early to type anything sensical...)

[davemacmini]

Naw man..it was perfect..

I had read about the trickle charge and what not from the apple site..I'm just glad you put it all into perspective for me...and I'll DEF be having more ipod questions....

How bout this one... I just got a dock, and I mainly use it for recharging. But I see you can get a Y type cable for firewire adapter and usb for updating playlists at the same time.....

When you've finished updating your current library onto your ipod....like, how does one power supply kick in over the other? USB computer charge vs. the FIREWIRE wall adapter charge?

I really want one of these cables so im not disconnecting, reconnecting...you get the idea