Buying a new battery manufactured 2 years ago [1 small pic]

[ulrich.von.lich]

I recently bought a Ultrabay Slim battery on eBay. It came in a factory sealed box and the manufacture date was in March 2006. I heard li-polymer batteries lose their capacity no matter if you use them or not, so I was expecting it to have about 70% of its original capacity after two years of hibernation .

The weird thing is: after I had fully recharged it, I was surprised to find out the battery capacity hasn't degraded a bit for two years

So I was wondering if the manufacture date of a li-polymer battery really matters?

[tfflivemb2]

It isn't just the age of the battery, it is also the manner in which it is stored. Sometimes they will store longer if kept in a controlled temperature environment. They will also store longer depending on the lever of charge the battery is stored at.

2 years isn't too long for a battery to be stored, when it is new. Now, if you were to store a used battery for two years, the life might not be as grand.

[hellosailor]

I've also found LiOn batteries to fail--rather suddenly--as they age. "Perfectly good" at 100% capacity one day, then the next day wouldn't come back above 40%. Then 25%, then nothing.

Battery in question was usually just "idling" in a system that ran on AC most of the time, and the same behavior eventually hit four batteries. Good one day, gone the next.

From what I understand the Thinkpad charging systems are more sophisticated (with the choice of how they charge) but there still is a question in my mind that LiOn batteries work perfectly well, regardless of age, until "something" happens inside them. Perhaps it is akin to the fire problem, i.e. manufacutring defects migrating over time into a position that kills the cells, instead of torching them off.

[buckalho]

From my experience,
when you buy thinkpad battery, let say 47 wh capacity, you'll end up with around 54wh and quickly degrades to around 47 after couple charge/discharge.

I tried to store my battery somwhere "safe" when I bought a battery replacement, thinking that It'd degrade slowly. At that time it was 45wh max capacity. After 1/2 a year, it says 46 wh and soon degrades after couple use to 32.

There's an update in lenovo website that fixes some issues about battery information displayed on XP system. If you have that installed, try to use it for couple weeks and see if the capacity drops.....

I recently bought a Ultrabay Slim battery on eBay. It came in a factory sealed box and the manufacture date was in March 2006. I heard li-polymer batteries lose their capacity no matter if you use them or not, so I was expecting it to have about 70% of its original capacity after two years of hibernation .

The weird thing is: after I had fully recharged it, I was surprised to find out the battery capacity hasn't degraded a bit for two years

So I was wondering if the manufacture date of a li-polymer battery really matters?

[ulrich.von.lich]

THanks for the feedbacks! So maybe the true capacity of the battery will show up after a couple of cycles.

Here's another thing I noticed: In Power Manager, it states Li-Polymer for the Ultrabay battery while Li-Ion for the main battery. Is there any difference between the two?

I have also experienced some problem while charging the Ultrabay battery. I set it to be charged when below 85% but it couldn't be charged when it had only 50%. I resolved the problem by reinserting the battery. I wonder if it's caused by its age too or some motherboard problem?