Battery replacement

[blufrog]

Hi,

I keep thinking about this a lot, and I've actually remembered this time to post!

I have a 13" rMBP from 2014, that still has the original battery. It spent much time on power, and then about a year sat from fully charged to discharged. It recharged fine, and I continued to use it. I then was a bit more careful and switched it off at 80%. It sat another 6 months like this.

It was then used on mains, so fully charged, and has spent the last year just sat.

Given how old this unit is, I'm starting to get paranoid about the battery. It hasn't done that many cycles (a couple of hundered at most I think). I'm going to dare to try and power it sometime today and see what the status is.

If the Mac reports good battery health, is this accurate, given the age of the system? I will charge it outside as a precaution, and because I have become increasingly paranoid about battery fires in general.

Is it worth considering changing the battery purely based on age, or is battery failure mostly predicated upon charge cycles and chemical condition from use? I know Li-Po (I think that is what is in this one) degrades with time, but it is unclear as to what causes a dangerous condition, or whether they are all incendiary devices just waiting to fail.

There is otherwise nothing wrong with the unit, so if I can keep it going another decade, I'll be quite happy!

 

[Andrey84]

Hi,

I keep thinking about this a lot, and I've actually remembered this time to post!

I have a 13" rMBP from 2014, that still has the original battery. It spent much time on power, and then about a year sat from fully charged to discharged. It recharged fine, and I continued to use it. I then was a bit more careful and switched it off at 80%. It sat another 6 months like this.

It was then used on mains, so fully charged, and has spent the last year just sat.

Given how old this unit is, I'm starting to get paranoid about the battery. It hasn't done that many cycles (a couple of hundered at most I think). I'm going to dare to try and power it sometime today and see what the status is.

If the Mac reports good battery health, is this accurate, given the age of the system? I will charge it outside as a precaution, and because I have become increasingly paranoid about battery fires in general.

Is it worth considering changing the battery purely based on age, or is battery failure mostly predicated upon charge cycles and chemical condition from use? I know Li-Po (I think that is what is in this one) degrades with time, but it is unclear as to what causes a dangerous condition, or whether they are all incendiary devices just waiting to fail.

There is otherwise nothing wrong with the unit, so if I can keep it going another decade, I'll be quite happy!

I don't think anyone can tell you for sure if the battery charge estimation % in Mac OS will be correct.

Also I don't think anyone can tell you if it will catch fire or not. The chance is very small.

Just imagining you having to charge it outside... are you sure having this machine is worth the stress it's giving you? It seems to stay unused for long periods of time. Can you just sell it on eBay and get a 13" iPad for someone in your household, which you can borrow occasionally when you need it? I made some assumptions here, but you get the idea.

Another option could be to remove the battery completely and only use the laptop via mains only - I believe it's possible.

The third option could be to buy a new battery and to install it yourself.

P.S. I have a 2015 MBP with a battery which is at least 5 years old, maybe 9, and I have no issues with it sitting plugged in and fully charged 99.9% of the time. It works on the battery for 3-4 hours, this is good enough for me.