Charging too much kill the battery?

[kat.hayes]

I am on the go alot and do not want to carry a charger with me. I know the MBA has good battery life, though to ensure it always has a good charge, is it a bad idea to connect to a charger when it does not need to be? When I'm home, I will usually connect my Macbook Pro to the charger even when it is at 90%

Does this kill the battery quicker than it would otherwise?

Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

Run on battery whenever you need to and plug it in whenever you can. You can plug or unplug any time you need to, regardless of the charged percentage, and you never need to completely drain your battery. Just make sure you don't run on AC power exclusively, as your battery needs to be used regularly to stay healthy.

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The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[Jonathanchasr]

Battery Answer

You can charge your battery at any percent, your batteries health is basically measured by charge cycles. A full cycle is a charge from 0% to 100%, more full cycles you use the quickly you will kill your battery so charge at higher percentages, you can use the command

ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity

in terminal to check your batteries health or mAh as well as charge cycles.

 

[GGJstudios]

You can charge your battery at any percent, your batteries health is basically measured by charge cycles. A full cycle is a charge from 0% to 100%, more full cycles you use the quickly you will kill your battery so charge at higher percentages, you can use the command

ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity

in terminal to check your batteries health or mAh as well as charge cycles.

For a more complete definition, read the WHAT IS A CYCLE? section of the Battery FAQ link, posted earlier. Also, some users may not be comfortable using Terminal to get battery information. If that's the case, you can find the same information in System Profiler, or with 3rd party apps like iStat Menus, iStat Pro or coconutBattery, as explained in the Battery FAQ.

 

[teffers]

I understood that the battery reaches 100%, then it discharges back down to 95%, it then it starts charging again. Hence why the stock battery info reports up to 5% less than the actual so users don't continually see it dropping from 100% whilst on charge - leading to fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding the health of their shiny shiny device

 

[GGJstudios]

What happens when it is fully charged is the charger goes into trickle charge mode and only gives it enough power to stay at 100%. It won't keep suppling it with the full voltage..

That is false. Once fully charged, it stops charging completely and runs on AC power as long as it's plugged in. There is no such trickle charge mode.

I understood that the battery reaches 100%, then it discharges back down to 95%, it then it starts charging again.

This is also false. The Apple notebook charging system is designed to avoid such short discharges/recharges. That's why if you plug in when the battery is already 93-99% charged, it will not charge. You must first run on battery and drain to the low 90s or lower before it will charge again.

Read the Apple Notebook Battery FAQ for accurate information on batteries and charging.