Li-ion Battery Calibration

[bg4m3r]

Ok, so I looked around and saw some posts relating to specific peoples battery issues, but nothing about battery calibration in general. There's been tons of confusing information out there, to where I'm not 100% sure on everything. What I do know is that deleting batterystats.bin is pointless, especially doing when most calibration 'guides' say to since it is deleted by the system every time you unplug it from a charger. As for personal calibration experience, when I had to replace my laptop battery, the new battery came with instructions to fully discharge the battery, charge it with the computer off, fully discharge it, repeat 5 times to calibrate the battery to the computer. My first smartphone (Galaxy Prevail) started not fully charging (97% max), and dying relatively quickly and Samsung support simply said to charge it with the phone on (I realize now that the battery may have been going bad, I abused it terribly, lol). I am from the generation that grew up on NiCad batteries, so it took me a while to realize/accept that regular, full discharges are not needed, and can actually damage the battery (possibly what killed my Prevail battery). But this 'to calibrate, or not to calibrate' issue is just all over the place. Some people say yes, some say no, and even the ones that say yes don't agree on how.

The closest thing I've found to a 'reliable source' is the site Battery University, which has this to say about battery calibration.

What about the rest of you? What are your experiences, and opinions?
Does anyone have a possibly more legit source of information?

My current phone (LG Volt) has an amazing battery life (even with heavy use, I still have 30% left at the end of the day, light use results in going 2 days between charges), and I would like to keep it that way, so I am trying to get my facts straight now before there's an issue.

 

[Tsepz_GP]

I don't do the whole calibration thing. When I get a new phone I use it until the battery gets to about 5-10%, then I charge, and then every now and then I let it die.

On a regular day I plug my phone in at around 30-40%, haven't had battery issues at all.

Thanks for the above link btw, very informative!

 

[boathead]

while calibration may not affect the efficiency of the battery itself, i find it DOES affect the measurements of the battery.

my moto x was always showing rapid drain. now, i'm sure it was draining just at it should, it's just that the system didn't know how much capacity the battery had. by calibrating, the system had an empty level, and a full level, at the extreme waypoints.