I want to sell a used laptop battery that still has significant life remaining in it, but I’d like a way to quantify the wear more precisely than “it still works”. Windows’s estimated battery time depends on too many other circumstances to make it useful in this situation.
Is there a utility of some sort I can use to measure this in some sort of electrical rating (remaining max Wh, perhaps? I don’t know)?
the only thing i think you might do is post date of purchase and first use.
Usually batteries are good for so many charges. If you know how many times it has been discharged and then recharged, that might help.
Most of your potential customers won’t have any other point of reference, though. Saying “Windows says 1hr 45min remaining when fully charged on my laptop” would be more useful to them than saying “4150 milli-Amp hours left”. It would help if you remember what it was when new.
Car batteries usually just go dead. LIth batteries in cars or laptops lose efficiency over a long period of time. The life depends on charge cycles, on time, total depletion events, and more. The indicated time remaining in Windoze is a poor indicator. It could show two hours at the start and go down to one hour after fifteen minutes. The most useful indicator would be for you to use the laptop with the battery and measure the clock time before it shuts down automatically to protect data. The time would be shorter if using the CD drive or intense hard drive functions. I say just use it as you normally do and check the clock. This available run-time is the only useful measure for a user anyway.
What about “90% charge capacity remaining compared to new”? If I can get the current max mAh versus the original, that’d do it… or perhaps charge cycles gone through versus the expected lifetime.
The thing with the timer is that it’s totally dependent on system configuration and user activity. Maybe if all else fails I’ll just use it for a while with light internet browsing to mimic “average use”.
Free BatteryCare to Monitor Laptop Battery
This might help. Haven’t tried it, though. All my laptops come with their own battery monitor software that does what this tool apparently does.
This is PERFECT. Thank you!
It tells you the designed capacity, the present max capacity, and the wear level as a percentage.
Now I know that my primary battery is 37% worn and my secondary one (which I’m going to sell) is only 2.5% worn. Awesome. This was exactly what I needed and couldn’t find… thank you very much 