Does anyone have any idea on what the consequences of re-charging a partially charged battery are? As a carpenter, all my portable tools warn not to charge a partially charged battery as this reduces battery life. I have not been able to find any mention of this in the Minolta manual. I try to let the battery run down fully before I charge it, however the A1 has some serious battery life, usually around two to three hundred shots.
I believe the older rechargable bateries use to hold a memory inside the battery which stopped the battery from being fully recharged. The newer ionized bateries are not supposed to be able to hold a memory but I believe in old school policies. Charge it, drain it, and repeat a couple of time just to be on the safe side. when in doubt you can place your batery in the freezer for 24hrs, let it thaw for 12hrs and you should get more juice into the old batery. this works well with all my older cordless power tools from the job site. i would not use the freezer trick unless you know the batery is NOT hold a good charge.
Hey Brooklyn, the memory thing and the freezer trick are sooooooooooo 90's. And your A1 ain't a Black & Decker. Look on page 22 of your Owner's Manual-- "The battery should be recharged before each shooting session." That means you put it on the charger until the little red light goes out before each time you take pictures. Really quite simple. Anybody who really "believe(s) in old school policies" maybe you ought to try a film cam.
NiCad batteries gradually lose their maximum energy capacity if they are repeatedly partially discharged before being recharged. This is termed the memory effect. A major advantage of NiMH battery technology, apart from lack of toxicity, is the absence of any memory effect - NiMH batteries are remarkably tolerant of frequent 'top-up' charging.
Battery University is THE comprehensive battery information website that everybody should read for anything and everything about rechargeable batteries.
I thought the Minolta DiMAGE A1 had a lithium-ion battery. At least that's what it says on the Minolta website. That's not the same thing as a NiMH is it?
Lithium ion is newer battery tech than NiMH. I was unsure of its suseptibility to the memory effect, turns out that it is suposedly not an issue, yet, they reccommend fully discharging the battery before recharging it the first three times you use it.
