Did I harm my battery?

[Le-Nouveau]

I bought a T500 a month ago, with two power supplies -- one for office, the other for home.  I took the battery out and stored it in a closet.  As it's heavy, doing this made the commute lighter.  Now I learn that I was supposed to keep my battery installed forever and ever.  Did I harm my battery, keeping it in a closet for a month?  What happens to people who go away on a long vacation and turn their laptop off while they are away?  Does that ruin the battery?

[richk]

Soring a charged battery for a month will not hurt it, unless it was "near death" already.

[Kuturgan]

The battery doesn't like when it is overcharged (always keep charged at 100%) or completely dried out (when the battery is used till 0%).

[JDay]

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Kuturgan wrote:
The battery doesn't like when it is overcharged (always keep charged at 100%) or completely dried out (when the battery is used till 0%).

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Fud. Keeping it in the laptop and always charged to 100% is not going to hurt it. And lithium ion laptop batteries never drain all the way to 0%. If they did you would be unable to charge it back up (there is a protection circuit that prevents the battery from fully discharging).

[orangebuddha]

Yes nowadays the circuitry wont let a battery overcharge nor fully discharge.

What i've read, is that ideally you should use the battery regularly, but if you are really not going to use the battery, it should be discharged to around 40 - 50% capacity for strorage.

[ColonelONeill]

I suppose you could consider battery wear as a function of charge level. It wears out faster near zero and near 100%; not necessarily killing it, but doing [marginally?] more damage than would be done if it was left in a medium state.

[orangebuddha]

These might be helpful for you from the Knowledgebase:

Should I run with my battery in or out?

How can I increase battery life?