Discharging a wireless USB keyboard for long-term storage

I would just leave it in its "last used" state.

The last thing you want to do is to store it fully discharged - depending on the battery design, it may never recover from a full discharge.

Cheers, David

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

Why would you want/need to do that ? What do you think (c|w)ould go wrong if you didn't ?

But the fastest way would be to open the keyboard, take some electrical wire and connect the positive and negative battery terminals. Depending on the kind of battery it might cause sparking and a glowing, *very* hot battery though. It might even explode. But hey, its fast. :-)

You mean when its "on" the wireless mode is active - regardles of if the (PC / USB) connector is plugged in and its recharging the battery - and when its "off" the wireless doesn't work - even though it could still charge the battery - and its just a standard PC / USB keyboard ?

What do you think that the switches labeling should have said instead ?

Regards, Rudy Wieser

As I said in the another reply, I don't care about the life of that stupid but dangerous rechargeable battery. :)

But is a fully discharged r.b. still a fire disk?

Will a fully discharged r.b. self ignite/explode/combust?

Keyboard in question: Acer OKW132 mechanical keyboard

ON - WiFi Active LED flashes. That keyboard is in wireless mode, I suppose.

OFF - WiFi Active LED no longer flashes. I suppose that means wired mode, and I need to plug in the USB cable from the PC.

Regardless of the state of the switch, the type-C cable always charges the battery, as displayed by the battery LED.

I haven't had the time to open the keyboard, because you need to unmount all Cherry switch first, nearly 80 of them.

Can you do it via its Type-C USB port?

A fully discharged battery /may/ not be in a safe state.

Just remove the battery, dispose of it, and replace later (with a new cell) when required.

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

Thats a description of what the switch (supposedly) does, not an answer to my question.

Also, that led is blinking as long as its in wireless mode ? I would go crazy because of the distraction (I would either disconnect/remove the led or throw the whole keyboard out)

The last time I opened a keyboard I could just remove the plastic bottom shell and leave the actual keyboard (with its buttons) with the top shell. It might even just be a foil keyboard, with a small circuit-board located under the leds (the mechanics of the keys being a part of the top shell).

Regards, Rudy Wieser

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

Definitily not.

There is a bit of electronics between the cables power-lines and the battery - to make sure that the battery doesn't load to fast and not gets over/under charged (both can kill a battery rather quickly), and also to make sure that when the connector pins *accidentily* gets short-circuited you don't end up with a laptop-bag or backpack bursting into flames (or just fries the keyboards electronics).

And for the record : you should *never* short-circuit a battery (or any power-source for that matter).

But as asked, why do you think you should discharge the keyboards battery to begin with ?

Regards, Rudy Wieser

Just let it self discharge in storage. As long as it is in a cool environment with no risk of the battery being crashed, it will be fine. Alternatively disassemble and dispose of the battery before storing.

---druck

s/crashed/crushed/

It's cleverly enclosed in a plastic casing! Any other way(s) to discharge it? Say, via the exposed Type-C USB port of the keyboard?

I don't mind flashing lights. You can turn your back or close your eye and eyelids to ignore it. It's just light.

Unless your brain is born with weaknesses that reacts crazily when seeing flashing lights, or hearing drum rolls. :)

So to quickly discharge a rechargeable battery, the only way is to extract the battery out of secuerd casing, and short its anode and cathode (which are protected by chips) with a fuse?

That's really tricky for babies and kids.

That explained why they make USB port's pin smaller, narrower, finer while increasing the power. :)

No, that's not what I said.

DO NOT try to quickly discharge Lithium batteries, either let it discharge naturally, or take to a place which disposes of Lithium batteries safely.

Otherwise you will damage the equipment, and are likely to cause the very fire you are trying to avoid.

Which is why no one, apart from you is recommending doing that.

USB-C's increased power capability is from being able to use higher voltages, and not increasing current over thin wires. It has nothing to do with discharging.

Anyway given this response along with the number and inappropriateness of the cross posted groups, I'm going put this down as trolling, and kill the thread.

---druck

So there is absolutely no way to quickly discharge rechargeable batteries so as to return them to safe state?

I will open a thread targetting only rechargeable batteries including ones made out of lithium.

Is there an active, crowded Usenet newsgroup that talks about rechargeables batteries?

Because there's no *need* to do anything; how long have you owned this keyboard? How many times has it caught fire?

I have here a container containing a quantity of potential energy. It might be a lake behind a dam. It might be a fusion bomb, it might be a battery...It might be an elephant at 50,000 feet.

I want to rapidly and safely return it to a state where it has no energy.

Unfortunately someone told me energy is always conserved, usually into a f****ng big bang.

All questions are simpler when viewed from the correct perspective.

Will you now?

You only need one mishap to get killed and have your home burnt!