Battery definition Design Capacity and Full Charge Capacity

[allens]

From BatteryMon Battery Information (http://www.passmark.com/products/batmon.htm), what is the definition of the "Design Capacity"? In my experience it always mirrors the "Full Charge Capacity".
I was hoping that it was a pre-defined manufacturers figure. Then capacity loss would be the difernce between the two figures.
Other mails I have read here appeared to imply this.
I am looking at HP laptops.

Regards,

Steve

[passmark]

It comes from the battery / charging circuit. Our understanding is that it is set by the manufacturer and never changes for a particular battery. But we don't have a industry wide battery specification document that we can point to that will confirm this 100%.

[allens]

Thank you for the prompt reply.
I use the product on HP business Laptops eg: nx6310, nc6220 etc , and looked at a few battery models within these ranges and the "Design Capacity" value is merely a mirror of the "Full Charge Capacity".
If of any interest to you, if you have a degug versions that may check for other/additional battery data locations, I would be happy to help.

Regards,

Steve

[passmark]

We have seen a difference between "Design Capacity" and "Full Charge Capacity", on some PC's. But I can't say if all PCs / charging circuits have the capability to make the difference.

[passmark]

Just by coincidence we had this E-mail today from Peter. Showing that "Design Capacity" and "Full Charge Capacity" can be different from each other.
I am using BatteryMon v2.1 build 1000 evaluation version on a Laptop computer which is fitted with a brand new unused battery. The battery is rated 11.1v 4800mAh, equivalent to 53,280mWh. Both Laptop and battery when fitted were at normal room temperature.

Immediately after fitting the battery, BatteryMon indicated Life left 72%, and capacity 36242 / 50250mWh. I left the Laptop running on battery until the screen blanked out, and then recharged until % Life left reached a maximum, this being indicated as 86%.

I left the Laptop running on battery until the screen blanked out again, and recharged the battery until a maximum capacity was reached. As recommended by the battery manufacturer, I repeated this discharge and charge procedure 5 times. The BatteryMon window now shows capacity as 47475 / 47475mWh. The Battery Information window shows Design capacity 53280mWh (0mAh), Full Charge capacity 47475mWh (0 mAh), Current capacity 47475mWh (0mAh).

How can I make BatteryMon show the Full Charge capacity 53280mWh for this brand new battery?
But unfortunately our software doesn’t control the battery, nor can it fix broken batteries, or force batteries to have a larger capacity than reported by the PC. BatteryMon is just a monitoring tool.