Did you ever try a slide rule (or a Japanese abacus) for maths?
I’ve heard of slide rules, bud. I learned about their invention in my science history class last year when we explored ancient civilizations like Japan, China, Greece, and Egypt (🇪🇬) and Mesopotamia, which were the ones we knew about in grade school but delved deeper into their scientific history in this class.
Although I never used one, slide rules are fascinating pieces of technology used to measure various mathematical concepts like trigonometry, logarithms, and many others. They come in different scales, similar to the triangular scales I used in my engineering labs, in addition to pocket steel rules. Slide rules are also neat and slightly larger than callipers. I found more information about them here:
https://sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Course.shtml
Disable power-saving features in System Settings and set the display to stay on. Run high-energy tasks like playing 4k videos, running benchmarks (Cinebench, Heaven, Prime95), and keeping multiple apps open, including video editing software and virtual machines (if any installed).
Also, turn on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, keep peripherals connected, and disable Battery Health Management. Use the Mac until it shuts down completely, then try turning it on a few times to confirm that it's fully drained. Wait 1-2 hours before opening the Mac to allow any residual charge to dissipate.
Thanks a bunch for sharing your tips on how to drain the battery of MacBooks before replacing them. Apple’s own guidance on battery drainage for repair prep is pretty similar to what you said:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/100353
But even with all the battery efficiency settings in Battery Health management and those settings that slow down performance and extend the battery life of Macs on a single charge, it’s still a big step before you open it up. It also mentions that you can use FaceTime or Zoom to make calls on your Mac for a few hours with the camera on, and you can blast the brightness up all the way without auto-brightness, True Tone, and night shift. And even hours of watching movies or shows on YouTube, Apple TV+, and other streaming services like 5 or more movies per charge should drain it, based on the battery health and capacity of your Mac. Geekbench and cinema also tax battery life, which is a good draining factor since it tests cpu/gpu aside from that funny joke I posted before the mods came along to tell me more about it with terminal.
When you meant having peripherals to start plugged into the Mac to take a heavier toll on the battery to drain it for the battery replacement process, did you mean wireless peripherals and accessories like the Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard, Bluetooth speakers, airport base stations, and Apple TV remotes (some Macs let you control with a remote) instead of wired-up accessories like mice with USB cables or receivers and hubs? Also, that 2-3 hour process to let the Mac sit after the full drain and confirmation that it’s already out of battery is a great idea if you can take your time to repair it. It allows any remaining heat to escape the components, especially if it’s been pushed out for so long that the fans were running at full speed.