I didn't equalise at all for the first, 18 or so cycles and the run time only reduced by a couple of seconds. I did equalise to 0v when I tried it and instantly lost 70 seconds run time. I didn't have any more cells to try part equalising with. At the time they were the latest version IB3800's which was the version before the one out right now. They were compared against gp 3700's which are now about 14 months old and I'm still using them and getting 4300Mah into on charge. My newer 3700's I'm getting 4500Mah into.