Then it is extra interesting to find out if the battery can be accessed by the user? If so it should be a simple matter to do a replacement sans DaVinci.
I also thought someone had posted that using it plugged in 80-90% of the time will considerably extend battery life.
As far as we know, it is not possible. First off, nobody has figured out how to get it apart other than the fellow who used his dog......the dog got it open, but it didn't survive. Then you'd be faced by the 'special batteries soldered in' problem like we face with Solo, Puffit, FM, the other DaVinci, Pentium and so on.
No, I don't agree that 'leaving it plugged in most of the time' is good for long battery life, in fact, just the opposite. IMO that's the worst thing you can do. Simply leaving the battery 100% charged (and never using it) will kill the battery in short order. Stopping charging at 90% (unplugging it) rather than letting it go 'all the way' will DOUBLE the battery life. Honest. Drop it another 10% and it doubles again. Charging to 80% when needed and unplugging means losing 20% per charge (say a single session) but four times more charges. You can do the math........ This is not an Ascent only deal, it has to do with the battery type, all vapes using these types follow the same rules. I'm sure you know a cell phone, laptop or some similar unit that was left on the charger 'ready to go' that now has useless battery life? That's why. Check out the text around table 4 for more on this:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
Due to working on this with Solo I built an external charge controller. It automatically disconnects charging (12 VDC in that case) early. It worked so well there that when I got my own Ascent I modified an old prototype of 'the Gadget' to work at lower voltage:
The prototype Gadget is on top, the bottom is a voltage regulator to reduce the 12 Volts for Ascent and (of course) it uses the even smaller power connector. Pushing the blue button starts a charge cycle that automatically ends at the level set by the adjustment next to the button. It beeps to tell you it's done charging and, since the last part of charging is slower, it cuts about half an hour off of every charge you do. The same modified Gadget pictured also works with my FM V5.Os and FM Pro BTW. They use the same voltage and connector for their chargers.
Again, I don't recommend routinely leaving it plugged in. IMO it's probably the worst routine to use for most cases.
Enjoy your Ascent. Be sure to get and try the glass flowers, they do make a substantial improvement in vapor density (more clouds on less bud for a shorter time). Many on this Forum have done so and AFAIK nobody reported not liking the results???
OF