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First Time Battery Charge Tip
I found a tip on battery charging whilst browsing the Internet that I wanted to share...
The lifetime of the lithium ion batteries can be found in mobile phones, PDAs, UMPCs and notebook computers isn't endless. However, you can make it longer.
The ugly truth
Batteries are chemical labs and even if you use them in perfect condititons and the highest care possible, they will get worn sooner or later. They just loosing the ability to keep their power.
The more times the battery has fully recharged the more the battery get worn. Or you can say the the more time you use your device on battery the earlier the devices battery get worn.
First charge
The first charge is important for the battery and your device too. The battery has to be charged long time, 12-16 hours first time to use all the chemicals it has. Some says that the polymer batteries don't need the first big charge but specialist says it's good prctice to do it with the LiPoly batteries too. Note, that you have to wait until the battery reaches it's critical level (around 5%) before start the first big charge. The first charge also calibrates your devices power meter.
Hot and Cold
Both high and cold temperature shorten the lifetime of the battery. In real life the latter happens more often. When you are accessing broadband internet or doing something else that heats up your device, you have to keep in mind that overheated device can overheat the battery too which is very bad.
Switch Off
This applies to mobile devices. Recharging battery while the device is switched off makes recharge time shorter.
Don't Stop!
If you started to charge a battery try to don't abort the charging process. It can cause inaccurate power level indication and can decrease some batteries lifetime too.
When Neccesary
It's a good practice to keep your device on charger when you are actually using it, but not the best practice to keep it on charger when you are not. Better detach or swith off charger when you are not using your device, but only after it is fully charged.
The lifetime of the lithium ion batteries can be found in mobile phones, PDAs, UMPCs and notebook computers isn't endless. However, you can make it longer.
The ugly truth
Batteries are chemical labs and even if you use them in perfect condititons and the highest care possible, they will get worn sooner or later. They just loosing the ability to keep their power.
The more times the battery has fully recharged the more the battery get worn. Or you can say the the more time you use your device on battery the earlier the devices battery get worn.
First charge
The first charge is important for the battery and your device too. The battery has to be charged long time, 12-16 hours first time to use all the chemicals it has. Some says that the polymer batteries don't need the first big charge but specialist says it's good prctice to do it with the LiPoly batteries too. Note, that you have to wait until the battery reaches it's critical level (around 5%) before start the first big charge. The first charge also calibrates your devices power meter.
Hot and Cold
Both high and cold temperature shorten the lifetime of the battery. In real life the latter happens more often. When you are accessing broadband internet or doing something else that heats up your device, you have to keep in mind that overheated device can overheat the battery too which is very bad.
Switch Off
This applies to mobile devices. Recharging battery while the device is switched off makes recharge time shorter.
Don't Stop!
If you started to charge a battery try to don't abort the charging process. It can cause inaccurate power level indication and can decrease some batteries lifetime too.
When Neccesary
It's a good practice to keep your device on charger when you are actually using it, but not the best practice to keep it on charger when you are not. Better detach or swith off charger when you are not using your device, but only after it is fully charged.
My advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.
0
Comments
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Mainly accurate....
True of any batter chemistryI found a tip on battery charging whilst browsing the Internet that I wanted to share...
The lifetime of the lithium ion batteries can be found in mobile phones, PDAs, UMPCs and notebook computers isn't endless. However, you can make it longer.
The ugly truth
Sorta true. LiPo batteries are usually set to charge to about 70-80% capacity in the first hour, then the charging rate slows. It's nothing to do with using all the chemicals and everything to do with the fact as the battery gets more charged it's harder to get the last few joules of energy into it. You charge at a constand current until the cels are are 4.2 V then lower the current until they are fully charged
First charge
The first charge is important for the battery and your device too. The battery has to be charged long time, 12-16 hours first time to use all the chemicals it has. Some says that the polymer batteries don't need the first big charge but specialist says it's good prctice to do it with the LiPoly batteries too. Note, that you have to wait until the battery reaches it's critical level (around 5%) before start the first big charge. The first charge also calibrates your devices power meter.
The phone monitors the charge, once it says full it's full and no more power is applied to the battery until that current drops. Leaving it plugged in after it's full does no good, no power is applied to the battery. Unlike Nicads and NiMH overcharging a lipo carries a greater risk of explosion hence they cut off not switch to trickle charge.
The calibrating the battery meter is a red herring, it's tied to a voltage nothing more, typically a Lipo has a voltage between 4.1V and 3.3V per cell. It can be 4.1V as it comes off charge but usualy it's a stable 3.7v. The chemistry of Lipo CANNOT tolerate it's voltage it's voltage being pulled below 3.0V to do so will destroy the cell. Most phones will cut off well above this voltage and say charge battery well before they get to this level. Allowing a phone to get to that point, and the leaving it a while (even when "off" decices draw some current from the cell) will risk permanant damge to the cell
Look at http://www.runryder.com/fastphoto/59786/discharge_curves.jpg
The "Zone of temptation" is where you are risking the battery life but drawing more power out of it that it can supply without risk. Once it's there you have to stop the laod and charge the cell, further discharge will trash the cell.Hot and Cold
Both high and cold temperature shorten the lifetime of the battery. In real life the latter happens more often. When you are accessing broadband internet or doing something else that heats up your device, you have to keep in mind that overheated device can overheat the battery too which is very bad.
Again sort of. Not likely to happen in a Phone, charge currents are well within the safe limits. However Lipo's generally don't like cold and actually perform better when warmer.
Charging and discharging a lipo rapidly (as we do for model plane flying ) causes them to heat up and you can have problems (usually the cells puff up and they are goners).
It depends how it's wired, but mostly yes.
Switch Off
This applies to mobile devices. Recharging battery while the device is switched off makes recharge time shorter.
Used to be true of NiCads and Memory effect, NiMH and LiPo don't suffer the same. Again the charger is controlled by a microchip and it should modify the charge regeime according to the charge according to the charge in the battery.Don't Stop!
If you started to charge a battery try to don't abort the charging process. It can cause inaccurate power level indication and can decrease some batteries lifetime too.When Neccesary
It's a good practice to keep your device on charger when you are actually using it, but not the best practice to keep it on charger when you are not. Better detach or swith off charger when you are not using your device, but only after it is fully charged.
Irrelelvent, good to keep it on the charger so it charges if required, but after it's stopped charging thats it. Once a set amount of the batteries charge is used the charging circuit will detect it and switch back in. If it's designed correctly then power from the battery is not shunted back to the dock anyway, but that agian depends on the design.
Unfortunatly there are a lot of myths around Lipo's, the best advice is treat them with care, charge when the phone says so and you should get a reasonable life out of them.0 -
The lithium based batteries (Li-Po and Li-Ion) can be charged or discharged at any time to any level without major long-term deterioration of the cells. What causes these battery types to degrade is simply time - they age and die generally independent of wear and tear. The occasional full charge-discharge cycle is more for recalibrating a device's battery gauge.
An exception to this rule though is using the batteries under extreme conditions such as in very cold or very hot places.0
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