Quote:
Originally Posted by delphin
Overcharging is much less of an issue, in fact Wikipedia reports that even if a Lithium Ion battery is held at 100% charge for a full year, it will only loose a few percent more of it's full capacity than it would loose in any case. If you are worried about this very slight overcharge effect, just remove the USB charging cable right after the RED LED on the top of your reader goes out (but again, if you forget and leave the reader on charge, even for several days, it won't cause any significant harm)
|
Well, these devices use a lithium polymer battery. Which is a form of lithium ion, but not the same as lithium ion used in laptops.
Leaving a Lipo fully charged WILL reduce the life of the battery. However, some devices do not actually fully charge the battery to reduce this tendency.
A lipo battery has a life span of so many charge-discharge cycles. But a partial charge does only counts as a partial cycle, unlike NiCd and NiMH batteries. So if you charge at 50% use, you will get 2x the number of charges lifespan than if you run closer to 100%.
But yes, lipos can be killed by a single overdisharge, which is why the deivces have to have some smarts in the battery circuit.
The people into electric model aircraft, helicopters and cars are the people who really know lipo batteries. And I are one.
