Quote:
Originally Posted by AkiraReader
What?
So I have a few e-readers that I haven't touched in over a year. So charging them is dangerous? How so?
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Potentially. If the charge level falls to low in a Li-Ion cell, then some changes can happen inside the cell. Recharging after this can be dangerous. And by dangerous, I mean heat up enough that they can explode*. Because of this, the battery management hardware has a protection circuit built in that if the charge level drops to low, it will not allow the battery to be recharged. The same applies at the other end. If you overcharge the battery, it damages it. All chargers are built to stop charging once the batteries are at 100%.
For your ereaders, plug them in and try to recharge them. If they do recharge, everything should be OK. If they don't, it means the battery has discharged to much and the protection circuit kicked in. The battery shouldn't be used. Once you have recharged your ereaders, test the devices are all still working and then power them off before storing them. If the devices are off, they shouldn't draw any current and the batteries should last a long time. For the older devices, you might want to check in a month to see the charge level. The older the battery, the faster the charge will drop.
* Technically, it probably isn't an explosion, but from the pictures I've seen it looks like one. And yes, knowing that means I have watched far to many episodes of Mythbusters.