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Topic: battery chargers (Read 803 times) previous topic - next topic
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battery chargers

According to what I’ve read a few places, EV batteries should not be discharged below 40% nor charged above 80% if one wishes to maximize the life of those very expensive batteries. Also, the rapid charging that almost everyone seems to want is very hard on the batteries; it significantly shortens their useful life.

The batteries in most personal devices, such as phones, tablets, and mobile audio players, may have a somewhat different construction, I don’t know, but they are all lithium based so it seems a reasonable assumption that similar conditions apply.

What isn’t an assumption is that for almost all such devices, changing the battery is not possible for most people. The cases are sealed, the battery is soldered in place, and other components sometimes have been put in their place over the battery. Ideally one should be able to easily slow charge the battery to its safe limit and not above – if one isn’t a person who couldn’t care less about costs and device lifetimes. Using the battery only to its safe discharge state would seem to be up to one’s own diligence.

However, I have been unable to find any such chargers for USB charged devices.  I have had several audio players that ceased to function only because their batteries died. The electronics to make them work should be pretty simple; perhaps perception is that there is no market for them. There are plenty of “smart” chargers for other types of batteries although I haven’t seen any specs that tell fully what they do. I have such a charger for AA and AAA NIMH and NICd batteries which offers 4 different charging rates, from 200 to 1000 ma, and which shuts off when the battery is “charged” although it doesn’t define what constitutes that state. These claim that batteries charged with them will have considerably more charge/discharge cycles.

Anyway, does anyone know of a smart charger for USB charged devices?