Like others, I’ve been wondering about the “80%” ish rule of thumb for charging phone and car batteries. Specifically I’m wondering, is the electric potential stored evenly across the entire battery? Or do some cells/areas not get exercised when only charging to 80%?
I read the other posts about batteries, but couldn’t find this answer. Thanks in advance.
In: Technology
Batteries are made up of several individual cells. An 18v pack can have five 3.7v cells in series.
Good multicell battery packs have equalizer circuitry in the pack to even out the “level” of charge across the pack so one cell isn’t at 90% when the others are at 60%. The circuit charges each cell individually so that a fully charged cell won’t overheat and catch the pack on fire.
There used to be a memory effect in older (nicd) batteries where the pack “remembered” its charge point so you periodically had the discharge it to zero to get the full capacity back.
Latest Answers