For that matter what is it with batteries that make them so fickle?
You can’t charge them to full, but at the same time you can’t let them die, but at the same time you should wait for them to die before you charge since constant charging is bad, but at the same time not charging enough is also bad like what’s the real deal with batteries T_T
In: Technology
Should I not be using a trickle charger on my car when i store it? Isn’t that maintaining the battery more or less at full?
A beam that can take 100 lbs is now yours. You then bounce 100 lbs on it every night as you go to sleep. How long do you think that beam is going to last?
Surely this topic won’t be full of people speaking confidently about shit that hasn’t been true for almost _twenty years now._
Take a look at this video from Engineering Explained. It is about fast charging cars, but it explains really well how batteries work.
> Why should you never charge a battery to full?
So that people who gave you this wrong advice have a sense of accomplishment. /s
Go ahead and charge the battery until full. Modern batteries, installed in modern devices, are designed to work that way. The secret is that, on average, they will be around 80% charged, which is indeed optimum for their life span.
In other words, you charge it until full, you unplug the device and use it until it’s down to something like 60%, then charge it again – the odds are that in the long run it will all average out around something like 80%.
If you never charge it until full, then it will average to a value lower than 80%, which is not optimal.
Many smartphones will charge it to 80%, hold it there most of the night, then in the morning shortly before waking you up, they will quickly charge it to 100%. This, again, is best for the battery in the long run.
TLDR: Charge it until full. You’re not smarter than the manufacturers.
There’s a lot of wrong or old info online. Generally follow these rules and you’re good to go:
– Not too full, especially if it’s hot out
– Not too empty, especially if it’s cold out
– Try to keep it near 50% as much as possible
– Ignore everything above. It’s such a minor difference the “savings” isn’t usually worth the effort. If it doesn’t inconvenient you in **ANY** way, then it might be worth your effort implementing those suggestions. Otherwise, ignore it.
These suggestions are for modern li-ion batteries. There’s a lot of other contradicting info because of different, older battery technologies.
They aren’t that fickle; a lot of the advice around charging and battery maintenance is extreme — it caters to people who are trying to _optimize_ the longevity of their batteries. But it shouldn’t be a concern for most people.
It’s a bit like trying to optimize everything about your diet: that only makes sense for people already performing at a very high level — for most people, “eat food, not too much, a decent variety” is good enough.
Batteries work on chemistry; applying power to a rechargeable battery sort of “reverses” the reaction that lets you draw power from it. What batteries don’t like is extremes — avoid extreme heat or cold, and extreme states of charge or discharge on a regular basis, and you’ll be fine. The charge controller takes care of everything else for you. Unless you have particular need to optimize the longevity or performance of a battery, you don’t have to worry about anything beyond that.
Even the most dodgy chinese powerbank now comes with a charging module that handles the overcharge / cycles / voltages et cetera.
So don’t overthink it.
Do not leave big batteries charged to 100% for a long time and don’t leave empty batteries for storage and you’ll be fine.
I don’t think there’s too much issue with charging to 100%. Main concern is charging and leaving it at 100%. Or worse letting the battery die and leaving it dead for too long. You decide from there how much you want ideal charging to affect your life. My iPhone caps to 85. My car caps at 70. I only change it to 100% before a road trip
So first of all, the “never” is not true. It’s not actually a big deal to charge the battery to full or let it completely empty.
However, it does degrade the battery faster. But faster is also relative.
Basically, the charge level of a battery (any battery) affects the voltage it outputs. As the charge goes up, so does the voltage. As the charge goes down, so does the voltage.
When the voltage is high, it is harder to charge. This does a few things, including producing more heat, but the end result is that charging from 91-100% might put as much strain on the batter as charging from 70-80%. So you’re straining the battery more for less charge.
When the voltage is low, it is easier to charge but harder to discharge. So running the battery at 10% might pull a lot more power out in order to get enough voltage. This is why you will see your battery drop faster under 20%. It’s not that being low charge is bad, it is that you draw more power. Draining from 20 to 10% isn’t any worse than going from 80 to 70%. However, you might need to use 12% battery power at low levels for that same thing thst would only take 10% at high levels. This is what causes more wear.
Note that charging a battery at low charge doesn’t hurt it at all. In fact, it is much easier and better to charge at lower levels. This is why you will get really fast charging below 50%, which slows a bit until 85%, then slower charging above 85%.
Modern chargers actually “talk” to your phone or device and adjust the charging to be the most efficient. They also mitigate a lot of the problems discussed above.
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