Why should you never charge a battery to full?

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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

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18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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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