How to charge a lithium-ion battery and why is it even necessary? Our modern devices work thanks to the availability of autonomous power sources. And it doesn’t matter what kind of devices: electric drills, screwdrivers, smartphones or laptops. That is why it is so important to know the answer to the question of how to properly charge a lithium-ion battery.
A little bit about what a lithium-ion battery is
Autonomous power sources, which are used in modern smartphones and other devices, are usually divided into several different groups. There are a lot of them. Take the same lithium-polymer batteries. But it is precisely in portable equipment, that is, in smartphones and laptops, that lithium-ion batteries (the English designation Li-Ion) are most often installed. The reasons that led to this are of a different nature.
The advantages of these types of batteries
First of all, it should be noted how simple and cheap the production of these energy sources is. Their additional advantages are excellent performance characteristics. Self-discharge losses are a very small indicator, and this also played a role. But the supply of cycles for charging and discharging is very, very large. Together, all this makes lithium-ion batteries the leaders among other similar devices precisely in the field of their use in smartphones and laptops. Although there are exceptions to the rules, they make up about 10 percent of the total number of cases. That is why many users are asking how to properly charge a lithium-ion battery.
Important and interesting facts
The smartphone battery has its own specific features. Therefore, you need to know certain rules and be familiar with the relevant instructions even before you begin to engage in the process of forced charging or discharging. It should be noted first of all that most batteries of this type are specially equipped with an additional control device. Its use is due to the need to keep the charge at a certain level (which is also called critical). Thus, the control device, which is also integrated in the battery for a smartphone, does not allow us to cross that fateful line, after which the battery simply “dies”, as service technicians like to say. From the point of view of physics, everything looks as follows: with the reverse process (critical discharge), the voltage of a lithium-ion battery simply drops to zero. In parallel, the current flow is blocked.
How to properly charge digital technology based on this source of battery life
If your smartphone is powered by a lithium-ion battery, then the device itself needs to be put on charge when the battery indicator displays about such numbers: 10-20 percent. The same is true for phablets and tablets. This is a short answer to the question of how to properly charge a lithium-ion battery. It should be added that even when the 100% nominal charge is reached, the device must be kept connected to the mains for another one to two hours. The fact is that the devices incorrectly interpret charging, and 100 percent that a smartphone or tablet gives out, in fact there are no more than 70-80 percent.
Useful Tips for Digital Owners
If your device is equipped with a lithium-ion battery, you should know some of the subtleties of its operation. This will be very useful in the future, because, following them, you can extend the life of not only this element, but the entire device as a whole. So, remember, once every three months you need to carry out a complete discharge of the device. This is done for preventive purposes.
But we’ll talk about how to charge a discharged battery later. Now we just point out that a stationary computer and laptop are not able to provide a sufficiently high voltage when connecting a mobile device to these miracles of technology via a USB port. Accordingly, in order to fully charge the device from these sources, it will take a greater amount of time. Interestingly, one technique can extend the life of a lithium-ion battery. It consists in alternating charge cycles. That is, once you charge the device completely, at 100 percent, the second time - not completely (80 - 90 percent). And these two options alternate in turn. In this case, you can use a charger for lithium-ion batteries.
Terms of use
In general, lithium-ion power sources can be called unpretentious. We already talked about this topic and found out that this characteristic, along with others, became the reason for their widespread use in computer technology. However, even such a smart battery architecture does not fully guarantee their long-term performance. This term depends primarily on the person. But we are not required to do something transcendental. If there are five simple rules that we can remember forever, apply them successfully. In this case, the lithium-ion power source will last you a very, very long time.
Rule one
It consists in the fact that you do not need to discharge the battery completely. It has already been said that such a procedure should be carried out only once every three months. The modern designs of these power supplies do not carry a “memory effect." Actually, therefore, it is better to have time to put the device on charge before it completely “sits down”. By the way, the fact that some manufacturers of the corresponding products measure the service life of the products in the number of cycles is very remarkable. Top-class products can survive about six hundred cycles.
Second rule
It states that the mobile device needs a full discharge. It should be done every three months for prevention. On the contrary, irregular and unstable charging is able to shift the nominal marks of the minimum and maximum charge. Thus, the device into which this source of autonomous work is built in begins to receive untruthful information about how much energy is actually left. And this, in turn, leads to incorrect calculations of energy consumption.
Preventive discharge is designed to prevent this. When it does, the control circuit will automatically reset the minimum charge value. However, there are tricks. For example, after a complete discharge, it is necessary to “hammer to the eyeballs” a power source, holding it for an additional 12 hours. In addition to the ordinary electric network and wire, we will not need anything else to charge in this matter. But the battery operation after preventive discharge will become more stable, and you can immediately notice it.
Rule three
If you are not using your battery, you still need to monitor its condition. At the same time, the temperature in the room where you store it should preferably be no more and no less than 15 degrees. It is clear that it is not always possible to achieve exactly such a figure, but still, the smaller the deviation from this value, the better. It should be noted that the battery itself should be charged at 30-50 percent. Such conditions will allow holding the power supply without serious damage for a long time. Why shouldn’t it be fully charged? And because the battery "clogged to the eyeball" due to physical processes loses a fairly large part of its capacity. If the power source is stored for a long time in a discharged state, then it becomes practically useless. And the only place where it really comes in handy is the trash. The only way, albeit unlikely, is to restore lithium-ion batteries.
Rule Four
A lithium-ion battery, the price of which falls in the range from several hundred to several thousand rubles, should be charged only using original devices. This applies to mobile devices to a lesser extent, since adapters are already included in their package (if you buy them in the official store). But in this case they only stabilize the supplied voltage, and the charger, in fact, is already built into your device. Which, incidentally, cannot be said about camcorders and cameras. This is what this is all about, here the use of third-party devices when charging batteries can cause noticeable harm.
Rule Five
Watch the temperature. Lithium-ion batteries can resist thermal stress, but overheating is fatal to them. Yes, and low temperatures for the power source - this is not the best that can be. Although the big danger comes from the overheating process. Remember that the battery should not be exposed to direct sunlight. The range of temperatures and their permissible values starts at - 40 degrees and ends at + 50 degrees Celsius.