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<font face="Arial">Carefully. :)<br>
<br>
Lithium batteries do best if you don't drain them, just top off as
needed.<br>
<br>
Modern NiCd batteries normally don't need to be drained, in
theory, according to the advertisements.<br>
<br>
That said, lithium is slightly tricky to charge and there's a
range of chargers that range from excellent to good fire
starters. The same goes for the batteries themselves. You've
probably heard about a certain brand of electric car that
sometimes bursts into flames while charging while other brands
rarely, if ever, do that.<br>
<br>
Lithium batteries should always have a "protection circuit" built
in to the package. This is essentially a solid state circuit
breaker that trips on over current, over voltage, or battery too
low.<br>
<br>
Some battery chargers depend on this and simply feed current into
the battery until the protection trips. "Done!" Not the best
idea but very cheap. If combined with a battery with no
protection circuit or a defective one, a bloated battery or even
fire can result.<br>
<br>
Better (term used loosely) chargers charge up to a certain voltage
and just hold it there. Works fine as long as you manually turn
off the charger within a few hours of it being "done".<br>
<br>
Best chargers monitor battery temperature, voltage, current, and
TIME.<br>
<br>
I've worked out a lithium charge method implemented in a small
processor for a customer that works well. Charge the battery to a
preset voltage, stop and wait for the voltage to drop below the
cutoff and start charging again. Do this for up to xx minutes and
then shut down until the battery falls below a lower trip voltage.<br>
<br>
There's a third voltage where the processor shuts down the device
and goes into low power sleep until the charge circuit gets power
again.<br>
<br>
</font><br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/13/20 8:05 AM, Paul Guncheon via
Stagecraft wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAP-H7sjs+AEmKGruO0K20-uZwhY7OYOoDAdm1e-ZsefsbAXunQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">Aloha,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">What is the
current thinking (no pun intended, but I'll take it) with
regard to charging the various rechargeable batteries and
devices one runs across these days? It used to be one was to
drain the battery as much as possible before charging. Then I
was informed that this could result in reversing the voltage
in one or more of the cells, rending the battery useless.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">Then I was
told to charge a battery at the first sign of a fall off in
tool performance, but to let the battery cool first.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">I am under
the impression that one should not keep the battery in the
charger nor should one charge a battery 'before' it
demonstrates that fall off in performance.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">So
what's the real deal?</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">Laters,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:large">Paul 1</div>
</div>
<br>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">____________________________________________________________
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</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jerry Durand, WhatsApp, Telegram, VK, signal
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.DurandInterstellar.com">www.DurandInterstellar.com</a> & <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.Durandinterstellar.ru">www.Durandinterstellar.ru</a>
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