Lithium battery charging

[hoppy]

As far as I can find out, for longest life they should be charged to only 3.92 volts per cell. Yet ebike chargers usually take them up to 4.2 volts.So it's best to stop charging early? What does conditioning do? Does it affect the cells or only the meter?

 

[flecc]

In my experience how they are looked after makes very little difference to the life. Any slight gains I think are outweighed by the inconvenience of special measures and loss of range from short charging and short discharging. The battery quality is the biggest factor for longer life and that is very much related to price, though low cost batteries replaced more frequently can be as economic as expensive longer lasting ones.

There's disagreement on conditioning. Setting an integral meter zero is alway relevant, but only some suppliers feel that cell conditioning is necessary. I believe it has become more necessary with today's high density content polymer cells to ensure even internal charge saturation at the outset. In any event, an initial conditioning cycle of full charge and discharge won't harm the battery.

 

[hannibal]

I'm pleased to report that my cheap Powacycle li-pol battery is nearing 3 years of regular use and still going strong. I don't over-stress it though and recharge after every trip (each trip is 6-10 miles). It does have an annoying habit of cutting out for a few seconds at times when cycling but it soon recovers - but it has always done that.