overcharging it?

[stanwelks]

Is there an issue with keeping it plugged in all the time when I am not using it? Will this kill the battery? I had an old Motorola Q and apparently I overcharged it and it warped the battery.

Thanks.

 

[hanano17]

No, you can't overcharge the battery. Batteries these days (lithium ion) can't really be overcharged.

 

[ZeRo_C0oL]

I don't think it's necessarily an issue with overcharging, but here's what happens:

The phone is plugged in. It stops charging when the battery is completely charged... The battery loses a little bit of charge, and automatically recharges itself. Batteries can't be overcharged to the best of my knowledge, but they ARE only good for so many charging cycles, so I'd say there's a possibility that it could shorten the lifespan.

 

[hanano17]

I think the average lifespan is somwhere between 300-500 charges.

 

[gdoane]

The problem isn't usually overcharging, it's trickle charging.

The way a battery charger works is that it will go into charge mode, charge up the battery and when the battery's electron belly is full, it'll say "I'm full!" and the charging system will go into trickle charge to maintain the battery at full capacity.

That's all well and good, but there's a complication because the trickle charge isn't nearly enough to power the device and keep the battery charged up too.

The Lithium Ion battery chargers tend to err on the side of caution because an overcharged/overheated LiOn battery had a tendency to explode back in the early days of the technology. Now they're vented and the chargers are smarter so that doesn't really happen much anymore.

The problem with a device like the DROID and battery life is there are so many variables that concern how much power the battery is consuming that it's hard to keep up with.

As they say, there's an app for that. Seriously. From the Apps menu, Settings->about phone->battery use.

Those are guesstimates at best. The charger couldn't keep track of all the demands on the battery and the best thing to do is to make the job less complicated by killing the apps running while the phone is charging.

The less the phone is doing, the better. Kinda like when you're eating, you don't want to be doing a whole lot else or it could get messy.

 

[iiimegamaniii]

From my experience--I've been able to keep my batteries "healthy" by running them down to about 10% and then charging them--while only losing about 1 to 2 hours of usage (per day) over the life of the phone.

You don't have to be too anal about things, but this has worked for me. The longer you run it down before recharging the longer the life you'll get from a battery. Lastly, when the battery is "full", I've left it in for a couple of hours and I haven't had a problem with them overcharging themselves.

- Mega

 

[tdawg5480]

The problem isn't usually overcharging, it's trickle charging.

The way a battery charger works is that it will go into charge mode, charge up the battery and when the battery's electron belly is full, it'll say "I'm full!" and the charging system will go into trickle charge to maintain the battery at full capacity.

That's all well and good, but there's a complication because the trickle charge isn't nearly enough to power the device and keep the battery charged up too.

The Lithium Ion battery chargers tend to err on the side of caution because an overcharged/overheated LiOn battery had a tendency to explode back in the early days of the technology. Now they're vented and the chargers are smarter so that doesn't really happen much anymore.

The problem with a device like the DROID and battery life is there are so many variables that concern how much power the battery is consuming that it's hard to keep up with.

As they say, there's an app for that. Seriously. From the Apps menu, Settings->about phone->battery use.

Those are guesstimates at best. The charger couldn't keep track of all the demands on the battery and the best thing to do is to make the job less complicated by killing the apps running while the phone is charging.

The less the phone is doing, the better. Kinda like when you're eating, you don't want to be doing a whole lot else or it could get messy.

Well fortunately most phones charging circuots rarely fail and overcharged, overcharged lithium batteries are extremely dangerous when overcharged. I can tell you first hand. hence I have a lithium battery sack now for charging haha

 

[gdoane]

[Well fortunately most phones charging circuots rarely fail and overcharged, overcharged lithium batteries are extremely dangerous when overcharged. I can tell you first hand. hence I have a lithium battery sack now for charging haha

Ideally, it should be rare but it's made the news several times about LiOn batteries catching fire.

HowStuffWorks "iPod Fire"

iPods have caught fire due to Lithium-Ion batteries, as have Sony laptops and yes indeed, cell phones.

You don't want to charge batteries on or near flammable materials. Ever.