Video & Camera Equipment

How to Reasonablely Charger your Camcorder Battery Packs

Q:I wanted to know, can Lithium Ion batterys such be overcharged?

A:Normally Lithium Ion batteries will not be overcharged if you use the correct charger and follow the manufacturers recommendation.

Most systems have monitoring circuits to prevent overcharging and overheating. The Sony "InfoLithium" batteries and some of the Canon batteries have the circuitry necessary to monitor the battery as part of the battery.

It it not normally NOT a good idea to discharge Lithium Ion batteries. Just charge them as the manufacturer recommends.

Q:I understand that I can leave it on the charger, but what about partially charging it?Like if I were to charge a battery that still has power in it ex. 5 hour battery capacity, only 2 hours used, will the battery or camera know when to shut off charging to prevent possible overcharging?

A:Yes, the battery/charger will know when to stop the charging. The Power/Charge lamp will blink when charging starts and when it has has completed the charge the Power/Charge lamp will go out. The charging time will depend on the current state of charge.

Q:How is this harmfull? In the past it was always ideal to fully discharge a battery before recharging, so I assumed with Lithium Ion you have the option to charge without fully discharging but I din't think that was preferable.

A:It has never been ideal "to fully discharge a battery" before recharging. If you are thinking of Ni-Cads, that is not true. The discharged state of a Ni-Cad is normally about 1.0 volts per cell. At that voltage level, most of the energy is spent. Discharging the battery further could damage it through cell reversal. That is why Ni-Cad cells are always connect in series and not in parallel.

The same basically applies to Li-ion, Li-polymer, NiMH and Sealed Lead Acid batteries except that the minimum cell voltages may be different.

If your equipment properly monitors cell voltage and possibly cell temperature and disconnects at the appropriate level like many Li-ion, Li-polymer do, then there is no problem. They may say the battery pack is fully discharged, but it still contains energy and that energy can be easily measured.

Normally there is no benefit to discharge a Li-ion battery unless you are testing it to determine actually capacity, to predict death date when comparing to previous tests of the cell, or possibly discharging to approximately 50% capacity for long term storage. I don't think the average consumer wants to buy the appropriate test equipment and maintain battery performance logs on their batteries.

Thus my recommendation, buy one spare battery, charge as outlined in your manual, and go have fun with your batteries.

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