[Shop-talk] Battery Clarification

[Doug Braun]

Maybe it's not a good idea to leave the nicads in the
charger all the time?  My Craftsman 1-hour charger
claimed it would automatically switch to a
trickle-charge mode when the battery was fully
charged, but whenever I removed a battery from it
several days after inserting it, it would be a little
bit warm.
I think the "trickle" can be more than is really
needed.

As for Lithium camera, cellphone, laptop, etc.
batteries, I can't say.  Where seems to be a lot of
misinformation out there.  For example, I see a lot of
cheap car chargers that claim "contains IC chip to
prevent overcharging".  But these chargers are
supposed to be simple constant-voltage DC power
supplies, and all the actual charge-regulating
circuitry is built into the phone itself!

I've had an expensive laptop batteries die after a
couple of years, and I think it was because the laptop
was always on (and connected to the charger), and the
battery got too hot simply from being next to all the
heat-producing components.

I hope that someday they can actually make
rechargeable batteries that work as well as they are
claimed to!  Can you imagine buying an electric car
with $50,000 of Li cell batteries, only to find that
they are all shot after two years?

I have read analyses of electric cars that showed that
even for ordinary lead-acid deep-cycle batteries, the
battery replacement cost will exceed the cost of the
electricity consumed (and more than yo would have paid
for gasoline a few years ago).

Doug

--- eric at megageek.com wrote:

> OK, for some reason I seem to have a knack for
> killing rechargable
> batteries.  I wanted to see if I can get some
> guidance here on what I'm
> doing wrong.