I seem to remember years ago hearing that it's best to charge a battery slowly. No idea why.
Since I'm using 18v/36v cordless tools more and more and collecting 18v batteries, I'd like to get a 2nd charger and noticed that they all seem to be labelled as 'Fast 30 minute charger' as opposed my old Makita charger that takes a good 2 hours.
Are these okay to use, or will they shorten the life of the battery?
Steve
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Is slow charging Li batteries better than fast?
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Re: Is slow charging Li batteries better than fast?
More than you could possibly want to know here at the Battery University...
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/art ... _batteries
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/art ... _batteries
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Re: Is slow charging Li batteries better than fast?
stevensfo wrote:I seem to remember years ago hearing that it's best to charge a battery slowly. No idea why.
Since I'm using 18v/36v cordless tools more and more and collecting 18v batteries, I'd like to get a 2nd charger and noticed that they all seem to be labelled as 'Fast 30 minute charger' as opposed my old Makita charger that takes a good 2 hours.
Are these okay to use, or will they shorten the life of the battery?
I can only say, through personal experience with an Energiser fast charger for AA/AAA batteries, it appears to have shortened the life of more than one set of NiMH AAs. Through overheating.
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Re: Is slow charging Li batteries better than fast?
Steve,
Straight answer is YES. Charging fast reduces battery life. With mobile phone batteries, and fast charger reduces life time to 50 charge cycles, compared to 500 cycles for a the slow chargers. The mobile phone turbo chargers, which reduce the rate of charging after 85% full, are somewhat better than simple fast charging. But I doubt the simple batteries used in power tools will be so sophisticated as a computer in a mobile phone. See that Battery University for more details, but its mostly to do with crystal sizes.
Straight answer is YES. Charging fast reduces battery life. With mobile phone batteries, and fast charger reduces life time to 50 charge cycles, compared to 500 cycles for a the slow chargers. The mobile phone turbo chargers, which reduce the rate of charging after 85% full, are somewhat better than simple fast charging. But I doubt the simple batteries used in power tools will be so sophisticated as a computer in a mobile phone. See that Battery University for more details, but its mostly to do with crystal sizes.
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Is slow charging Li batteries better than fast?
XFool wrote:stevensfo wrote:I seem to remember years ago hearing that it's best to charge a battery slowly. No idea why.
Since I'm using 18v/36v cordless tools more and more and collecting 18v batteries, I'd like to get a 2nd charger and noticed that they all seem to be labelled as 'Fast 30 minute charger' as opposed my old Makita charger that takes a good 2 hours.
Are these okay to use, or will they shorten the life of the battery?
I can only say, through personal experience with an Energiser fast charger for AA/AAA batteries, it appears to have shortened the life of more than one set of NiMH AAs. Through overheating.
Well, I noticed that the so called Fast Li battery chargers have a fan to cool down the system during charging.
Though given the size, weight and shape of my Makita 18v batteries and therefore the distance that heat has to travel, I can't imagine a fan making a huge difference.
Steve
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