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When to Charge your iPad?

Skull One

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Mar 7, 2012
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Yeah, your example is the major difference between consumer grade Lithium-Ion and specialty versions. Your friend made the mistake of not monitoring the internal chemical temperature of the battery while under a higher amperage charge rate. Basically when the battery hits 140 F ( 60 C ) the battery can begin a "self-heating" or "thermal runaway" condition. He was lucky no one was standing near the battery when it went off since the chemical spray would have easily been over 180 F ( 82 C ).

And your second example isn't possible in consumer grade batteries because they have internal circuit breakers to disable charging when the battery falls below 2.5v (if we use the industry standard). Now specialty batteries don't have this protection normally and that is why you hear about cars going "100% dead" and needing a factory repair. Because if you try to charge a Lithium-Ion battery below its low voltage threshold, you need so much amperage to overcome the chemical reaction of charging you tend to burn either the charging circuit out or you plate the anode and render the battery useless.

And the Wikipedia article on Lithium-Ion is a "so-so" primer but it lacks a great deal of detail. I recommend reading the patents and white papers from manufactures to get a full understanding on the subject.
 

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