Lithium Ion batteries were invented as long ago as 1912 by way of Gilbert N. Lewis, but it was a long time before they were developed enough for being launched on a mass market level. This happened in the early 1990’ s utilizing Sony pioneering their business oriented use.
Lithium Ion batteries have many advantages.
They can be constructed in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, resulting in them being tailored to your available space in the device in which they are to be used.
The batteries are also much lighter than alternative equivalents, due to the character of the material and the high open circuit voltage as compared to other batteries. This low weight makes it ideal in hand held and mobile phones for obvious reasons, and popular in these days of high tech products.
Another major advantage is that they do not suffer from memory benefit. This is the affliction, whereby other rechargeable energy, if not fully cleared before recharging, lose their maximum energy capacity over time and thus hold significantly less charge.
They also do not have such a drastic do it yourself discharge rate as other sorts of batteries – just 5% per month, compared with up to 30% per month in other battery choices. However, Lithium Ion batteries are not perfect, and there will be drawbacks.
One of these is that their time depends upon their grow older – and not the amount of time from which they were definitely charged, or the number of times they've been charged. They begin to lose capacity gradually on the date of manufacture irrespective of the sum of charging cycles they obtain. Therefore the manufacturing date is advantageous to know, e specially if there is a big time lapse from manufacture to being used e.. g due so that you can storage.
Some Lithium Ion energy (such as laptop batteries) might lose around 20% of their capacity per year, when stored at normal temperature. However, when exposed so that you can prolonged higher temperatures, this figure can increase to as much as 35% per year. Another key factor is the charge place – when stored partially charged, these figures can be dramatically reduced.
This makes Lithium Ion batteries unsuitable for certain applications – such as validate batteries.
The battery must never ever be discharged below a certain threshold, otherwise the battery will be damaged irreversibly. Therefore, the devices that use them have a built in system to shut them down when the charge level meets that minimum threshold. For the following reason, Lithium Ion batteries are designed and manufactured specifically for the device they are to power and are also not available as plain looking batteries.
Having said this, there are some editions available that have a built-in circuit to monitor all the minimum charge level not to mention shut the battery all the way down when it reaches that level. These are also known as “ smart” batteries.
How to prolong the life of your Lithium Ion battery
- Charge the battery early and often, unlike other rechargeable energy.
- If you never intend to use the battery for decades, charge it to a quantity of approximately 40% regarding capacity.
- The battery should be kept cool. They will age faster at bigger temperatures, so keep as cool as possible when not in take advantage of. They can be safely stored inside of a refrigerator for optimum anticipation of aging. (note: they should not be frozen)
- If the nuvi 780 you are using is normally run from a mains power (e.. g laptop) and it is possible, remove the battery when making use of mains power. This prevent the battery from being confronted with high prolonged temperatures which can shorten it’ s daily life.
- Any steps to reduce the heat that the battery is exposed to will benefit it’ s lifespan.
- When purchasing replacements, try to purchase a battery that has any shortest possible time right from manufacture to retail. (though it may be difficult to find out there this information).
In short Lithium Ion batteries would definitely be a very versatile battery, ideal in lightweight applications and not subject to memory consequence. However, they do degrade at higher temperatures which means they are not a fabulous universal battery solution.
Gavin Beak is CEO of Beaky Stock trading http: //www. beakytrading. com which supplies car key fob battery packs, lithium Ion, watch and digital camera batteries.
