Friday, 13 February 2015

Do I need special charger for a Lithium-Ion battery?


I want to use a Lithium Ion Battery. I saw that there is also a different kind of chargers like Adafruit Micro Lipo/MicroUSB or Adafruit Micro USB Lipo for this kind of battery, do I need it? Can I charge my battery direct from a voltage source?



Answer



As mkeith mentioned in a comment, the charging starts out as CC (constant current) followed by CV (constant voltage). This is what the charging profile looks like:


enter image description here


The charging rate is noted as 1C, which just means the charge current is initially equal to the capacity of the battery for one hour, i.e. 1.5 A for a 1500 mAh battery.


If you are buying a stand-alone charger, then you need to buy one specially made for Li-Ion batteries, such as the ones you found. If you are building your own circuit to charge a Li-Ion battery, you need to buy a battery management IC.



There are not too many that come in hobbyist friendly through-hole packages. One that does is the BQ2000 which comes in an 8-pin DIP package. It automatically detects the battery chemistry, and will work with nickel cadmium (NiCd), nickel metal-hydride (NiMH), or lithium-ion (Li-Ion). It's available from Digi-Key for $3.46.


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