Lithium-Ion No-nos?

[quiksil903]

Hey all,

Just got a Canon G2 and am loving every second of it. Annoying thing is that it comes with a power adapter that requires a battery to be charged through the camera (no separate charger). So that sucks up camera usage time, but I figured I could get it back while I sleep.

Is there any downside to leaving the battery charging in the camera long after it is fully charged (like overnight while I dream)? It's a standard Lithium-Ion 7.4 V, 1100 mAH battery. Does it degrade battery life to do so? They said I shouldn't worry about discharging it fully before recharging it. Any thoughts?

-quik

 

[Mark R]

Li-ion batteries, when charged with an intelligent charger, are quite robust. The charger will automatically switch to a maintenace charge mode once full charge is reached - there should be little risk of overcharging as long as the battery is not left charging for more than 24 hours.

There is no significant memory effect, they can be topped up as and when required. It's probably better to avoid unnecessary discharging.

Li-ions do tend to have fewer charge-discharge cycles than NiMH (Various figures for capacity can be found but typical figures are about 80% after 250 cycles, 60% after 750)

I've seen some people say that their Li-ion is developing memory, but it's probably 1 of 2 things:
1)it's just the battery getting old
2)the microprocessor controlled battery guage is getting out of calibration because the battery has not been fully discharged - discharging fully and recharging a couple of times will recalibrate the display.

 

[BCYL]

You can keep it plugged in after it's fully charged, it wont hurt the battery...

And you dont need to fully discharge it before charging also, since Li-Ion batteries do not have memory...

So basically u can just plug it in whenever you have time and not worry about it...