Battery Charger Faq

Know Some Battery Charger Facts Through This Battery Charger Faq

Is there a difference between a rapid charger and a fast charger?

There is actually nothing that can be called as a rapid or a fast charger, and these terms are meaningless in denoting the speed with which a battery charger recharges the battery. There is no standard in the industry, and the manufacturers are using the terms in different ways. Actually the amount of time it takes to charge a battery is dependent on the capacity of the battery being charged. For example a charger that charges a standard capacity AAA NiCD battery (180 mAh) in just one hour might take 8 hours to charge a high capacity NiMH (1500 mAh) battery.

How long will it take a charger to charge batteries?

If you want to know how much time a charger will take to recharge a battery it is easy to estimate by using the following formula. Divide the capacity of the battery by the charge rate of the charger, and then add an amount of time by about 20% to allow for a certain amount of inefficiency inherent in the charger. As an example, you can note that a battery with a capacity of 1600 mAh will require about 4 hours to be fully charged by a charger with a charge rate of 500 mA that is 1600 mAh/500 mA x120%. This type of formula would apply to a standard AA NiMH battery and a typical "rapid charger". Keep in mind that the amount of charge a battery has at the time of starting the recharge will decide the duration of the time required for recharging the battery fully.

Can a battery charger shorten the life or reduce its capacity by causing damage to it

When the simple off the shelf manual battery chargers are used carelessly, they can damage the batteries permanently. The most common cause of premature battery failure is due to overcharging. The type of chargers most likely to cause overcharging is the so-called "rapid chargers". These battery chargers really don't have a charge control mechanism and have a very simple design which charge at their full charge rate for a fixed period of time, typically five or eight hours, and then shut off or switch to a lower "trickle" charge rate. If they are used properly, these chargers are fine. If they are used improperly they can shorten a battery's useful life and can permanently damage them by overcharging.

What is trickle charge

Trickle charge is the rate of charge applied to a fully charged battery to compensate for the amount of power lost by self-discharge and can also be called as its maintenance charge. This is the charge rate that is high enough to keep a battery fully charged, but low enough to avoid overcharging. Determining the optimum trickle charge rate for a particular battery is a bit tricky to describe but is generally accepted to be around ten percent of the battery capacity. Overcharging a battery will definitely reduce its useful life and hence the batteries should not be left in the charger for long periods of time but when you know the amount of trickle charge rate and it is around one tenth of the battery capacity or less, then it is alright if you leave the batteries connected to the charger for longer times occasionally.

Does rapid charging reduce the life of batteries?

Not significantly so long as it is done using a properly designed smart and intelligent battery chargers. The batteries especially the NiMH batteries can be recharged in about an hour without any damage or significant reduction in their life when they are rapid charged with a charger specifically designed for charging NiMH batteries.

What makes a charger a "smart charger"?

Any charger that uses a computer chip to control various aspects of the charging process can be called as a smart charger and these include the chargers that can detect and adjust the charge rate based on the battery inserted into the charge station. But if the charger that supplies a steady charge rate as long as it is plugged in or the that uses a timer to manage the charging process cannot be called as truly smart.

Thus you can get all the information about battery chargers by going through battery charger faqs that are available both online and offline.

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