alt Hacker NewsAm I courting disaster by reviving won't-charge pouch cells by just manually running a bit of current through them until they're nonzero volts and then a normal charger will do the rest? So far, in the maybe half dozen times I've tried it (rectangular battery blocks for old digital cameras, the pouch cell inside a long-disused Kobo Reader) it's worked. They charge right up, they don't swell, and they still have decent capacity.
I'm running at the hairy edge and only high quality safety engineering is protecting me here? Or these cells can take a lot more abuse than they're given credit for?
Replies
Over-discharged Li-ion cells can grow metallic lithium dendrites that result in internal short circuits. Charging them again following over-discharge does create a risk of fire/explosion.
I've jump-started my share of batteries this way. Such a deep discharge might affect lifespan but it's typically old devices we do this to anyway.
I've thought before that it'd be nice to have some kind of device that would do this in a safe(r) fashion wherein you'd connect the 2 charging leads to the dead battery plus a temp sensor pad and it'd slowly bring the charge up to the minimum required for charging by a regular charger.