Testing quick charging harm to smartphone batteries

Most individuals depart their telephones on their chargers in a single day, however typically you find yourself at 5% midway via the day and must prime off your battery. Quick charging may be very handy in such circumstances, however it could be damaging your smartphone’s battery and lowering its capability over time. To search out out if that does occur, GreatScott! used Arduino to check quick charging on a number of smartphone batteries.

Lithium batteries aren’t prone to the identical degradation points that have been frequent for NiCad batteries, however that doesn’t imply they’re impervious to break. GreatScott! suspected that quick charging stresses Li-Ion batteries and diminishes their capability. To check that concept, he wanted to place batteries via many cost and discharge cycles. For this experiment, he had a management group charging with the everyday 1A of present and one other group quick charging at 5A. Each teams discharged at a relentless 1A and went via 100 cycles.

Charging and discharging six batteries 100 instances every is a time-consuming activity, so GreatScott! designed customized units for the job. Every is a customized PCB populated with an Arduino Nano board, an OLED display screen, lithium charging circuitry, and the discharge circuit. That discharge circuit makes use of an op-amp to transform a relentless 1A into waste warmth. The OLED exhibits the battery voltage at any given time and the variety of cost cycles.

These take a look at units let GreatScott! collect beneficial knowledge. The batteries charged at 1A didn’t endure any substantial capability loss, however the batteries charged at 5A misplaced a median of 1.6% of their capability. That was after solely 100 cycles, so the loss would get a lot worse over the course of years. GreatScott! concluded that it’s best to keep away from quick charging and to solely use it when needed.