First charge of Li-ion Battery

Factual Questions
1

OK, first of all, i apologise in advance for being almost certain that this question has been answered a hundred times (including a column by Cecil). But i’ve checked the archives, Cecil’spiece, and read through lots of threads and none actually answer my specific question.

Anyway, my question. Just bought a new mobile (cell) phone with the usual Lithium-ion Polymer battery. Sales guy told me to charge it for 5-6 hours first time (i’m guesisng an hour or so will be usual thereafter).

Now, i’ve seen all the stories about memory etc and i understand that there is no need to fully discharge this type of battery between charges etc. But, is the longer first charge thing just one of these things that people have been saying forever and isn’t actually important anymore? Or do i need to worry about it?

If it does need a long charge for the first time i’m curious about how to acheive this. As i understand it the built in charge controller pretty much stops it charging when it reaches full capacity anyway so does having it pluged in for longer actually do anything? Every new phone i’ve ever had has shown to be fully charged after the normal hour or so.

And also, it seems that there is always some juice in the battery when you get them anyway. So i must be too late for ‘first’ charge am i not? Surely if this is necessary it would be best done by the manufacturer?

2

My understanding of it is no it’s not required with Li-ion. Also, again my understanding is that Li-ion batteries/cells have sort of a fixed time lifespan like lead-acid, not a fixed cycle lifespan (such as Ni-Cd or Nimh). This is not to say that improper charging won’t effect lifespan.

IIRC Li-ion’s lifespan is a factor of how much charge is in the battery and for how long, like if it is pretty close to depleted it will shorten it’s lifespan, close to full changed it will lengthen it’s lifespan much like a lead-acid battery, but to a much lesser effect. Also (again IIRC) the longest live of a Li-ion would not be at 100% charged, but perahps 80% for some reason.

So no I don’t think it will hurt a Li-ion battery to partly charge it before using it for the first time, except the little extra time it spends at a lower %age of charge.
I also will wag that the manufacturer wants you to fully charge it just so they don’t get compaints of how long the charge lasts, by makign sure the first charge at least was a good one.

3

Mine charges till it’s charged and shuts off. It will tell you when to recharge and charges till is shuts itself down.

As Alfred E. Newman says: "What? Me worry?

4

Just plug the phone in and leave it. The phone will automatically stop charging the battery when the battery is full. Pretty much all modern portable electronics are the same way.