,How do I know when the battery is charged

[HDRock]

I just got this set up the battery is a smoke Tech vv?
The light on the charger started out red, Now it has turned orange, Does it turn green when done?

 

[j3illy]

Yea it will eventually go green, and the LED on the battery itself should shut off. My charger does something similar going from solid red, to orange, to yellow, and finally to green. What's happening is, when the battery reaches ~85%, the delivery of the charge drops and slows down. Those last 15% or so are taxing and can take just as long as the main bulk of the charge at the beginning. I've done a lot of reading on Li-ion, and they say you can actually prolong the lifetime of your battery by NOT topping it off, and not getting it too low. If you could always keep it at say, 50-80% capacity, it was reported that it was possible to get 600+ full cycles. You'd obviously be charging the battery a lot more often w/ these quick partial charges, but it makes sense.

 

[HDRock]

Yea it will eventually go green, and the LED on the battery itself should shut off. My charger does something similar going from solid red, to orange, to yellow, and finally to green. What's happening is, when the battery reaches ~85%, the delivery of the charge drops and slows down. Those last 15% or so are taxing and can take just as long as the main bulk of the charge at the beginning. I've done a lot of reading on Li-ion, and they say you can actually prolong the lifetime of your battery by NOT topping it off, and not getting it too low. If you could always keep it at say, 50-80% capacity, it was reported that it was possible to get 600+ full cycles. You'd obviously be charging the battery a lot more often w/ these quick partial charges, but it makes sense.

Thank you, I have a 1100 MA bat, Just kind of wondering would it take longer for A 1100 MA bat to charge, Then say a 600?

 

[j3illy]

Yep it should take quite a bit longer due to the higher capacity. I also have a 650mah and an 1100mah, and the standard charger is rated to deliver 420ma per hour. But the 650 takes 2+ hrs and 1100 3+ hrs, because the final portion of the charge slows way down.