Quick Charge - Effect on Battery?

[tardus]

I must not be a heavy user of my phone - I've rarely needed to charge my phone quickly. I have a spare battery and cradle as well.

Are there any downsides of Quick Charge compared to using a standard 2a charger?
Is the LG micro USB cable a special Quick Charge cable or is it just the charger that enables Quick Charge?

If it burns out the battery faster - using QC, I'll pass.

I found some answers at: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2015/06/qualcomm-quick-charge/

 

[Rukbat]

"Quick Charge" is normally way under 1C (the capacity of the battery - IOW, for a 3000 mAh battery, that would be a 3000 mA charge), it's usually less than 0.7C, so whether you quick charge it or charge it at 0.01C makes no difference to the battery. It's only when you get to around 0.99C that there's a problem - a little rise in voltage and the charge could go high enough to bake the battery.

What mainly determines how quickly the battery "burns out" is how deeply you discharge it. Lithium isn't a deep-discharge technology - NEVER let it go below 40%. If you can't charge it at that point, either turn the phone off or be prepared to buy a new battery sooner than needed. (My 11 year old Motorola V-551 battery is still good.)

 

[Andrew Bonner]

Something I've started doing lately is to use my quick charger with the spare battery charger and only charge the battery by itself, never plugging it into my phone. I figure it isn't necessarily good to leave my phone plugged in all night, when it takes 1 hr to charge it. Plus is gets quite hot when it is quick charging. So, I just swap batteries before leaving in the morning.

To the point of this thread, if there is some sort of intrinsic issue caused by the extra QC current, let it be directed at my $20 battery instead of my $672 phone.

 

[tardus]

"Quick Charge" is normally way under 1C (the capacity of the battery - IOW, for a 3000 mAh battery, that would be a 3000 mA charge), it's usually less than 0.7C, so whether you quick charge it or charge it at 0.01C makes no difference to the battery. It's only when you get to around 0.99C that there's a problem - a little rise in voltage and the charge could go high enough to bake the battery.

What mainly determines how quickly the battery "burns out" is how deeply you discharge it. Lithium isn't a deep-discharge technology - NEVER let it go below 40%. If you can't charge it at that point, either turn the phone off or be prepared to buy a new battery sooner than needed. (My 11 year old Motorola V-551 battery is still good.)

How did you arrive at 40%. Not doubting you, just curious. I've never seen that high.

 

[kramer5150]

It probably corresponds to ~3.75 Volts, the voltage point at which you are (ideally) not supposed to discharge a Lithium-based chemistry below. I too have some Panasonic Lithium-Ion batteries that are really old (7+ years), as long as you don't over-discharge them they will last a long time. Capacity does drop, but its not a significant amount considering their age. These are 18650 cells I use in flashlights. New they were around 2400mah, lately they are in the vicinity of ~2200.

 

[HNNNNNGHHH]

With Quick Charge supposedly affecting the battery, I haven't really observed any real longevity degradations and I'm someone who can find themselves recharging and discharging the battery up to 3 times in a single day. As for leaving it plugged in, modern smartphones most likely have a hardware-based solution which shuts off the current when at 100% and does a trickle charge when it dips under 100%.

Posted via an LG V10

 

[delrey1900]

All I know is that I charge my phone every night no matter what the battery level is. It has never failed me since my old Nokia brick phone days.

 

[tardus]

What I was afraid of...
Scientists Solved the Mystery of Why Rechargeable Batteries Go Bad
and this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/technology/personaltech/charge-phone-overnight.html

Quickcharge shortens the life of the battery. Our batteries are replaceable, but even so, why use the quickcharger (the white charger that comes with the V10) when you're not in a hurry?

Last night I charged my V10 with the anemic 1W charger that came with a Kindle. It charged slow and steady, but I had 8 hours to charge. There was no hurry. Using the 1 watt charger is less destructive to the battery. Going forward I'll only use the quickcharge charger when I'm in a hurry and don't have a spare battery handy. I can count the times that I've actually needed that on one hand. But I do carry a spare battery most of the time.