One of the unsung heros of our technology revolution is Lithium-ion batteries. Compared to Nicads before them, they have higher energy density which means lighter electronics and longer battery life.
A dark secret of Lithium batteries though is their volatile chemistry. If current is drawn too fast, they can get hot enough to blow up/catch on fire. For this reason they all come with some form of current limiting/protection. Often a microprocessor is added which can show the charge level and communicate with the main system electronics as to its state.
With that background out of the way, on to my rant. A while ago my Vaio laptop started to give this odd status: "On AC but not charging." The heck is that supposed to mean to a user? Likely the battery processor decided that the conditions did not allow charging. Why not communicate that reason to the user? Was it too hot? Failing? What?
I have replaced my Vaio laptop with another another computer. But recently I plugged in my Samsung tablet into AC just to have it say the same thing: "Battery level at 73%; not charging." Oh, that is nice. I want the darn thing charged and it is saying it won't and not tell me why? So I started to use it and the charge level kept going down as if the AC was not plugged in!
You wouldn't ever see this with NiCad batteries. The system would stuff it with charge whether it wanted or not. The battery could have been way past its useful life but no user would have been insulted with "I know why the battery is not charging but I won't tell you!"
Smart battery... Dumb computer. Or Tablet....
A dark secret of Lithium batteries though is their volatile chemistry. If current is drawn too fast, they can get hot enough to blow up/catch on fire. For this reason they all come with some form of current limiting/protection. Often a microprocessor is added which can show the charge level and communicate with the main system electronics as to its state.
With that background out of the way, on to my rant. A while ago my Vaio laptop started to give this odd status: "On AC but not charging." The heck is that supposed to mean to a user? Likely the battery processor decided that the conditions did not allow charging. Why not communicate that reason to the user? Was it too hot? Failing? What?
I have replaced my Vaio laptop with another another computer. But recently I plugged in my Samsung tablet into AC just to have it say the same thing: "Battery level at 73%; not charging." Oh, that is nice. I want the darn thing charged and it is saying it won't and not tell me why? So I started to use it and the charge level kept going down as if the AC was not plugged in!
You wouldn't ever see this with NiCad batteries. The system would stuff it with charge whether it wanted or not. The battery could have been way past its useful life but no user would have been insulted with "I know why the battery is not charging but I won't tell you!"
Smart battery... Dumb computer. Or Tablet....