Strange Battery Behavior.

[UncleRJ]

I admit to being a little anal when it comes to battery safety so I have my Xtar VP4 charger on the lamp table right beside my comfy chair where I can keep an eye on it. And beside it is an old glass rectangular ashtray just the perfect size to hold 8 batteries side by side When a spent battery or batteries come off the charger they go to the end of the line in the battery rotation.

Anyway, one day I had just pulled out a VCT4 battery that had been fully charged to 4.20 volts out of the charger and put it into my jacket pocket (FYI, nothing in that pocket but the battery)as a spare as I was going to be away for about 6 hours.

Turns out that I had not needed to use it and when I got home, I forgot to take it out.

Three weeks later, I find it, figure it could use a bit of a charge, popped it in and after a moment, the charger showed a charge of something like 4.32 volts!

Now I know that a battery in good condition will regain some charge due to the normal chemical reaction of their construction with time but I would think they would never exceed the top rating for the unit.

Any ideas?

BTW, I used the battery right after that. Put it through a charge cycle to 4.20 v and let it sit for a couple of weeks. Popped it in the charger and this time it showed a slight drop of voltage as expected.

 

[fq06]

Voltage rising over time is after discharge, not charge.
Nothing I can think of other than a faulty voltage read or your charger over charged the cell and the voltage read was correct.

Either way, a battery gaining voltage is not a sign of poor health. Losing voltage faster than normal like if you came back to it a couple weeks later and the 4.2v cell is now 3.9 volts is a sign of poor health.

 

[The Cromwell]

Your dynamic personality charged the battery some?

 

[UncleRJ]

Your dynamic personality charged the battery some?

Nope, don't think that is it as the Mrs always said I just suck the fun and life out of everything!

 

[The Cromwell]

Nope, don't think that is it as the Mrs always said I just suck the fun and life out of everything!

So if you suck it all up you must be full of it?

 

[Jon@LiionWholesale]

Nope, that's certifiably weird. Sounds like the charger did something funky and I'd keep an eye on it. Either it overcharged the battery in the first place, or it read it wrong when you put it back in.

Either that or you're a being made entirely of electricity. And I'd probably see a doctor about that

 

[UncleRJ]

So if you suck it all up you must be full of it?

And my brown eyes indicate the "Fill" level

 

[The Cromwell]

Ohh Wait! I have brown eyes too

 

[UncleRJ]

Ohh Wait! I have brown eyes too

And that explains why we get along so very well!