On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:35:45 +0200, imbsysop wrote:

I agree on your points .. I was not aware of the "newer"(?) negative
pulse charging systems that probably do a better job in preserving the
microcrystaline structure of the "internal chemical battery soup" ...
as to "smart chargers" is there any other method that can be
considered "intelligent" than monitoring the voltage dip ? If a
charger doesn't use this method, I for one would not qualify it as an
"intelligent charger"

I suppose that measuring current would be about as useful, but I
agree that the smart chargers probably do monitor the voltage. What
I meant though, was that smart chargers don't necessarily have to
use current pulses to charge batteries. I think a truly smart
charger would require smart batteries that have a very small amount
flash RAM. That would allow the charger to write information to the
batteries identifying their last couple of charge cycles, with
date/time info. as well as design capacity and recent capacity.
That would allow the chargers to easily handle temporary loss A.C.
power during the charger cycle and also let you know when it might
be approaching the time to replace the batteries.. I don't know if
any of the "Info-Lithium" batteries do this of if the tracked
information is stored in the laptop or PDA that the batteries are
used with.