I would like to charge the following rechargeable Lithium-ion battery outside the device where it is normally placed in (and charged):
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/pn/010-12456-06
I don't know the pin-out and don't know much about charging Lithium-ion batteries, especially if they are put in parallel.
What I have researched so far:
The battery type is 1ICR19/65-2
, meaning that the battery consists of 2 Lithium-ion cells which are put in parallel. Each cell has a nominal voltage of 3.7 V
and a capacity of 2200 mAh
.
From the link above, we see that the battery has four connectors. Let's denote the right connector as C1
and the left connector as C4
. I have charged the battery (in the device) until the device said charging was finished, and then have measured the voltage between any pair of connectors (6 possible combinations). The results:
C1-C2: 3.7 V
C1-C3: 3.7 V
C1-C4: 4.1 V
C2-C3: 0.0 V
C2-C4: 0.0 V
C3-C4: 0.0 V
In case it matters: I have done the measurements using a reliable measurement device (Fluke).
In a discussion with some friends who are in electrically powered model aircrafts (which use cells which are put in series, not in parallel), the following assumptions were made:
- C1 and C4 are the "real" power source for the device (nearly sure).
- C2 and C3 might be connected to a NTC to monitor the battery's temperature for safety reasons.
- C2 and C3 might be connected to some sort of "balancer" which might compensate for (slightly) different voltages of the two cells.
- C2 and C3 might just be used for measuring the voltage of each cell during charging.
My specific questions now are:
Does anybody know the pin-out of that specific battery (or can anybody at least make a sound guess)?
Could anybody in short explain what might be the reason that there is
3.7 V
betweenC1
andC2/3
and4.1 V
betweenC1
andC4
, but there is0 V
betweenC2/3
andC4
(according to my understanding, there should be0.4 V
)?Is it correct that
C1
andC4
actually provide the power the device consumes?If the answer to the previous question is yes, I believe that I can "ignore"
C2
andC3
when charging that battery outside the device. I then could use one of those universal Lithium-ion chargers with moveable contacts to charge that battery. Is this correct?
EDIT 1
In the meantime, I have done a further test. I have fully charged the battery and then have let run the device until it turned off due to low battery. Then I have repeated the voltage measurements as described above. The results:
C1-C2: 2.8 V
C1-C3: 2.8 V
C1-C4: 3.2 V
C2-C3: 0.0 V
C2-C4: 0.0 V
C3-C4: 0.0 V
As we can see, the voltage from C1
to the middle connectors (C2
and C3
) has dropped by the same amount as the voltage from C1
to C4
. This eventually means that C2
and C3
are connected to C4
by diodes which produce a voltage drop about 0.4 V, and it eventually means that the voltage at C2
and C3
is just used for monitoring when charging. What do you think?
EDIT 2
Due to @jsotola's request, I have added an image of the label of the battery. I apologize for the bad quality. The text should be readable, though.
EDIT 3
Just in case anybody is wondering: I am asking this because the manufacturer does not offer a charger for that battery. Obviously, they expect us to always charge the battery in the device which is not acceptable to me because I need to use some more of that batteries which I'd like to charge without inserting (and removing) each battery in (from) the device just for charging.