I will be using a TI BQ24074
to charge a battery and power a load via a solar panel. Because of the way the BQ24074
works with a solar panel, it will stay in the DPPM
loop all the time (while there's sun). This means termination will be disabled and the charger will not terminate charging when the current drops to the termination threshold (typically, C/10
). In this scenario, the charger will simply leave the battery charging voltage at 4.2V as long as there's sun, while the charge current slowly tapers down. Assuming a full charge on the battery at sunrise, worst case scenario is that the battery is left at 4.2V during the whole day (say, 12 hours of sunlight). I would expect that then the battery would discharge slightly overnight (because it will be operating a small load), and then the cycle would repeat on sunrise.
Are there any clear disadvantages to battery life to operating like this? That is, letting the charge current taper on its own, instead of terminating charge at C/10
?