PeterH:
retrolefty:
Li-Po battery pack manufactures have a specific process
...I absolutely understand that's the case for LiPos, and how that has led to the need for each cell to be charged and managed individually.
My comment was in response to an earlier post suggesting that this behaviour was something that inherently applied to all types of rechargeable battery. It does apply to LiPos (and there may be other exotic battery types that it applies to as well) but there are many commonly used rechargeable batteries that it does not apply to.
Well the basic failure mode can effect an series wired rechargeable cells in that for instance one wires together some random cells that have different state of charge so that they start out in a unbalanced condition. Such a pack has a high chance of damaging cells during both discharge (causing cell reversal in some) and charging process (causing overcharging of some) from the get go. Even back in the days when hi current sub-C and C Nicad cells were the flight pack of choice in the R/C world, the competitive people would go to lots of trouble 'matching' their individual cells into packs. Of course they were really pushing the cells such that they were discharging them completely in a 10 min high current run, then letting them cool for only a short time until charging them up at a 10C or greater rate. Needless to say they tended to not get long cell life out of such usage abuse.
Lefty