Reference
Lithium Batteries and Care
A lithium pack that is treated normally is undramatic and lasts years. The failure modes are rare and severe, which is a bad combination for guesswork, so this page is mostly about what not to do and where the real numbers come from.
A damaged pack does not get charged
This is the single rule worth memorizing. A pack that has been dropped hard, crushed, punctured, soaked, or left somewhere very hot has to be assumed compromised, and putting energy into a compromised cell is how a bad situation becomes a fire.
Swelling is the clearest warning sign. A case that has gone convex, a lid that no longer sits flat, a seam that has opened: those are the pack telling you it is done. So is a hot unit that is not charging or discharging, a smell of solvent, or any visible leak.
Hard limits
- Do not charge a unit that is swollen, cracked, punctured, wet, or hot to the touch.
- Do not open, disassemble, repair, rebuild, or replace cells in a power station or a jump starter. There is no user-serviceable path inside these and this site does not describe one.
- Do not try to revive a pack that will no longer take a charge, and do not follow internet procedures that involve forcing current into a dead cell.
- A suspect pack goes outdoors and away from anything that burns, then to a household hazardous waste or battery recycling drop-off, not into household trash and not into curbside recycling.
- Check the manufacturer's support page and the CPSC recall list for your model before assuming odd behavior is normal.
Charging: use the supplied gear and the published limits
Charge with the adapter and cable that came with the unit, or an accessory the manufacturer lists for it. Fast charging is a feature the manufacturer designed around specific hardware, and a substitute supply that happens to fit the socket is not the same thing.
Every unit has an allowed temperature band for charging and a separate, usually wider, band for discharging, and those bands differ between models and between chemistries. This site does not publish temperature numbers, because a number that is right for one pack is wrong for another and the manual is the only source that applies to yours. Look it up once, for your model, and note it somewhere you will find it.
- Charge on a hard, non-flammable surface with air around the unit, not buried in bedding or in a closed bag.
- Do not charge a very cold pack that has just come in from outside. Let it reach room temperature first, and follow the range in your manual.
- Do not leave a unit charging unattended for long stretches in an occupied home if the manual advises against it, and follow whatever the manual says about leaving it plugged in continuously.
- Pass-through charging, where the unit powers a load while it charges, is supported on some models and not others. The manual says which.
Storage between outages
The whole point of this category is that the pack is charged on the day you need it, which means storage habits decide whether your preparation was real. A battery discovered flat during an outage is the most common failure on this entire site, and it costs nothing to prevent.
Manufacturers publish both a recommended storage charge level and a recommended interval for topping up, and both vary by model. Set a recurring reminder at whatever interval your manual gives. Store indoors in a dry place at a stable temperature rather than in an unheated garage or a hot attic.
- Follow the storage charge percentage and top-up interval in your manual. Do not use a figure from a general article, including this one.
- Indoors, dry, stable temperature. Not a car trunk in summer, not an unheated garage in winter.
- Keep the original charger with the unit. Substitutes get lost and improvised.
- Test the unit at the interval you top it up. Plug in a lamp, confirm the outlets work, confirm the display is sane.
Air travel is restricted, and the limits are not yours to interpret
Lithium batteries above certain watt-hour thresholds are restricted or prohibited in air travel, and the rules distinguish between carry-on and checked baggage. Most power stations of any real capacity fall outside what is allowed. Small packs and jump starters may be permitted in carry-on only.
The federal aviation authority publishes the current thresholds, and individual airlines apply their own additional limits and approval requirements on top. Check both, for your specific unit's stated watt-hour rating, before you travel. Do not assume a unit is acceptable because a similar one was.
Jump starters carry the same rules plus one more
A lithium jump starter is a lithium pack with a very high discharge capability, which makes the damaged-pack rule more important, not less. Everything above applies.
The extra consideration is that it spends its life in a vehicle, which is the worst storage environment on the list: hot in summer, cold in winter, and vibrating. Keep it in the cabin rather than the trunk where you can, top it up on your manual's schedule, and treat a unit that has spent a summer baking as suspect. The connection procedure for the clamps belongs to the device manual and the vehicle owner manual, and it is covered on the jump starter category page rather than here.
Keep a stored lithium pack ready between outages
A maintenance routine for a power station or jump starter that spends most of its life in a closet.
- Find the storage figures in your manualLook up the storage charge level, the top-up interval, and the allowed charging and storage temperature ranges for your specific model. These differ between models and only the manual applies to yours.
- Pick a storage locationChoose an indoor spot that stays dry and reasonably stable in temperature, with the original charger stored alongside the unit. Avoid unheated garages, attics, and vehicle trunks.
- Set a recurring reminderPut the top-up interval from your manual into a calendar as a repeating event, so the schedule survives the months when nothing happens.
- Inspect before every top-upLook at the case for swelling, cracks, or a lid that no longer sits flat, and feel whether the unit is unusually warm. If anything looks wrong, do not charge it.
- Confirm it still worksPlug a lamp into the AC outlet and a phone into a USB port, confirm both run and the display reads sensibly, then charge back to the level your manual specifies.