I often listen people saying that this battery's first charge has to be in 24 hours, others says at least 8 hours...
So I have some doubts...
All sources I found says that the battery is charged when it reaches about V4.0, it does not present memory effects ("memory effect" refers to the phenomenon where the apparent discharge capacity of a battery is reduced when it is repetitivly discharged incompletely and then recharged [7]).
The sources also says that this battery's chemistry allows up to 500 charge cycles, but may reduce as the charge cycles increase.
It is also recommended that the temperature when changing/using stays between 0°C ~ 40°C.
Keeping the battery half charged causes less stress to the battery.[2]
Funny, this was just asked the other day on the electronics stackexchange. This was the response from one of the experts there:
It is normal for a new Lithium (or any advanced type of rechargeable) batteries to require one or two full charge/discharge cycles. The main reason for this is because there are chips inside that control and monitor the status of the battery, and these chips do go through a sort of learning process. Once you do a couple of charge/discharge cycles the chip will learn the details about the battery and be able to give you a more reliable charge level indicator.
I see this a lot with cellphones, ipods, and other devices where the battery is integrated into the device. Most people charge their iPhones every night, even if it still has a 50% charge on it. Over time the battery controller chip will loose track of what a full discharge is (since it never sees a full discharge) and so the battery indicator will get progressively more inaccurate. Doing a couple of full charge/discharge cycles will force the chip to relearn how the battery behaves and the status indicator will be accurate again.
I know of no reason, other than what's stated above, for a battery pack to require a breaking in period.
