Relying on Lipo's PCM

[CheekyRobot]

Hi, this is my first post to this forum - looks like a brilliant place to be.

I've seen a handful of posts on the topic, but I guess everyone's project is different so apologies for a little repetition.

I have a project that needs a 3.7v 2000mAh Lipo battery inside it to maintain power when the external supply (the main battery) is exhausted, failed or disconnected.
I managed to find a great supplier for the battery and they make the EXACT size I need (sweet!).

My present design uses an ADP5063 IC  http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1741166.pdf to charge and monitor the battery from the external 9-12v supply. All good, but the IC is a QFN20-like package, which is going to be a bit of a horror to solder (perhaps I doubt my reflow skills too much?).

The new supplier for the battery I found (the last one shipped my samples to me from China inside a soft toy!  so I'm not too keen to use them) say that their battery has a PCM chip on it.
Does anyone think that it would be good, safe etc etc to simply allow the battery to charge from a reduced and regulated feed from my external supply?
Or should I not trust that? As you can tell, batteries are my blind-spot

The unit will normally only be connected to the external supply for a few hours at a time anyway but I need to cater for situations where the user instructions are ignored it's left connected.

Oh, and the device itself only draws about 100-150ma, so little stress on the internal Lipo.

Cheers all!