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Hey all,
I just bought a new battery for my Tilt running Eclair polymod 2.1g in NAND, and was wondering what the recommendation is for how to initially charge this battery to a full-charge so that Android recognizes it.
Should I reflash a WM rom to charge the battery fully before running Android?
Thanks.
Well, if you want to give your battery the best chance of getting a full charge with as few issues as possible, I would go for the WinMo option. There a couple of issues and problems with getting the calibration to work right in the current (and even all the ones before that, walking back to 1.5 and 1.6) builds of Android that seem to mess the charging up.
Now, I'm not a dev of the different kernels and drivers or anything like that but I'm pretty certain that if you give your battery the best possible charge through WinMo, you will at least have done what you can. Other than that, the battery seems to charge just fine most of the times in Android, but the calibration of the charge level is very twitchy and in-concise, which can make for all sorts of odd status reports from the battery level in Android.
There are discussions about this topic all over this Android forum and you should be able to pick those up around here, but these are my 0.02 SEK in the matter.
I'm not so sure if Android really messes up the charging. It may look like that like when the battery indicator indicates full charge even when it's not but if you run dmesg in a terminal you will see that it still charges and the mW increases. So perhaps it's charging allright even if it doesn't look like that.
A wall charger charges with higher current than using the USB-port from a computer. At least that's the case for me (450-480mA with wall charger and 200-300 mA with USB-port). Keep a terminal open and run dmesg every now and then and when the mW stops increasing and the mA is low (don't remember exactly how low the mA gets but I think it may stop at 10-20 mA when it's fully charged) it should be fully charged.
I had my battery indicator showing 100/100 when it's was only half charged after an Android NAND flash but dmesg told me it was charging anyway and when it was done charging I deleted /data/system/batterystats.bin and after that the indicator seems to work rather well.
EDIT: Just checked. My mA seems to stop around 6-8mA when it's fully charged.
EDIT2: Waiting a little longer it actually drops down to 0mA
All my tests at work show no real difference between charging the battery in winmo or android, a full battery is a full battery, and both os seem to charge the batteries I have tried to about the same levels.
The real difference is in the way that winmo and android interpret the data, android still seems to have some issues when it comes to working out how much actual charge is in the battery, and consequently the displayed percentage may be inaccurate. In reality I find that android does indeed consume more power than winmo, however,over time android seems to get more accurate, and at the moment my perceived percentage seems to be on par with androids estimate.
So to answer the question.... Charge it as you would any other battery, just remember that your displayed battery figure may be off a little to start with, with repeated charge-discharge cycles this should improve.
Oh and go look for 'OSmonitor' on the market, since it has few handy functions for keeping an eye on various system parameters, and is great for checking the battery messages
Hi!
I'm looking for an application, that quickly kills my battery if it's low, so I can do a full charge to improve battery life.
Something, that I launch, I put my phone on the desk, have a tea meanwhile, and it's drained! Something, that turns on wifi, do some downloading, browsing, video playing, or whatever, and does it automatically without supervision. Does such app exists?
I'll second this, it'd be nice to have an app do this for me and maybe even give us some interesting stats from it?
Sent from my mind using telepathy
why would you want an application to destroy your battery?
Adevem said:
why would you want an application to destroy your battery?
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Apparently if you do a full discharge the battery life will be longer.
Soniboy84 said:
Apparently if you do a full discharge the battery life will be longer.
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not really, you should avoid deep discharges...
Byr0x said:
not really, you should avoid deep discharges...
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+1 If you had been reading around...you would know Lithium Ion batteries are designed to 'maximize' their efficiency within about two weeks of 'top up' charging. Cycle-charging is generally considered a less efficient method of charging. You will need to 'TopUp charge' this means charging as much and as often as possible. If your battery is at 89% for instance and you find yourself near a socket, plug your adapter in and charge it up to 100%. After a few days of doing this you will notice an improvement in the life of your battery when you are not able to charge.
Actually,,,
It is not matter of running your battery down to 0%.
It is ok to run it down till phone does to power on itself.
As you know battery is a single cell Li-Ion @ 3.7v
when it is fully charged it's peak voltage is 4.2v
By the time battery mah is drained down (galaxy s has 1500mah)
battery voltage should be around 3.2~3.4v range. this will depend on condition of the battery.
Battery should never go below 3.2v personally, 3.4v is my cut off.
If your battery voltage goes below 3.2v... it's time for a new battery as this kind of voltage will damage your battery, either it will leak or puff (battery will actually get bloated.
Phone has a voltage cut off so it will not over charge over 4.2v but if it does, it will likely start to smoke and catch fire.
I am sure anyone who is into electric Radio control knows all about these batteries.
Oh btw,,, long time storage voltage should be 3.8v
You'll be asking how do I know what voltage my battery is... I personallly don't know of any apps but GPS Status actually shows the temperature & voltage of your battery.
Soniboy84 said:
I'm looking for an application, that quickly kills my battery if it's low, so I can do a full charge to improve battery life.
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First, take into consideration the comments above regarding deep discharge of your battery...but, to answer your question, there's an app in the market place called 'Battery Refresh' which attempts to drain your battery quicker.
Well if it's all true above than its a good sign, and thanks for the info! I'm not an expert but in the old times I remember batteries had to discharged completely, maybe even if it's just a few times. Now somebody can also tell me why my battery is discharging when it's plugged in the socket with original charger? All I do is using the internet, and has. nimbuzz and a live wallpaper on. :S
You could probably enable the GPS/BT/WIFI ( connected to a router ) and run the interactive mode on Neocore benchmark.. that should enable most of the hardware components on the phone and stress the GPU/CPU.. probably would see a 25% battery drain for every 35-40mins.
I don't know what has changed with the batteries but as far as I know...
it is good to discharge new batteries 3~4 times down until phone does not power on.
Like I have said... it's about the voltage of the battery, not whether battery has any juice left in it or not.
These batteries have a protective circuitry so that it will not charge over 4.2v,
also as for discharge it is usually down to 3v but usually with a charger/discharger units that can control mah/volts/amps. With typical usage from the phone, it'll likely be discharged down to about 3.2`3.4v. Which is very safe.
You can do whatever you feel but I personally do this to every batteries I have for phone and every batteries I use with my radio controled cars.
For my RC cars, I have about 6 batteries ranging from 1cell to 3cell LiPo packs.
Each cell is 3.7volts.
But you don't have to force discharge and hurry the process.
Just use the phone normally and let it run down to nothing... than recharge to full peak.
Than again, choice is yours.
I'm looking for the same kind of applications. It's very useful for recalibrating your battery. Wipe the battery history then do a full cycle.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
The old saying in RC Helicopters was that the difference between discharging 50% and 100% was the difference between getting 500 uses and 5 uses.
You should certainly avoid ever fully dischaging any lithium based battery.
Older nickel batteries (Ni-cd, Ni-MH) required full dischage cycles to get rid of memory the the metals pertained, lithium-ion and lithium-ion-polymer not only do not require this; but doing so will damage them.
And yes, the older ipods came with Nimh cells and they did reccomended full discharge cycles.
Im pretty sure the idea was to try not to let the voltage get below 3.5v/cell and never below 3.3. Dead flat is 3 or 2.85 which is when the battery simply cant produce any real current. The phone should have circuitry though to not let the voltage get above 4.25 or below ~3.5.. If the low battery warning comes on, set the brightness to dim, and stop any activities (unless its a phone call, its not THAT important but if youre playing games or watching a movie...) until yo can get to a charger.
By the way this being my first post (i meant to ages ago) Ill just mention that my galaxy S came with recovery mode and download mode Enabled, i got it just last month, Virgin network, Australia.
draining the battery fully was for the older battery types, new age batteries are not recommended to be drained fully
Thanks!
One more question:
I'm using my phone as a desktop replacement, because I don't have Internet at the moment. I'm using xda, dolphin browser and listening music. It's plugged into the mains and it's not charging. It says 49%, and stuck there. Is it possible I'm using too much battery?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Ok, this will be my last reply.
Fully draining or not is not the issue.
In RC, most modern electronic speed controllers have a built-in battery cut-off which will cut off power once it reaches certain voltage. Because OVER-draining battery without cut off can damage/kill/ or make it unable to hold voltage.
Also, once the battery voltage reach certain point (still within safe range) you will notice the motor being powered slow down. This would also be a recommended time to stop.
Cellular phones have built in safe cut off aswell. As I have said I have measured my battery after being full drained, voltage was around 3.55v or so. Which is very normal considering voltage of the battery is 3.7v only with peak charged voltage of 4.2.
Now, Someone mentioned that fully draining your battery repeatedly will dramatically reduce battery life.
Reducing life of the battery has more to do with the amount of AMP used to charge the battery. Faster charging is usually reduce battery life dramatically.
And without hobby grade chargers, you won't be able to control this charge rate.
Slow charge is better but charging at 1C rating is the normal. But charging at 1C means regardless of batteries mah rating, battery can be charged in about 60 minutes. As we all know, our phone batteries doesn't charge from zero to full in 60minutes, right? just like most of the portable devices it takes nearly 3~4hours to fully recharge. Last 20% usually takes longer because Amp provided to charge slowly lowers. That is why.
For example, if Galaxy S battery is 1500mah, than 1C charge rate is @ 1.5amp.
If battery is 3000Mah, 1C is 3.0Amps and so on.
So like I have said over and over before, drain your battery away if you have to by choice or not. Just use it up, I will bet you your battery will last longer than you keep your phone.
U should avoid draining ur battery to 0% (witch is not possible with ur phone. When it shows 0% the charge of the battery is at 10-15%). Li-ion batteries dont have a memory effect, so it would be usless discharching it completely anyhow. Best for sgs battery is charging it before it goes under 50% that will improve the lifetime of ur battery (not how long it lasts before u have to charge but how long it lasts before u have to go and buy a new one)
How do i know? Simply cause i had to learn that a few weeks ago for the job im learning.
@xxgg: yes ur right, it wont really damage the battery if u runn it till thr phone shows its empty. But using an app to drain battery as quick as possible will, since the app forces the battery to give out more Ampere than its built to give out
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
Hey all, so I have a different theory on the GNex battery issue but I'm not sure how to test it. It also might explain why there has been such a discrepancy in people's battery stats.
My theory is that there is something wrong with the way ICS/GNex is charging/reading/identifying battery information. Here are a few of the reasons why I think this is the case.
1 - My phone will occasionally charge absurdly fast, like 20 percent in 10 minutes... but then it will die equally as quick. My first thought was that the phone just charges and discharges quickly... BUT
2 - After charging for, say an hour, when I do a battery pull and let it sit for a minute or two before putting it back all of a sudden my super quick battery charge to 62% is now only at 37% (actual numbers that happened to me tonight). So why did I do a battery pull...?
3 - Because I noticed that after 10 minutes my phone had gone from 62% to 56% and I thought that was absurd. Once I did the pull and was back to my (as I like to call it) normalized battery percentage I have only dropped 15% in 2 hours and that includes heavy data usage on maps, navigation and texting. And another strange thing
4 - I have actually seen it go the other way! I once was around 30%, rebooted the phone and it jumped to 50%. Now that I'm thinking about it I often see weird fluctuations in my battery reading. One minute it will be 28%, then I turn it off and turn it back on and it will be 29%. Oh... and for those of you wondering
5 - This has happened both on a stock rom, rooted stock (although not like that would make a diff) and a custom rom ARHD. But still there is one last question...
6 - Why is there so much disparity on the issue? My theory is because this battery madness is so unpredictable you, you don't know when you get a normalized charge or an inflated charge. And lastly...
7 - I think it's gotta be a SW issue, why else would Nexus S owners be seeing the issue as well? (So that's good news... hopefully).
Soooo, that's my little rant. I think part of the problem is people are getting distracted by all these other theories with kernel drivers and etc because of the absurdly high Android OS issue (although in all fairness my theory could be more misdirection).
So why post? Well if people could try their luck validating/disproving my theory I would really appreciate it!
Here's what I'd like (and what I am going to do).
Charge your battery for an hour, if it charges really fast note the percentage.
Optional: Play with the phone for a while and see if it discharges quickly.
Do a battery pull, let it sit for a sec and put it back in and note the percentage.
If the percentage is significantly lower (10+%) start using the phone now and note the time to discharge.
Thanks!
EDIT: Also a good thing to mention, I am not disagreeing about the Android OS bug - I think that's also very real and something I have experienced as well. BUT if you look at the other battery thread you'll see a lot of people posting battery success images with high Android OS utilization. I think it could be an indication of multiple issues contributing to a negative experience.
Oh and I submitted a bug report to Google.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23311
I've also noticed crazy battery drop after reboots or pulling battery. Easily drops 10%+ at times. Reminds me of my great blackberries back in the day
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
all good here. i'm very pleased with the battery life.
while there may be issues with the stats, the wake times are real for some users - as well as the heat generated (indicating the cpu is working) when the phone should be sleeping.
There is no question there are either bugs in ICS that cause wake locks to get stuck, or badly written apps that keep it awake that didn't keep awake froyo/gingerbread.
Agreed on the wake lock. In fact I really should have quantified that in my original post - I too have that ridiculous Android OS utilization.
I updated my post - you make a good point.
Charged to about 21%. Pulled battery and rebooted and reported about 31%. Running ARHD.
EDIT: Pulled battery again and rebooted and reports 20%.
I realized mine was charging extremely slow so I decided to turn it off and let it charge faster. It was only at 48% when I turned it off but as soon as the battery indicator showed up with the phone off it appeared to be well over halfway charged, I would've guessed close to 75% but I didn't think to turn it back on and see..
edit: I did charge it fully with the phone off then wiped battery stats in cwm before rebooting into the OS after this. Since then it seems to be charging normally and reporting the correct battery level
To prove this theory, I think you should check the reported voltage of the battery and compare that to the percentage meter. Most battery apps/widgets use the old Android "battery info" screen to report this data. There very well may be a problem with the GN/ICS meter, but to be sure there has to be some constant to go back to.
These batteries drop like a rock from full charge to something like 87-88%, and again from around 37-38% to zero. It's just the battery technology, perhaps exacerbated by not having enough battery stats to adjust the % meter.
As far as I know, an app/widget that reports battery voltage will do so from the information being provided by the battery circuitry itself, so it's not subjective or adjusted in any way like a meter will be, making it a far better correlation point for the discussion.
djp952 said:
To prove this theory, I think you should check the reported voltage of the battery and compare that to the percentage meter. Most battery apps/widgets use the old Android "battery info" screen to report this data. There very well may be a problem with the GN/ICS meter, but to be sure there has to be some constant to go back to.
These batteries drop like a rock from full charge to something like 87-88%, and again from around 37-38% to zero. It's just the battery technology, perhaps exacerbated by not having enough battery stats to adjust the % meter.
As far as I know, an app/widget that reports battery voltage will do so from the information being provided by the battery circuitry itself, so it's not subjective or adjusted in any way like a meter will be, making it a far better correlation point for the discussion.
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I use current widget to tell me my voltage, as I don't pay attention to the meter. On a stock LTE battery, you should cap out at 4.203V
Voltage meter sounds like a reasonable way to approach the problem. I'm definitely not an expert on battery stats though - what should the voltages read? I know it caps at 4200mv, but what is the min?
Also how does mv relate to mah?
m0sim said:
Voltage meter sounds like a reasonable way to approach the problem. I'm definitely not an expert on battery stats though - what should the voltages read? I know it caps at 4200mv, but what is the min?
Also how does mv relate to mah?
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mv stands for millivolt which is a measurement of voltage. Examples you may have heard before are 9v battery, 110 volt wall outlet.
1mv = 1/1000 volt OR 1v = 1000mv, so you can see a mv is very small compared to a volt.
mAh stands for milliampere-hour and, in layman's terms, is a measurement of battery capacity, specifically how many hours a battery will last if the device it is connected to pulls a known amperage.
So, if a device pulls 500mA and the battery is rated 2000mAh, then generally the battery will last 4 hours (2000mAh/500mA). There are numerous other factors in the equation such as temperature, age of battery, etc. that can affect the battery life.
Hello!
I've been keeping an eye on my battery's activity with Battery Monitor Widget just like I do with all devices, and after some months of using the HOX I am concerned about the following: I have noticed the battery shows 4218 mV when fully charged, which seems to be an ok value. However, I sometimes find it showing 86%, but already 4214 mV. The current also drops when it's over 80%, from the usual 600-700 mA, gradually to 200, then 100 and even less. I know this is normal when the battery gets full, but I am worried I have a damaged battery that only takes about 88% capacity. Has anyone else noticed this?
Thanks!
IMO battery monitor widget and most other such battery voltage/amperage monitoring apps are not accurate on the One X. I have got few unrealistic values with those tools especially when charging. Voltage should be 3700mV+ when fully charged, not 1218mV.
I'm sorry, I must have been thinking about something else. The values are 4218 when full and 4214 mV at 86%. I have modified the post now. I have also noticed the current when discharging is not quite accurate (it shows less when playing music then when doing nothing at all), so you think I shouldn't be worried about the battery?
asp2010 said:
I have also noticed the current when discharging is not quite accurate (it shows less when playing music then when doing nothing at all), so you think I shouldn't be worried about the battery?
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Yes, I have also noticed similar discrepancies, for example I sometimes get a higher positive mA rating when connected to USB port compared to the wall adapter (which is clearly wrong). Therefore I don't know if any of those readings are really accurate or not.
I tether with my phone all day and I have to keep it connected because it drains the battery quick. Will it have any negative effects on the battery if I leave it connected even if its at 100%?
whytechapel_x said:
I tether with my phone all day and I have to keep it connected because it drains the battery quick. Will it have any negative effects on the battery if I leave it connected even if its at 100%?
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I do the same and haven't had any ill effects, phone stays on charge at work all day
I believe the charger (and most, if not all, smartphone chargers) intentionally cuts out when the battery is saturated to prevent overcharging. Then top off again once the battery level drops a bit. In fact, on some devices (when attached to charger and fully charged) you will actually see the battery level occasionally drop to 99 or 98% then back up to 100% again. Although I haven't noticed this on the M8 yet.
You can get into a discussion of mini-cycles and other ill effects from keeping the device plugged in all the time. But just anecdotally I do this all the time (just leave the phone on charger overnight most nights) and haven't noticed much (if any) ill effect on battery life after owning 5 HTC devices, plus 2 Samsung tablets; most of which were used 1- 2 years each with very little if any decline in battery life over the time they were used.
Actually leaving the battery at full capacity all the time (if I understood your post) is bad for the long term health of the battery.
You need to find an app that cuts your charger off at 70-80%. Most modern laptops have this functionality built in for people that leave it plugged in all the time.
Heisenberg420 said:
Actually leaving the battery at full capacity all the time (if I understood your post) is bad for the long term health of the battery.
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Technically, I would agree. And "best practice" is to cycle often and avoid leaving the phone on the charger when fully charged. But often folks (myself included) will not always follow what is best, and its not always feasible. As I've mentioned, after owning a decent number of smartphone and tablet devices and using then for 1-2 years, I haven't noticed much or any decline in battery life for the time I was using them (despite often charging them overnight). I have no doubt there might be some slight decrease, and especially of one intends to use the device for more than 2 years. But I personally never do (too much of a gear junkie) and also don't sell/trade my old phones.
Your point is a fair one, as it best the OP to know all the facts, risks, etc. and make his own conclusion. The following link has some interesting technical discussion on charging Li ion: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
I bought an ampere-meter that measures current from the charge to the device and I have awesome news.
Li poly batteries have a very strict charging procedure (voltage and current should change during the charge). The original HTC charge charges flawlessly.
Once the battery tops up to 100% current drops dramatically.
If I do some power demanding task, the current goes up again. This means that all power consumption is taken from the charger, leaving the battery in 100% all the time, without jittering between 99-100%
NOTE:
Yet. The designers of the Li Poly define it as an electrical spring. This means there is no deterioration in the battery life AS LONG AS YOU DON'T CHARGE THE BATTERY OVER 4 volts.
100% is 4.2 volts, meaning you'd stop charging at 85% to prolong battery life.