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Constant recharging of the battery thru USB Sync wire?

HI!
This might be a stupid question...
During the day my O2 Mini is always connected to my laptop thru the USB sync wire and therefore its keeps getting charged.
Is that in any way harmful for the battery...does it reduce battery life over the long run??
Thanks.
Ujj

ujj75 said:
HI!
This might be a stupid question...
During the day my O2 Mini is always connected to my laptop thru the USB sync wire and therefore its keeps getting charged.
Is that in any way harmful for the battery...does it reduce battery life over the long run??
Thanks.
Ujj
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No not Lithium Ion batteries. In fact it is better to charge the battery as often as possible.

is that fact? i cant believe it.

It is the way the battery is designed, there is logic in the battery that cuts off voltage when the peak is reached as far as I know.

Thanks cruisin-thru and skjelnes .

If you let them go flat for any length of time, they die completely.

USB charging control
Still this whole battery charging and technology issue is quite ambiguous. No one can really guarantee that there is a clear answer. For instance why do you have to give the battery an initial 8-hour charging if it is a new generation battery?
In any case it would be interesting to know how the charging control works. There are some options:
- It can be controlled by a circuit which cuts off power at a certain level of charge (no way to play with this option).
- It may be controlled by software which would be great because one could (easily) interfere with it. In this case there must be some kind of relay switch controlled by the operating system.
- It could also be not controlled. In this case the battery never stops charging. Only the indication changes when a battery meter reaches a certain level. This looks more likely to be the case as the initial 8-hour charging might mean keeping the battery under voltage during the initial charge as even though the indication states that it is fully charged the charger is not disconnected by any control system.
Does anyone have some solid information on the above assumptions?
Note: I tried to isolate the power pin of the USB cable in order to prevent the device from charging but then it was not recognized by the USB (got a USB connection error). Obviously the power line of the USB is used for connection and signal as well and not only as a optional power supply to the connected device.

I'm currently trying to find something in the registry about charge control....
Maybe Microsoft has hidden a secret option somewhere in there... :?

Anonymous said:
I'm currently trying to find something in the registry about charge control....
Maybe Microsoft has hidden a secret option somewhere in there... :?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, forgot to log in...

Re: USB charging control
savas said:
Does anyone have some solid information on the above assumptions?
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Click to collapse
Find everything you want to know on lithium-ion batteries on batteryuniversity.com
here http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-5.htm
and here http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
Serge

A litium-ion battery gets worn from three things:
* Normal use
* Heat
* Full charge
A short while after the Ipod battery dirty secret leaked, I read why the batteries only last for like a year. A NiCd battery HAS to be cycled completely to last as long as possible because of their memory effect. A NiMh battery LIKES to be cycled as completely as possible for longest life.
A Li-Ion battery does not have the memory effect - therefore a lot of people seem to assume that you can charge a Li-Ion battery any way you want. That is not correct... Everyone of you ever used a laptop with a Li-Ion battery every day at work, with the ac-adaptor plugged in knows that the battery is ready for garbage bin after one or two years.
Why? You've almost never used the battery... It's always fully charged... The battery should have lasted much longer you think...
Isidor Buchmann is president at the company Cadex which makes battery chargers. He has got more than 20 years of experience from the battery business.
At the site: http://www.batteryuniversity.com he has written an article where he explains the mechanisms inside a Li-Ion battery and provides tips about how to treat the batteries.
Finally he gives the following advices:
*Don't discharge the battery completley. It's better to discharge the battery a little more than halfe than making a complete discharge.
* Discharge the battery completely and then charge it completely to calibrate the battery meter
* Keep the battery cool
* For long time storage: keep the batteries charged at 40% in the fridge
* Do not use the ac adapter and the battery when the battery is fully charged. Heat and unneccesary charging after the battery is fylly charges destroys the battery
My 2 cents.
// Anders

Re: USB charging control
savas said:
why do you have to give the battery an initial 8-hour charging if it is a new generation battery?
In any case it would be interesting to know how the charging control works. There are some options:
- It can be controlled by a circuit which cuts off power at a certain level of charge (no way to play with this option).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think most questions have been answered, except Magician specific ones, i.e.:-
The Magician has to be initially charged for at least 8 hours to:-
1. Make sure the main battery is fully charged and formed, and charging logic calibrated (future capacity depends on this)
2. Charge the backup battery. Unlike the main battery, this only gets a trickle charge which starts after the main battery is at 100%. So it needs those 8 hours to get to full capacity. Remember to do this if you ever drain the backup battery.
Lithium charging logic is built into the battery, so no way to tamper with the settings. The NiMH backup battery logic will be built into the Magician.

Very interesting reading! I didn't know about the issue with laptop batteries.

Loboman said:
Very interesting reading! I didn't know about the issue with laptop batteries.
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Click to collapse
Me niether. I knew exactly how to treat NiCd and NiMh batteries, but when I bought a laptop, I wondered how to treat Li-Ion batteries. After some search I found the info i just presented here.
// Anders

Very interesting information indeed! Just some more comments:
Anders Johnsson said:
*Don't discharge the battery completley. It's better to discharge the battery a little more than halfe than making a complete discharge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anders Johnsson said:
Do not use the ac adapter and the battery when the battery is fully charged. Heat and unneccesary charging after the battery is fylly charges destroys the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ineedtoys said:
Lithium charging logic is built into the battery, so no way to tamper with the settings. The NiMH backup battery logic will be built into the Magician.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK we can easily avoid discharging the battery below 50% or 60% at normal conditions even when traveling through a USB port of our notebook (3rd quote)
We should also avoid a USB connection at a 100% (2nd quote) or even at a 90% (3rd quote) charge level unless we can find a way to cut off the power supply to the battery. The only option would be to find a way to do this from the device, before the internal logic of the battery. As far as I can understand the internal battery logic allows charging whenever connected to a power supply and it only informs somehow the device of the charge level.

OMG.
All this nonsense about batteries.... it's easier to just buy a new battery or a new device after 18 months, rather than let your charging habits be dictated by how batteries like to be tickled!

Easier yes, more expensive too.. Dell sure knows how to charge (!) you for a new batt with built-in subwoofer..

Does it matter if we don't charge it all the way till it's full? If I'm charging it till about 95% and I really need to unplug it. How much damage will it do to my battery?

dacmo said:
Does it matter if we don't charge it all the way till it's full? If I'm charging it till about 95% and I really need to unplug it. How much damage will it do to my battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not following you - I think. If you unplug it at 95% it's a lot better than unplugging it at 100%.
Summary:
Full charge: BAD
Full discharge: BAD
Heat: BAD
Extreme cold: BAD
// Anders

This is the first time that I ever heard that charging up to 100% is bad. I know that leaving it on the charger for extended periods is bad but to say that charging to 100% is bad.. that's absurd!!! :shock:

initial question

I believe the initial question was: will this constant charging thru the USB sync&charge cable harm the battery. I derive from the answers above that it actually is harmful to the battery. And that is exactly my personal experience.
My first Windows OS PDA with a LION battery was the iPAQ 3630 back in 2000. I also believed the PR back then that the LION battery could be charged as much as you wanted. Untill after about 9 months, when a full battery charge lasted no more than 1 hour! Yes, 60 minutes of iPAQ fun and then it was over.
I then got into a similar discussion as we are having now (other forums, XDA Developers didn't exist back then). Nobody knew the correct answer 4.5 years ago, like today still, but the majority believed that constant charging was bad, even with LION batteries.
I then started to discharge the iPAQs battery to 30% (the 'red' area) and then recharge it fully. As soon as the green LED was on remove the iPAQ from the charger immediately. After having done so several times I noticed that the battery would last longer. After some 10-15 times of discharging to 30% + recharging to 100% untill the green LED is on the battery would last 3-4 hours again.
I then switched to the O2 XDA, with which I had the same experience. Keeping the battery topped constantly decreases it's ability to keep a charge. Or maybe it can't be charged as 'deep' anymore, I don't know, anyway the battery will last (a lot) less long.
I now have the QTEK 9090, and I use Bluetooth to sync, so I don't have to use the sync&charge cradle all the time. I still only charge the battery when it is at some 30%. And the battery lasts some 5 hours with brightness set to medium, MP3 playing, web surfing and all that.
But I agree, it is stupid that you have to act like this, that you can't use the cradle all the time. If the batteries weren't so damn expensive I would simply wear them out and replace them. Something I couldn't do BTW with the iPAQ and XDA with their fixed batteries.
BTW I still have the XDA, I use it in my car for navigation (have the original O2 car kit with GPS mouse). It is 3 years old now, still has the original battery and this battery still lasts 3+ hours with backlight on! Which proves my point I believe.

Battery power / GPS
You may have answered a question that i had been pondering for a while, USB charging. The other thing is, you mentioned you use a GPS mouse, was that with an XDA 1? and if so which one? regards rotorjack

XDA I GPS mouse
It's the 'original' XDA I GPS mouse which can be hooked up to the original XDA I car kit, but in fact it is the light blue/cyan coloured Leadtek 9532 GPS Receiver. Works great BTW.

8125 battery recharge

Yesterday my cingular 8125 phone decided not to charge the battery anymore,
I wanted to make a call and it was srangely turned off ( it was at 50% ten min. before)
so I turned my phone on and the battery meter jumped from 48% to 0% and now it wont charge at all!
plugged in it works fine with PC and charger.
Plus the battery info screen olny shows the battery meter for the main battery (0%) and not the backup battery, as if it didn´t exist! (2.17 ROM)
I wish someone could tell me if I will solve the problem with just buying a new battery or If I should sent it for repairs.
Already did a hard reset, no drops, moisture, dents, extreme temp. etc. -- and I have a Delta Electronics charger, dunno if it is the original one, it is not cingular branded. :?:
all thoughts welcome.
thanks!
Errol

You need to try the standard charger because it has an output of 1Amps and any less does not seem to kick start the battery into charging. Check your charger and see if it has an output of 1A or not (usb charger has lower output only 400mA) and if not get one or borrow one and try. Most microsoft smartphone chargers use 1A too.

3200 mAh strange problem, no charge

I bougth a 3200mAh battery on ebay, when it arrived, I changed my old battery.
The new one lasted for 2 days afther a full charge (12h BT on, 2h WiFi, and a lot of GPRS messenger)
at 2% I wanted to recharge the battery but afther 1 minute it doesent charge anymore it drains itself and charge again to 2% an stops and it does this over and over
what can I do? any sugestions?

Maybe the problem is with the charger could not withstand it or the batery that u brought has been used before when you have not buy it or the batery is spoit when arriving.

hy, meanwhile I changed back to my old battery, plugged in the charger, it showed that it's charging but it was actualy discharging, the % where going down, could it be a phone hardware problem?

buy some charger with 2000 mah or higher..

Buy The Charger That Has A Stronger Voltage

thank you for your interest, the problem was not the charger, just the Uni charging port, Because my Uni is real used the port metallic part was loosen so I tightened it together a little bit, so now my 3200 battery is charged via USB from my laptop in aprox. 9h
but it is an idea to buy a 2A charger (the original is 1A)

Turn off USB Charging for Omnia (solved)

Hi all, there is a way to turn off the charging function when using USB ,
1-install FdcSoft TaskMgr from here
dotfred.net/TM/FdcSoft_TaskMgrv3.3_WM6.5.cab
2-go to Devices--->$device\BAT1(BAT1 and stop this service
3-thats All
To Use charge restart this service

hey thx for the tips! but after stop the service my o2 keep saying batt low...

Is there any reason why we would want to turn off this service?

I heard that it keeps your battery in good shape

peepe1302 said:
I heard that it keeps your battery in good shape
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Click to collapse
I'm not so sure about that... I've always charged both my O2 and the O1 before through usb and the battery has always been fine.
Actually, I even noticed that charging through usb takes longer but once it's charged it also lasts longer (this happened on the O1, haven't made the same comparison on the O2 yet)
Dunno if plugging / unplugging the usb cable too frequently can have some sort of ill effect on the battery life, but it's not like we're plugging it every 10 minutes is it?
Never had a battery problem with a "normal" usb usage and usb charging enabled so far...

Yes but not anymore
peepe1302 said:
I heard that it keeps your battery in good shape
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's always good to drink all the juice so the battery don't develop a offline or fake "memory".
Also the multi cell assembly insde the battery praticly don't allow batery memory anymore.
Thx for the reference

Regarding battery life
Hi,
Actually, for a battery it depletes it's life every second. There is no way of preventing this But we can extend the service life. For example the most basic rules:
1-Do not charge your battery unless it is almost empty
2-Avoid deep discharging (this is not possible with a PDA coz it has an early shut down routine)
3-Do not overcharge the battery (also this not possible, coz there is a voltage limiter by hardware)
4-Do not leave your battery in a high temperature environment (for example in a car during summer, we are using chemical-reaction batteries)
the rest is do not puncture, do not short circuit boola boola boola
ok, finally while using your PDA with a USB charging interface, it should stop charging when the battery is full (Even my mother's old nokia doing this)
Plus, how much it costs for a new battery? only few bucks.. ehh.. (not for an original one ofcourse)
PDA batteries, in most cases, are 3.7volts (charging voltage is 5volts by USB) and 1200 to 1500mAh (for the ones who doesnt know what is "mAh": it is the capacity of the battery and it means if you pull for example for a 1300mAh battery, 1300 "mili ampers per hour" it will deplete. Some of my friends they are using 3.7V 2000mAh batteries while their PDAs supplied with 1230mAh batteries, thus, standby time goes up to a week. They are not using their originals ofcourse. I dont understand why manufacturers are not supplying PDAs with these kind of batteries by standart. Even a chinese made battery can be so efficient. (I am using a chinese one, my original battery is 1300mAh, i could find 1500mAh same battery)
I spoke to my friends, they are not charging their 2000mAh batteries via USB/charger while battery is in the phone. Because there is an internal electrical resistance of every battery. May be PDA's battery charging circuit get damaged! Because of this if you plan to use a high capacity battery, charge it seperately by using another charging equipment.
Finally when you want to sell out your PDA install the original battery (which you have never used before hehe ) and get a higher price

This might be some really big idiotic question, but what if the service is down and the battery drains and the phone shuts itself off, will it turn on by connecting the charger to the phone?
I ask this because with the service off even the real phone charger wont work (at least while it is on)!

houssam10001 said:
Hi all, there is a way to turn off the charging function when using USB ,
1-install FdcSoft TaskMgr from here
dotfred.net/TM/FdcSoft_TaskMgrv3.3_WM6.5.cab
2-go to Devices--->$device\BAT1(BAT1 and stop this service
3-thats All
To Use charge restart this service
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just did what you said, and now the device\BAT1(BAT1 completely disappear! How am i supose to turn it on again now?
And no, i obviously didn't delect it, i just stoped the service and it vanished from the damn list!

im very interested in this but how can you restart the charging service?