Database Users

Stop MDA II from charging in cradle

Hi everybody.
To get the most out of my battery I always wait until my device shuts down due to lacking battery. The I chargt it until it the end and the battery displays 6+ houres.
When I recharge the battery before its empty I only get 4+ houres when its full.
I also read that the battery's lifetime is increased by only charging it that way.
My problem is the cradle that charges it everytime I sync.
Is there a way or tool to switch charging on/off for the cradel?
Thanks alot
Alex

The way I understand it, modern batteries do better when charged regularly in small increments. They do very badly with multiple deep discharges, which can actually damage them.
So I would actually disagree with you that what you are doing is a good idea.
If you still decide to do this, the simplest way is probably a manual activesync via bluetooth, using a dongle, as it actually charges via USB too.
Surur

Right the bluetooth thing would be a good idea.
And you might also be right that you should not charge it in such an extreme way...
I read this an a PC Magazin.
I don't know if its wrong or right. the only thing I know is that the battery lasts longer when I charge it thta way.
Thanks
Alex

The battery in the xda2 is designed for constant charging, I dont see how you would get more battery life because if you acheive your desired aim the xda2 will be discharging during sync and will give less battery time than if you let it top up the charge.

I read that Ion battaries have only a limited number of complete chargings bevor the are broken...
alex

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?
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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:

battery life concerns on wizard

I've had an o2 mini s for about a week now and i'm pleased with it on the whole. My only real concern is battery life. My mini seems to drain much quicker than by xda 2 s which I had before. I seem to drop about 10% in 1 hour 10 mins and that's just a few calls/txts and minimum fiddling.
8:20 100%
9:42 88%
I've dropped all the o2 software and don't have any tricky 3rd party apps installed only;
xbar3 ( great btw )
avantgo wireless
ebook reader
tcpmp
I've read quite a few posts about battery life being good on this phone but i'm not seeing it. I'm still in my 14 day cooling off period and i'm considering sending it back for a replacement.
Jeff

Is Wifi off, bluetooth off. Do you check your email every ... minutes over GPRS?...
With email checking every 10 minutes my qtek battery last at least 2 whole days.

wifi/gprs/bluetooth all off - not used today
Just phone today - maybe 12 calls.
Time now 14:21 battery at 61% !
Now i'm worried ......I reckon i'll be down to 30% by this evening.

16:32 - 49%

maybe there are problems with these batteries i had problems with charging the battery it didnt seem to show correct level, sent it back for another unit

17:26 - 38%.
If another goes we'll be up here all day.

My battery life seems to be utter rubbish every time I charge my MDA Vario over the USB link. I can go to bed with 100% battery and find it dead by morning. This has happened two or three times since I bought it on 5th November. Last Saturday morning I had the USB cable connected to download some music to my SD card with 100% charge at 10:00. I played music for about an hour through the supplied headphones and by 13:00 I was down to 50% battery. By that evening I was down to a few %. I've read reviews that you you should squeeze about 10 hours of continuous music from this thing on one full charge so an hour of music and 7 hours of standby/sleep seems pathetic.
If I charge using the mains charger and sync over Bluetooth I get a standby battery life of about 5 days. Obviously that is shortened with use so in practice I am charging it every 2-3 days (no point starting a day with only 20% left!).
I have no idea why USB charging is completely hopeless. I have tried soft resetting or closing all active apps after charging, to make sure ActiveSync isn't actively running and causing a drain (just as you are advised to with a Bluetooth sync) but that seems to make no difference. USB charging is rubbish. Mains charging is the only way to go, IME.

21.50 - 24 %

Charging over USB hopeless
tdodd said:
I have no idea why USB charging is completely hopeless. I have tried soft resetting or closing all active apps after charging, to make sure ActiveSync isn't actively running and causing a drain (just as you are advised to with a Bluetooth sync) but that seems to make no difference. USB charging is rubbish. Mains charging is the only way to go, IME.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I confirm USB charging IS rubbish. The reason seems to be that the power available out of that conector on a PC is not enough to charge properly... I had the same issue with BA and Himalaya...
Answer: get a USB charger / car charger that can deliver 1A minimum.
BTW I found a craddle for the Wizard in Dubai @ Plugins. It comes with USB port/cable + power adapter. Works like a charme.
Cheers,
Hal.

tdodd said:
My battery life seems to be utter rubbish every time I charge my MDA Vario over the USB link. I can go to bed with 100% battery and find it dead by morning. This has happened two or three times since I bought it on 5th November. Last Saturday morning I had the USB cable connected to download some music to my SD card with 100% charge at 10:00. I played music for about an hour through the supplied headphones and by 13:00 I was down to 50% battery. By that evening I was down to a few %.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My C500 Did that when I had it Plugged in the Front USB ports on my case, I normaly had it plugged in to the onboard USB at the back of my pc with a usb ext cable so I could have it on my desk but I went off to a lan party and when I plugged everything back in I put my USB cable to front usb port and found it was Discharging my Battery instead of charging it, got my usb in Back port all is fine again now
Maybe you have yours in to the front USB port or non onboard port?

I use a laptop, which only has two USB 1.1 ports but they each supply enough juice to power a USB ADSL modem (not that I'm using one of those these days), which is more than some PCs will manage and also my USB hard drive, which my Shuttle won't. So there is no lack of power from the USB ports on the laptop.
Of course, the USB spec only permits a maximum current demand of 500mA so any equpiment expecting more should not be using USB for its power supply. In any event, the phone does charge from the USB ports, albeit very slowly, but eventually the orange charge light does go green. So my situation is not one of discharging instead of charging.
I've just swapped my ROM from Vario to k-jam so I'll see if that makes any difference to the performance. I know it's given me 802.11g, which was missing before.

I had an M500 briefly (Magician) on Orange that had very poor battery life, it was one of the reasons I ebayed it, gave the contract sim to my wife and started a cheaper better value T-Mobile account with an MDA Compact, which
had better battery life. Typically overnight after a full charge the Orange unit went down to 75% and the T-Mobile one was at about 98% on standby.
My Vario I have now, my other T-Mobile account has very good battery life and charges very well off USB. If I sync it in the morning whilst reading my emails and stuff, let it charge USb for about 25 mins, it'll be full and by the night it will have dropped down to about 80%. This is with about 30 mins of calls, about seven or eight emails sent/received and maybe 15 mins with WIFI on.

tdodd said:
I use a laptop, which only has two USB 1.1 ports but they each supply enough juice to power a USB ADSL modem (not that I'm using one of those these days), which is more than some PCs will manage and also my USB hard drive, which my Shuttle won't. So there is no lack of power from the USB ports on the laptop.
Of course, the USB spec only permits a maximum current demand of 500mA so any equpiment expecting more should not be using USB for its power supply. In any event, the phone does charge from the USB ports, albeit very slowly, but eventually the orange charge light does go green. So my situation is not one of discharging instead of charging.
I've just swapped my ROM from Vario to k-jam so I'll see if that makes any difference to the performance. I know it's given me 802.11g, which was missing before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you have a link to the imate rom? is the vario rom also available?

sundip said:
do you have a link to the imate rom? is the vario rom also available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't remember for sure where I got the k-jam ROM ( I think someone saved a copy somewhere) but try here - ftp://ftp.clubimate.com/ - and then save file K-JAM_WWE_1010903_106_10110_ship.exe
That is a self installing upgrade that includes the whole k-jam ROM and k-jam extended ROM files.
I don't know where to get a Vario ROM from. I did back up my own copy (I hope) but the method is a bit whacky and as I only have a 1GB mini-SD card my ROM backup image is 1GB because the only way to secure the image is to dump the whole card to a file.
Before you go playing around do make sure you have your own backup of the ROM or if not the whole thing then the Vario extended ROM files at least. I'm using the k-jam ROM with the Vario Extended ROM.

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
hal said:
I confirm USB charging IS rubbish. The reason seems to be that the power available out of that conector on a PC is not enough to charge properly... I had the same issue with BA and Himalaya...
Answer: get a USB charger / car charger that can deliver 1A minimum.
BTW I found a craddle for the Wizard in Dubai @ Plugins. It comes with USB port/cable + power adapter. Works like a charme.
Cheers,
Hal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Is there any way to disable USB charging? I didn't connect USB very often since it will charge automatically and I don't like the battery be charged very often. It might kill battery soon. I like to sync with bluetooth; however it is much slower than USB. It's amazing if there is any tool to disable USB charging. Because it will sync fast and will not hurt the battery. Thanks for the suggestions in advance.
Cheers!
Michael

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Michael Lin said:
Is there any way to disable USB charging? I didn't connect USB very often since it will charge automatically and I don't like the battery be charged very often. It might kill battery soon. I like to sync with bluetooth; however it is much slower than USB. It's amazing if there is any tool to disable USB charging. Because it will sync fast and will not hurt the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Ineedtoys said:
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Ineedtoys,
Thanks for the reply. I understand that there is no so called "memory effect" on Lithium battery; however when I checked the battery spec, I always found that there is a "charging cycle limitation". For example, a specific battery claimed that it can be rechaged 10,000 times, then very USB charging will be counted also. It will reach 10,000 times faster. This is my concern. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Can somebody help to clarify this?
B. Rgds.,
Michael

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Ineedtoys said:
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Ineedtoys,
Thanks for the reply. I understand that there is no so called "memory effect" on Lithium battery; however when I checked the battery spec, I always found that there is a "charging cycle limitation". For example, a specific battery claimed that it can be rechaged 10,000 times, then very USB charging will be counted also. It will reach 10,000 times faster. This is my concern. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Can somebody help to clarify this?
B. Rgds.,
Michael

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Michael Lin said:
Ineedtoys said:
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Ineedtoys,
Thanks for the reply. I understand that there is no so called "memory effect" on Lithium battery; however when I checked the battery spec, I always found that there is a "charging cycle limitation". For example, a specific battery claimed that it can be rechaged 10,000 times, then very USB charging will be counted also. It will reach 10,000 times faster. This is my concern. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Can somebody help to clarify this?
B. Rgds.,
Michael
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's true. It's the same with Notebooks. The more you charge it, while it's in use, the faster the battery gets "killed"!

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Michael Lin said:
Hi,
Is there any way to disable USB charging? I didn't connect USB very often since it will charge automatically and I don't like the battery be charged very often. It might kill battery soon. I like to sync with bluetooth; however it is much slower than USB. It's amazing if there is any tool to disable USB charging. Because it will sync fast and will not hurt the battery. Thanks for the suggestions in advance.
Cheers!
Michael
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answer my own question.
I am quite sure that the USB charging can be disabled since I used to see the config on a HP device. I also believed that this can be done by 'registry' since it is Windows tradition. I finally found it after a short study. Please go to
HKLM\Drivers\BuiltIn\usbfndrv
and change the
EnableUsbCharging to '0'
then
soft reset => Bingo.
Hope it helps.
Michael

How to set Legend to not charge while it is connected to USB port?

Hi, do you have any workaround how to set my Legend to not charge the battery while it is connected to PC's USB port?
When I want only to transfer some files to SD card and plug the device into USB, it starts to charge. It is very important for me because it continuously damages battery if this happens several times only for some minutes. In Windows mobile there is a great option to not charge when device is connected to USB. I hope there is an option to do this also on android.

pe3ksve3k2 said:
Hi, do you have any workaround how to set my Legend to not charge the battery while it is connected to PC's USB port?
When I want only to transfer some files to SD card and plug the device into USB, it starts to charge. It is very important for me because it continuously damages battery if this happens several times only for some minutes. In Windows mobile there is a great option to not charge when device is connected to USB. I hope there is an option to do this also on android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure the batteries today doesn't take any harm of this type of charing. Correct me if i'm wrong

arxx said:
I'm pretty sure the batteries today doesn't take any harm of this type of charing. Correct me if i'm wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, on the hand way I am pretty sure that it harms the battery ... 1minute chargings are not good for battery...

I am also certain it DOSEN't damage the batteries...
However.. There are several reasons to disable charging when connection to a PC.
For instance, using a USB hub without additional powers, the drain the phone will put on the hub, will make the rest of the stuff connected to it stop working.
Or simply just to preserve the batteries when using a laptop. The batteries on laptop is bad enough as it is, so no need to put more drain on them...
Interessting reading:
www!batteryuniversity!com/partone-12!htm
*replace ! with .

Lithium-based batteries (like those used in basically every single mobile phone now) love to be topped up constantly. In fact, they suffer permanent damage to the lifetime of the battery if they are ever empty. Don't worry about charging them for a few seconds are a few hours, as long as you don't let them go flat.
Lithium batteries will only work best for a few years from the day they are manufactured (not their sale date, by the way). You'll notice if you have an old mobile phone or iPod that they'll start to run low faster and faster the older they get. This is just a consequence of the chemicals they are made of. It's also why some people refuse to buy Lithium-powered devices that don't make it easy to replace the battery (like iPods, for example).
Also, Lithium batteries don't hold their full capacity right away. They have to be charged for 300% of their capacity for them to be running at peak, although you do not need to do this all at once. This is why some devices come with advice that you discharge them completely a few times right at the beginning. I never do this, because as I advised earlier you do not want to let them go flat. Instead, I charge it up to 100%, use the device down to 50%, charge back to 100%, over and over, since each of those charging sessions contributes to the total 300% necessary.
Nickel-Cadmium batteries were the old sort of rechargeable batteries used in other sorts of devices (toys, remote controls, etc). The best care advice for them is to leave them in the charger until they are needed, and use them until they are completely flat before charging again.

Batter getting worse if connect to usb all the time?

Hi, I use MyPhoneExplorer to write sms from my laptop (tried EasySMS and RemoteSMS and didnt like them) while using the cable-mode. JuiceDefender somehow always turns off the WiFi eventough i add the MPE-Client to the allowed apps. However, since my Desire HD would be connect via USB to my laptop all the time, is it bad for the battery?
I know that on laptops you should remove the battery if its connected to the AC all the time.
Thanks

IMHO any kind of battery will degrade with time if constantly connected to a power source. So if you connect your phone via USB you better keep an eye on your battery..

No. Your battery will not get worse. It is true that a battery will lose its capacity faster if its always at 100%, but we are talking about a mobile phone. It will not be connected 24/7 for many weeks at the time so thats nothing to worry about.
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using XDA Premium App

zakazak said:
I know that on laptops you should remove the battery if its connected to the AC all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a myth. Might have been true in 1995 maybe but not with today's Li-Ion or Li-Polymer batteries. Just don't worry about battery, there is nothing you can do to make it better or last longer. Charge whenever you want to and be happy using your device It is the same as with memory optimizers and task killers - people are used to them from other times and other platforms and think they do good. Just don't let it discharge too much too often, they say that the best for batteries is to charge them when they're not below 40% of capacity (but even so, I don't think it matters much).
regards,
D.

I agree with dalanik, Li-Ion battery perform better if you charge it often. Actually it is bad if you keep discharging them all they way to 0 and then recharge them all the way up to 100%. It might be good in the old days where there were NiCd.
Sometimes the battery stat could be the answer. The problem with Li-Ion battery is if you overcharge them then they can explode so there is like a stat that tells how much you can charge upto, so if your battery stat is screwed up then your phone thinks it is at 100% but it might not be. Try this and this might improve your battery by retuning the stats (from HTC themselves)
The following steps should significantly extend the battery life on your phone. Please connect the phone to the charger with the phone powered on, and allow the phone to charge until the notification LED is green, indicating the device is fully charged. Disconnect the phone from the charger, and power it off. Reconnect the phone to the charger with the phone powered off, and allow the phone to charge until the notification LED is green. Disconnect the phone from the charger and power it on. Once the phone is powered completely on, power it off again and reconnect it to the charger until the notification LED is green. Disconnect the phone, power it on, and use it. You need to use this sequence only once. If the issue of battery life on our phone persists, I recommend you contact our HTC accessory department directly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse