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How long does it take to charge the battery the first time you charge (out of the box)?
Man, I want to turn on my phone!!!
you can use the phone while its charging... just make sure to charge it to 100%.
Oh, really? The little quick start page says charge until the light turns green. I thought you had to leave it off, since the light goes away when you turn it on.
Anyway, the light turned green, yay! (Took about 2 hours)
lol, I don't know if this common sense or not, but why exactly should you charge it until the light turns green when you first get it? I know it says it in the instructions, but can any bad come out of not doing it, or does Google/HTC or whoever just recommend you do this?
Eclair~ said:
lol, I don't know if this common sense or not, but why exactly should you charge it until the light turns green when you first get it? I know it says it in the instructions, but can any bad come out of not doing it, or does Google/HTC or whoever just recommend you do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shorten battery life. Battery cycles etc
Lithium ion batteries last much longer if they don't experience deep discharge cycles... (deep discharge meaning the charge percentage going below ~50% or so). So it's much better for the battery if you charge it regularly, and only fully discharge it every other month or so to keep it conditioned.
Mine charges all the time since it tethered a lot! My past batterys on other ppc's seem to have held up well because of this!
The purpose in this charge handy first and so in is just to prevent a deep decharge which will destroy the battery (yes, one time letting get down the battery to less than 10-5% means you'll loose about 20-30% of capazity!) and to train the logic behind it. The phone does need to know where the full and empty point are to show you correct rest capacitys. Thats why you should let get down the battery once and a while to the point your phone tells you it needs power and then charge it complitely. It has nothing to do with anykind of memory effect or whatever, it's just a kind of calibration, not more.
Plain and simple: When the Evo is fully charged, it begins running off its battery until you plug it back in. It DOES NOT trickle charge whatsoever after it reaches 100%. When you're using your Evo on the charger, and it's showing full 100% charge, it is running off the battery, not the AC plug. And then when you unplug it, well, we all know what happens next. The battery meter drops insanely fast to the actual charge of the battery, which could be very low, depending on how long it's been sitting idle at 100% on your charger.
So all those times you've charged your Evo overnight, only to take it to work the next day and be at 80% within an hour? Your Evo was running off its battery for what I'm guessing was most of the night. It takes my Evo about an hour to two hours to fully charge back to 100%. Let's say you put your Evo on the charger at 11PM, it'll reach full charge by 1AM at the latest, and then run off its battery until whenever you take it off the charger in the morning.
Workarounds?
1) Turn your Evo off while it's charging.
2) If you must leave it on for an alarm clock, put it in airplane mode and end all CPU intensive tasks to minimize battery drain.
3) When you wake up, unplug it for 10-20 minutes (still experimenting with this number), and then plug it back in to top it off. Once it reaches 100%, take it off the charger, and go about your day.
Try it out for yourself. When your Evo is 100% charged, take it off the charger immediately, and I highly doubt you will lose the 10%-15% within minutes. Please share your findings.
Er... Point of note, mine does it even if I pull it off the charger right when it turns green.
Post some technical schematic or other type of proof that shows that this circuitry isn't available in the EVO. That will prove beyond a doubt if what your saying is true.
That being said, only a group of the most retarded electrical engineers would design a charging system as you've described. It is INSANELY easy to build Li-Polymer charging circuitry that does the following (and it pretty much has to do these):
1. Detects battery temperature, and disables charging as a protective measure. In an emergency case it should shut off the device it's powering to allow the battery to cool down. This is a design requirement, or else your house burns down as you dump water on a Lithium fire thinking it's going to put it out. If you have a HERO, you can easily test this. Running the wireless tethering, GPS/Navigation, and Music with the screen running heats up the phone a ton. You'll notice the status light blink green once, then red a couple of times. This means that it's plugged in but not charging. Cool the phone down and it turns solid red again (charging).
2. Disable charging cycle when battery reaches a certain voltage. VERY SIMPLE voltage detection circuitry! The designer can of course adjust a gap to have charging turn back on when it dips below a certain voltage. Usually since this circuitry can be made with a decent amount of precision, that "turn back on" voltage ends up being roughly when the battery discharges to maybe 99.5%. That's just a guess, I admit but there's no harm in having the circuit switch on and off, even if it's often.
There are also a few other circuits that prevent the cell from blowing up in your pocket, like a current sensor to prevent an overcurrent. There's also some stuff that prevents you from being able to discharge the cell below it's avalanche voltage. In case you don't know what that is, when a Li-Ion battery discharges to a certain voltage, it avalanches to 0 (quickly falls). If it hits that point, you've pretty much ruined the battery and it will never charge the same again.
Anyway, this is stuff they taught and had design labs on back in college. While I have no actual proof that the phone wasn't designed as the OP describes, I find it highly unlikely. If this is the behavior that the circuitry exhibits, I would find it easier to believe that it's a design flaw, probably because some idiot didn't compile the correct bill of materials.
I haven't got any schematics or any sort of technical information on the subject. All I know is, it works wonders for me. When I take my Evo off the charger in the morning, it literally drops to ~90% within minutes. Once it does that, if I place it back on the charger for ~20 minutes, it charges back to 100% and stays there for 45 minutes to an hour.
I'd urge anybody who is noticing the immediate 10% to 15% drop in battery to give this a shot.
I would turn it off while I'm charging it overnight, but I use it as my alarm clock
Me Too
I am seeing the exact same behavior as the OP. This is really lame. Because of this, most people will end up losing 10% of their battery every day. Pretty lame.
I charge my phone overnight every night. Never noticed a problem and I just checked my battery and its at 88% and has been off the charger for 2.5hours so I'm not seeing the rapid discharge issue some people are seeing.
I don't think so man, I leave my screen on full brightness while it's charging, and if what you said was true it would go dead on the charger.
I think it's more likely the cells haven’t charged equally, so you get a big initial drop.
Grims said:
I don't think so man, I leave my screen on full brightness while it's charging, and if what you said was true it would go dead on the charger.
I think it's more likely the cells haven’t charged equally, so you get a big initial drop.
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Click to collapse
I'm beginning to think that once the battery reaches 100% full, it runs off the battery until it reaches some arbitrary percentage. At which point it starts charging until it reaches 100% again, and then continues this cycle.
I'm testing a few other things right now. Part of me is convinced it reports 100% charge when it's actually below that level.
Krynj said:
I haven't got any schematics or any sort of technical information on the subject. All I know is, it works wonders for me. When I take my Evo off the charger in the morning, it literally drops to ~90% within minutes. Once it does that, if I place it back on the charger for ~20 minutes, it charges back to 100% and stays there for 45 minutes to an hour.
I'd urge anybody who is noticing the immediate 10% to 15% drop in battery to give this a shot.
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Click to collapse
I'll try this out to see if I can get the same kind of behavior. I guess I honestly haven't looked to see if the phone drops 10-15% after pulling it off.
Krynj said:
I'm beginning to think that once the battery reaches 100% full, it runs off the battery until it reaches some arbitrary percentage. At which point it starts charging until it reaches 100% again, and then continues this cycle.
I'm testing a few other things right now. Part of me is convinced it reports 100% charge when it's actually below that level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what should be happening I believe, but I'd be surprised if it was set to such a huge swing like 10-15%
Grims said:
I don't think so man, I leave my screen on full brightness while it's charging, and if what you said was true it would go dead on the charger.
I think it's more likely the cells haven’t charged equally, so you get a big initial drop.
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Click to collapse
This is an interesting theory. I do know that when you have multiple Li-Ion cells in a battery pack, if they discharge unevenly, you have to go off of the lowest charged cell. Again, if a cell were to drop below the avalanche voltage, you'd ruin the pack all together. On the other hand, the circuitry should let ALL cells charge to 100% so it's even again. Maybe they screwed this up, that design isn't so easy! Perhaps it detects one cell as 100% and shuts off the charge. Therefore, one could surmise that if you started with an unevenly charged battery pack, you'd have an immediate decrease in charge to the rating of the lowest charged cell. The good news (maybe) is that this is sometimes implemented with software. That means that HTC could release a bug fix for this, or if we have a savvy dev, they could try to fix it. We just need to prove the theory though.
This is all just a guess, keep that in mind. If I notice something like this with my phone today, maybe I can tear apart the battery and measure the voltage on each cell (if it even has multiple cells). I have a spare, so maybe I'd be up for this. Krynj (or anyone), if you have the HTC Hero, try charging your battery pack with it, see if it exhibits the same behavior on the Hero itself. If it doesn't, then try putting it back into the EVO and see if after a night of charging, it still drops 10-15% after disconnecting it from the AC.
The reason why the battery dies so fast has something to do with the memory card. Charge your phone and take the SD card out and watch it stay at 100% for a long as time. Then do it again with the SD card in and watch it dip down fast.
Apple laptops don't charge unless battery is below 90%. If you plug in the AC and the battery is above 90%, it will just run off AC power but I don't think the battery drains any then.
My battery life has been less than stellar, but I didn't notice it dropping 10-15% instantly off the charger. I did notice that it'd drop about 10% after driving to work with xiialive streaming, which was unusual to me. The battery would start running out after about 9 hours at work. I'd be in the yellow by the time I got home, and the battery would be complaining for a charge in the evening. So that's roughly 12 hours I would be getting out of the phone after normal use.
Since I'm suspecting an issue with the charging circuitry, I just recently tried charging my battery with the Hero. After it was fully charged, I put it back into my EVO last night and haven't charged it since. It's been running 13 hours, and is still nearly full green. The charge is at about 70%. I've been trying to graph the discharge all day too. It only dropped to 87% over night, dropped to 80% when I drove to work (xiialive), and then down to 74% after I spent some time setting up icons and modifying my home screen. This is...hands down a butt ton better than the past week.
I'm not using 4G.
WiFi is off.
3G is on.
GPS is on.
Not running a live wallpaper.
Sync is running at default settings.
Widgets that could be updating constantly:
I have the Clock/Weather HTC widget running.
I have the Dictionary.com "word of the day" widget.
I have the Friendstream Widget running.
Craigslist Craignotifica app is running, set to notify me with search results.
The results are inconclusive though. Yesterday, I wiped and re-flashed DamageControl 3.2.x from scratch (backed up all apps with Ti-Backup, this means Android Market won't be notifying me if there are app updates -grumble-). So, somewhere between re-flashing and also charging my battery with the Hero caused this turn around.
apollooff320 said:
The reason why the battery dies so fast has something to do with the memory card. Charge your phone and take the SD card out and watch it stay at 100% for a long as time. Then do it again with the SD card in and watch it dip down fast.
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Click to collapse
Interesting.....Will have to give a try. Will report back later.
I'm waiting for some definitive results with the "use another charging device or battery" method. It seems that the EVO just sucks at recharging the battery since people who have used another phone or a separate charger seem to report better results.
I leave my phone off at night and charge it - when I turn it on in the morning it still drops 5-10% in the first 20 minutes. But during the day it drops REALLY slow, so I still can get about 13-16 hours before 15% easily.
I have manual account sync, 3g only, wifi at home, usually gps is off, auto backlight settings for screen, and I don't run too many apps in the background, I just use them when I need them.
Has anybody found a solution to this? It's really starting to bother me. I've noticed that I don't seem to have the issue if I charge -> recovery -> wipe battery stats -> reboot. That kind of leads me to believe that something is inaccurate about the battery stats and the phone instead uses the actual raw value provided by the battery instead of whatever it is that it does with the battery stats.
I can tell you this, I bought two of the cheap battery chargers off of ebay and I have two OEM evo batteries. I don't even plug my phone in anymore. I get an hour of standby at 100% from those chargers and it falls instantly when charging from the phone. I just run them down then swap them out. I couldn't be happier and they are only like 10 bucks each with 2 batteries each.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
jnewkirk10 said:
I can tell you this, I bought two of the cheap battery chargers off of ebay and I have two OEM evo batteries. I don't even plug my phone in anymore. I get an hour of standby at 100% from those chargers and it falls instantly when charging from the phone. I just run them down then swap them out. I couldn't be happier and they are only like 10 bucks each with 2 batteries each.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you post a link or ebay or where ever u bought it from?
Try this I'm doing it from the phone
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250641711190&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_1991wt_913
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
apollooff320 said:
The reason why the battery dies so fast has something to do with the memory card. Charge your phone and take the SD card out and watch it stay at 100% for a long as time. Then do it again with the SD card in and watch it dip down fast.
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Click to collapse
If you have apps on your sd card that are running then yes that could be the case. SD cards need power to work but I dont know how much they draw..
Don't charge your phone overnight! When it gets really low, slap it on the charger for a couple hours until you've got 85-90%. Unplug and enjoy fantastic battery life. I have gotten about double normal battery life (approximately 48 hours) using this method. I'm on CM6.1, mind you, so it may be some quirk with the ROM.
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Sent from my HTC Supersonic using Tapatalk Pro.
Ive been saying this for a while. I charge up my phone to about 96% and i let it go till almost 5% before i throw it back on the charge. That usually gives me 12 to 18 hours. A lot of people tend to get "battery panic" and throw it on soon as they see it draining a bit. Just leave it alone.
I charge on a wall charger. I have three batteries and change daily. I get 22-24 hours and 5-6 hours of hard use.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Here are my observations:
The Evo seems to have a peculiar way of using external power. Once the battery reaches full-charge the external power apparently gets shut off and the phone operates on battery power until the battery level drops to somewhere around 85-90%. Then the charging current switches back on until the battery level reaches 100% again and the process repeats itself. This differs from more conventional scenarios where the phone actually runs on the external power (rather than the battery) once the battery reaches full charge.
I came to this conclusion while playing with my Evo while it was plugged into the charger. First I noticed that the charging light would cycle from green to amber and back every so often. Then I noticed that the battery level indicator would drop even while the charger was plugged in.
So I started checking my battery level in the morning before I removed the phone from the charging dock and discovered that it was rarely at 100%. I'm convinced that the phone does get charged to 100% when I put it on the charging cradle, but then it sits there running off of the battery until it drops to that magic ~85-90% level and the charging current is reestablished.
But a typical night on the charger isn't enough time for the battery level to drop enough to re-start the charging current and if I come along and just grab the phone, I'm starting my day with a battery which isn't completely charged. In my case, the only time this doesn't happen is if my day ends real late and the next morning starts real early.
Once I had a good idea of what was going on, coming up with a work-around was simple: One of the first things I do when I get up in the morning is look at the charging indicator on the phone. If it's amber I do nothing because the phone is already in charging mode. If it's green I remove the phone from the cradle for a moment and put it right back on. Most of the time the indicator will switch from green to amber when I do that, but if it doesn't I'll go online and read the news or something for a few minutes before I put the phone back on the cradle.
Either way, the phone will then charge for 30 minutes or less before the indicator goes green again. By then I'm done with my morning routine and ready to face the day, and when I grab the phone it's fully charged.
My Evo is out-of-the-box stock (for now). It's a hardware version 0003 and has firmware v. 3.29.651.5. I typically leave my Bluetooth turned on all the time, but I leave 4G, WIFI, and the GPS turned off unless I need 'em. My typical daily routine involves several phone calls, some email downloads and uploads, some incidental web browsing, and some geocaching if a new cache is published within a few miles. As long as I stick with that typical routine, my battery is always in the 40-50% range when I put the phone back into the cradle for the night. Of course if I use the phone more it discharges the battery more, but I'm set up to charge it at home, at work, and in the car.
Now despite everything I've posted here, I can't imagine any practical reason to not top off the battery whenever it's convenient. Letting the battery run down before you charge it doesn't have any effect on how long a full charge will run the phone. In fact, it will actually reduce the number of charge-discharge cycles that your battery can provide before it starts losing capacity. I don't want to type it all again, but if you're interested you can CLICK HERE if you'd like to learn more about LiPo battery characteristics and maintenance.
'Nuff outta me
Pete
the evo charges to 100% then cycles to 90% then back to 100% so that it does not explode from over heating thats why when you grab your phone in the morning it might say 93% rather than 100% i dont mind though cause i dont want my phone to blow up
ThatTmoGuy said:
the evo charges to 100% then cycles to 90% then back to 100% so that it does not explode from over heating thats why when you grab your phone in the morning it might say 93% rather than 100% i dont mind though cause i dont want my phone to blow up
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Click to collapse
I'm a lot more inclined to believe that it's either an engineering error or a half-baked idea with undesirable consequences. The reason I say that is I've had countless other cell phones and consumer electronics devices which used LiPo batteries for power, yet the Evo is the first device that I'm aware of which operates like that. The rest will stop charging when the batteries are fully charged, but they'll continue to use the external power to run the device as long as it's plugged in.
Pete
PGRtoo said:
I'm a lot more inclined to believe that it's either an engineering error or a half-baked idea with undesirable consequences. The reason I say that is I've had countless other cell phones and consumer electronics devices which used LiPo batteries for power, yet the Evo is the first device that I'm aware of which operates like that. The rest will stop charging when the batteries are fully charged, but they'll continue to use the external power to run the device as long as it's plugged in.
Pete
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the purpose is to prolong the battery life so it doesn't charge again every time it drops to 99%.
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Sent from my HTC Supersonic using Tapatalk Pro.
TheBiles said:
I think the purpose is to prolong the battery life so it doesn't charge again every time it drops to 99%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently my point is just blowing right past everyone.
For most modern consumer electronics devices the charger can serve at least two functions which are charge the battery and run the device. These functions are remotely related by virtue of the fact that the power comes from the same source, but the functions themselves are typically quite independent of each other. In other words, most devices can run off the charger's power regardless of whether the battery is being charged or not, and when the device is running on the charger, it's not drawing power from the battery.
But it appears that the Evo doesn't do things that way. In essence, it seems like the Evo is hard-wired to the battery and the charger is incapable of independently powering the device when it's not charging the battery. So the battery reaches full charge, the charging circuit shuts off, and the phone starts draining the battery despite the fact that the charger is still connected. Once the battery drains to ~85-90% the charging circuit kicks back on, the battery gets charged back to 100%, and the whole process repeats itself.
Consequently it's a crapshoot whether our Evos will be fully-charged when we take them off of the charger unless we take some additional steps. I can deal with those extra steps, but I can't come up with any practical reason why we should have to. No matter how long I analyze the situation, I can't see any benefit to doing things that way except, perhaps, to save on manufacturing costs. All I can come up with are annoying extra steps and unnecessary battery charge-discharge cycles, and I can't grasp how those benefit anyone.
I see that you and I have carried some of the same phones in the past, TheBiles (Sanyo 8300, Treo 650, Hero) and I don't remember any of those phones coming off a charger with anything less than a full charge unless I interrupted the charge cycle. In fact, I'm convinced that no phone that I've ever carried has had this problem. The Evo is the very first one which is why I suspect some folks at HTC are quietly saying oopsie.
Pete
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Pete, I'm not convinced most smart phones actually power themselves off of the wallcharger when plugged in as you seem to think. I have no real evidence to back this up, though - other than my own observations.
I will say that the EVO's method isn't as isolated as you seem to think. For example, the Palm Pre which I owned for a year previous to the EVO operates in the exact same manner.
The Pre would hit 100%, stop charging, operate on battery power until it dropped to 95%, then charge from 95 back to 100. The EVO, however, drops down to 90 before it starts the charge cycle again. This is probably better for the battery - but more confusing from a user perspective.
This might be your first phone that operates this way, but it certainly isn't unique to smartphones or HTC.
PGRtoo said:
Apparently my point is just blowing right past everyone.
For most modern consumer electronics devices the charger can serve at least two functions which are charge the battery and run the device. These functions are remotely related by virtue of the fact that the power comes from the same source, but the functions themselves are typically quite independent of each other. In other words, most devices can run off the charger's power regardless of whether the battery is being charged or not, and when the device is running on the charger, it's not drawing power from the battery.
But it appears that the Evo doesn't do things that way. In essence, it seems like the Evo is hard-wired to the battery and the charger is incapable of independently powering the device when it's not charging the battery. So the battery reaches full charge, the charging circuit shuts off, and the phone starts draining the battery despite the fact that the charger is still connected. Once the battery drains to ~85-90% the charging circuit kicks back on, the battery gets charged back to 100%, and the whole process repeats itself.
Consequently it's a crapshoot whether our Evos will be fully-charged when we take them off of the charger unless we take some additional steps. I can deal with those extra steps, but I can't come up with any practical reason why we should have to. No matter how long I analyze the situation, I can't see any benefit to doing things that way except, perhaps, to save on manufacturing costs. All I can come up with are annoying extra steps and unnecessary battery charge-discharge cycles, and I can't grasp how those benefit anyone.
I see that you and I have carried some of the same phones in the past, TheBiles (Sanyo 8300, Treo 650, Hero) and I don't remember any of those phones coming off a charger with anything less than a full charge unless I interrupted the charge cycle. In fact, I'm convinced that no phone that I've ever carried has had this problem. The Evo is the very first one which is why I suspect some folks at HTC are quietly saying oopsie.
Pete
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely agree. This is clearly going on, and I'm surprised more people don't talk about it. I put Cyanogen on mine the day I got it, so I thought that was the issue, but I went back to stock (for a day) and it did the same thing. The light goes off after 90% and it stops charging at 100% until it drops below 90%. I also agree that it doesn't seem to serve a usable purpose, and seems to be a design flaw.
I'm still very happy with the phone, but when battery life is this important, that's kind of a big deal.
BHack said:
Pete, I'm not convinced most smart phones actually power themselves off of the wallcharger when plugged in as you seem to think. I have no real evidence to back this up, though - other than my own observations.
I will say that the EVO's method isn't as isolated as you seem to think. For example, the Palm Pre which I owned for a year previous to the EVO operates in the exact same manner.
The Pre would hit 100%, stop charging, operate on battery power until it dropped to 95%, then charge from 95 back to 100. The EVO, however, drops down to 90 before it starts the charge cycle again. This is probably better for the battery - but more confusing from a user perspective.
This might be your first phone that operates this way, but it certainly isn't unique to smartphones or HTC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had two Pres, and both had the battery % mod on them. I used to set them on my touchstone at work all day long, and I would take them off periodically. My battery drained so bad I could lose 30% in an hour with light use. If I ever took it off the touchstone when it wasn't at 100%, it was only because it got too low and wasn't at 100% yet. I noticed this on day one with my EVO, and never noticed a single issue anything like this on my Pre.
I'm not saying it wasn't there, I'm saying I NEVER noticed this. As far as I knew, it charged to 100% and then ran off the plug, or at least that's what I assumed.
this is a strange thread for xda; competent, fully formed sentences. civilized banter. it's nice!
on topic though, i have noticed and came to this conclusion independently a couple months ago. it's kind of irritating - i hate how cheap manufacturers can be sometimes (all the time).
turn said:
this is a strange thread for xda; competent, fully formed sentences. civilized banter. it's nice!
on topic though, i have noticed and came to this conclusion independently a couple months ago. it's kind of irritating - i hate how cheap manufacturers can be sometimes (all the time).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, I've seen MUCH worse forums. Try Anandtech sometimes. Some great threads there, and a ton of awful.
I feel like HTC is just not that company that cuts corners. I think this might have been a real attempt to make something work well - or better - but in my opinion it failed miserably.
WrlsFanatic said:
I had two Pres, and both had the battery % mod on them. I used to set them on my touchstone at work all day long, and I would take them off periodically. My battery drained so bad I could lose 30% in an hour with light use. If I ever took it off the touchstone when it wasn't at 100%, it was only because it got too low and wasn't at 100% yet. I noticed this on day one with my EVO, and never noticed a single issue anything like this on my Pre.
I'm not saying it wasn't there, I'm saying I NEVER noticed this. As far as I knew, it charged to 100% and then ran off the plug, or at least that's what I assumed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may not have noticed it, but I can guarantee you the Pre charged as I described. It was a "crapshoot" when you pulled it off the charger as to where you actually were in the charge. You could be anywhere from 95 - 100. Of course, the Pre would always show 100%, just as the EVO does.
Because the Pre's battery was smaller, WebOS was more battery hungry than Android, and the fact that it only cycled down to 95 instead of 90 like the EVO are all reasons why you might not have noticed it, but it was there.
BHack said:
This is probably better for the battery - but more confusing from a user perspective.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would it be better for the battery? They may be partial charge-discharge cycles but they're cycles nonetheless and the Lithium Polymer cell chemistry is only capable of so many of 'em before it starts to degrade. Short cycles are easier on it than full cycles, but they all take a toll.
I currently have something like 40 LiPo packs that range from dinky little 35mAh single-cell micro batteries to a couple of 10S (37V) 5000mAh packs. I use them in my R/C planes and helicopters, communications gear, and electronics projects and I've used up and disposed of many times that over the years. I even had to build my own packs and chargers when I first started using them because the cells were experimental and there wasn't anything commercially available yet.
And I survived all that without having a single LiPo fire (that I didn't deliberately trigger) and I attribute that to the fact that I've been rabid about learning everything I can about the technology and the use and care of the batteries.
And I'm unaware of any benefit that can be gained from unnecessarily cycling LiPo batteries regardless of how small the cycles are.
Pete
WrlsFanatic said:
I feel like HTC is just not that company that cuts corners. I think this might have been a real attempt to make something work well - or better - but in my opinion it failed miserably.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My predominant theory is that HTC has erred on the side of caution on the advice of their legal department. LiPo cells can easily become little firebombs if they're mistreated and the overwhelming majority of "events" occur during a charge cycle. Search YouTube for lipo fire and you'll find pages and pages of examples, but beware:
You may not want to carry yer phone in yer pocket right next to yer cojones anymore after you do.
Pete
Having the wall battery charger solves this issue. The wall charger will charge the battery to full capacity.
It also allows me to test battery life on roms/kernels as accurately as possible. Only time I connect the phone to USB is when I need to move files.
Bioxoxide said:
Having the wall battery charger solves this issue.
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Click to collapse
When you say wall charger, do you mean one that you have to remove the battery from the phone and insert it in the charger?
Pete the Curious
Just wanted to say that there have been many discussions on this here at xda, I guess most of us just deal with it.
What I do is charge externaly with a cheap Chinese charger that Came with two batteries that work great.
Every since I made this move I haven't looked back. My battery life is great now, 24 plus hrs per charge. Sometimes I go close to 40 hrs, and I use Bluetooth, have GPS and WiFi ways on. In fact I don't cut any corners, no under clocking either.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
I realize that much of this is common knowledge on XDA. Still, every day I see people post about how their phone "loses" 10% as soon as it comes off the charger. I also have friends who can't understand why their battery drains so quickly. Trying to explain this to people without hard numbers is often met with doubt, so I figured that I'd actually plot it out with real data.
So it's not a piece that is optimized for this audience, but I hope that you find it interesting.
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Your Smartphone is Lying to You
(and it's not such a bad thing)
Climbing out of bed, about to start your day, you unplug your new smartphone from its wall charger and quickly check your email. You've left it plugged in overnight, and the battery gauge shows 100%. After a quick shower, you remember that you forgot to send your client a file last night. You pick up your phone again, but the battery gauge now reads 90%. A 10% drop in 10 minutes? The phone must be defective, right?
A common complaint about today's smartphones is their short battery life compared to older cell phones. Years ago, if you accidentally left your charger at home, your phone could still make it through a weeklong vacation with life to spare (I did it more than once). With the newest phones on the market, you might be lucky enough to make it through a weekend.
And why should we expect anything else? Phones used to have a very short list of features: make and receive phone calls. Today we use them for email, web surfing, GPS navigation, photos, video, games, and a host of other tasks. They used to sport tiny displays, while we now have giant touch screens with bright and vibrant colors. All of these features come at a cost: large energy requirements.
Interestingly enough, improvements in battery management technology have compounded the average user's perception of this problem. Older phones were rather inelegant in their charging behavior; usually filling the battery to capacity and then switching to a trickle current to maintain the highest charge possible. This offered the highest usage time in the short-term, but was damaging the battery over the course of ownership. As explained at Battery University, "The time at which the battery stays at [maximum charge] should be as short as possible. Prolonged high voltage promotes corrosion, especially at elevated temperatures."[1]
This is why many new phones will "lose" up to 10% within a few minutes of coming off the charger. The reality is that the battery was only at 100% capacity for a brief moment, after which the battery management system allowed it to slowly dip down to around 90%. Leaving the phone plugged in overnight does not make a difference: the phone only uses the wall current to maintain a partial charge state.
To monitor this, I installed CurrentWidget on my HTC ADR6300 (Droid Incredible), an app that can log how much electric current is being drawn from the battery or received from the charger. Setting it to record log entries every 10 seconds, I have collected a few days worth of data. While many variables are involved (phone hardware, ROM, kernel, etc) and no two devices will perform exactly the same, the trends that I will describe are becoming more common in new phones. This is not just isolated to a single platform or a single manufacturer.
Chart 1 shows system reported battery levels over the course of one night, with the phone plugged in to a charger. Notice that as the battery level approaches 100%, the charging current gradually decreases. After a full charge is reached, wall current is cut completely, with the phone switching back to the battery for all of its power. It isn't until about two hours later that you can see the phone starts receiving wall current again, and even then it is only in brief bursts.
The steep drop in reported battery seen past the 6.5 hour mark shows the phone being unplugged. While the current draw does increase at this point (since the phone is being used), it still cannot account for the reported 6% depletion in 3 minutes. It should also be obvious that maintaining a 100% charge state is impossible given the long spans in which the phone is only operating on battery power.
Using the data from CurrentWidget, however, it is quite easy to project the actual battery state. Starting with the assumption that the first battery percentage reading is accurate, each subsequent point is calculated based on mA draw and time. Chart 2 includes this projection.
Now we can see that the 6% drop after unplugging is simply the battery gauge catching up with reality.
The phone manufacturers essentially have three choices:
1. Use older charging styles which actually maintain a full battery, thereby decreasing its eventual life
2. Use new charging methods and have an accurate battery gauge
3. Use new charging methods and have the inaccurate battery gauge
Option one has clearly fallen out of favor as it prematurely wears devices. Option two, while being honest, would most likely be met with many complaints. After all, how many people want to see their phone draining down to 90% while it is still plugged in? Option three therefore offers an odd compromise. Maybe phone companies think that users will be less likely to worry about a quick drop off the charger than they will worry about a "defective" charger that doesn't keep their phone at 100% while plugged in.
Bump It. Or Should You?
One technique that has gained popularity in the user community is "bump charging." To bump charge a device, turn it off completely, and plug it into a charger. Wait until the indicator light shows a full charge (on the ADR6300, for example, the charging LED changes from amber to green) but do not yet turn the device back on. Instead, disconnect and immediately reconnect the power cord. The device will now accept more charge before saying it is full. This disconnect/reconnect process can be repeated multiple times, each time squeezing just a little bit more into the battery. Does it work?
The following chart plots battery depletion after the device has received a hefty bump charge (6 cycles) and then turned on to use battery power. Note that the system does not show the battery dropping from 100% until well over an hour of unplugged use, at which point it starts to steadily decline. Again, however, it should be obvious that the battery gauge is not syncing up with reality. How could the rate of depletion be increasing over the first 5 hours while the rate of current draw is relatively steady? And why does the projected battery line separate from the reported levels, but then exactly mirror the later rises and falls?
The answer, of course, is that bump charging definitely works. Rather than anchoring our projected values to the first data point of 100%, what happens if we anchor against a later point in the plot?
Aligning the data suggests that a heavy bump charge increases initial capacity by approximately 15%. Note that the only other time that the lines separate in this graph was once again when the phone was put on the charger and topped up to 100%. Just as with the first set of graphs, the phone kept reporting 100% until it was unplugged, dropped rapidly, and again caught up with our projections.
So what does it all mean?
If you absolutely need the highest capacity on a device like this, you will need to bump charge. There are currently people experimenting with "fixes" for this, but I have yet to see one that works. Be warned, however, that repeated bump charging will wear your battery faster and begin to reduce its capacity. If you are a "power user" who will buy a new battery a few months from now anyway, this presumably isn't a concern. If you are an average consumer who uses a device for a few years, I would recommend that you stay away from bump charging. The bottom line is that you don't really "need" to do it unless you are actually depleting your battery to 0% on a regular basis.
If you are someone who can top off your phone on a regular basis, do it. Plug it in when you're at home. Plug it in when you're at your desk. As explained by Battery University, "Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory."[2]
Beyond that, the best advice I can offer is to stop paying such close attention to your battery gauge and to just use your phone. Charge it whenever you can, and then stop obsessing over the exact numbers. If you really need more usage time, buy an extended-capacity battery and use it normally.
Pretty nice to know why it drops from 100% so fast now .....THANKS!
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Well written ..even prior to the data presentation!
Are the images not posted or am I doing something wrong?
Great read, well thought out and explained.
The only thing I'll add is that while there isn't a "memory affect" on our batteries, it is still recommended to do a full charge/discharge (don't let it get to <5% though) about once every 3 months.
Thanks for the kind words, gents.
spatton said:
Are the images not posted or am I doing something wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be able to see them embedded in the post. You can try reading it directly from my site: http://byrong.com/PowerTesting/
I'm not currently aware of any issues with my hosting, so hopefully it shows up OK for people.
toosurreal01 said:
The only thing I'll add is that while there isn't a "memory affect" on our batteries, it is still recommended to do a full charge/discharge (don't let it get to <5% though) about once every 3 months.
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Click to collapse
Good point for many devices which may learn the wrong battery stats if they are never depleted. I am still not sure how this may or may not apply to our devices, so I hesitate to comment on it one way or the other.
I hope someone takes the time to delve more deeply into the battery stats that our devices record. Given the fact that we can wipe them using clockwork recovery, we are at least aware of where/how they are being kept.
That brings up another point worth mentioning, by the way: some people claim that wiping battery stats after a bump charge is a "fix" to increase the total charge that our phones will later apply. This has not been my experience. I have bumped/wiped in accordance with the various tutorials out there, but even afterward I have still found a large difference between a subsequent bump-charging and regular charging.
For some reason, my employer does not like your site and as such, I could not see he images.
Thanks for taking the time to do this. You confirmed my suspicions that I never documented but certainly experienced.
My take on the battery thing now, especially after reading this:
Actively and aggressively seek chargers
Don't look at he specific % of battery, when it gets yellow, get more aggressive
Relax
Use it in the morning, charge it while you shower - better than running out the door.
Great article!
I used to bump charge now if I'm near a charger I just throw it on for a few minutes. I also always carry a spare battery on me.
Sent from my Incredible using XDA App
Very nice.
I have a couple questions though. So on older phones, leaving it plugged in and it hit 100%, but was still getting full current from the charger for the remainder of the night, damages the battery right? so bump charging is doing the same thing, but not really damaging it as much, becuase we're unplugging it as soon as the light turns green, so its "at 100%" but we arent leaving it plugged in for hours after its green.
Excellent read. Very informative and well written!!
very well written. thank you, sir
spatton said:
For some reason, my employer does not like your site and as such, I could not see he images.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, I'm a little flattered. This is the first time I've heard of an employer blocking my site.
ufvj217 said:
So on older phones, leaving it plugged in and it hit 100%, but was still getting full current from the charger for the remainder of the night, damages the battery right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have hard data for my older devices like I do for this phone, so my answers to this (and your following questions) are a mixture of anecdote, reading, and conjecture.
I don't think that the older devices were still getting full current after hitting 100% but rather some sort of trickle charge to keep them topped off. Battery chemistry itself will limit the charging current that can be applied as the battery approaches capacity.
Depending on the device and its management system, damage could come from too much charge being applied, or it could simply come from keeping the battery at the highest charge level possible for prolonged periods. That may sound like the same thing, but technically it's not.
Batteries are wear items, and even use under ideal conditions will eventually kill them. As shown on Battery University's page on prolonging lithium-based batteries, however, even minor decreases in the final charge level will greatly increase the number of cycles that a battery can endure (note figure 2)
ufvj217 said:
so bump charging is doing the same thing, but not really damaging it as much, becuase we're unplugging it as soon as the light turns green, so its "at 100%" but we arent leaving it plugged in for hours after its green.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not 100% sure whether:
Bump-charging is simply charging the battery to its physical capacity, which is greater than the capacity that our software thinks is appropriate;
Bump-charging is actually applying a charge to the battery that is outside of the rated specs for the battery; or
Some mix of 1 & 2
Also, since I can't use any logging tools while the phone is off, I'm not sure how the current behaves once the phone hits 'green' while off.
I therefore don't want to make a hard guess at the three options listed, as I don't want to spread false information. With that said, I think it is apparent through both testing and real-world use that bump-charging applies a charge that is higher than what is allowed when all of the phone's protections are "awake." Given that, we have to ask ourselves why the waking protections are stricter.
If you are inclined to believe that the manufacturer is setting limits that are too low, in an effort to prolong cycle life (or limit liability), then maybe bump-charging isn't too bad.
If you are inclined to believe that the manufacturer chose the charging limits for a good reason, and has the best interest of the consumer in mind, then bump-charging should be considered problematic.
I don't know if one of these is absolutely true over the other, but my life is easier without bump-charging, so I just avoid it. That's a personal choice though. I'm not trying to advance a position here as much as I'm trying to spread information and spark discussion.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read, and for your questions and comments.
Well put. I rarely bump charge myself, sometimes once i get to work (its at 88-90% by this time, 7am) ill charge it back up, then power it off and bump charge it a couple times. depending on what ill be doing that day after work. since im at a desk though all day, i usually just use it, when it gets to about 50 or so, ill plug it back in, etc. that seems to work fine for me. i do have the htc 2150 battery as well
Like you said, most people probably knew most of that, but still great to see it well written and explained.
Great job on this, I'll most definitely be passing it along to people who ask me what's going on.
Again, well written and very well explained.
Thanks
Thank you!
This has been perplexing me for some time now. Thanks for the info!
Well if youre looking for a batt fix that fixes this issue, you have to take a look in the Nexus and Desire forums. The Desire has it working for sure and I'm not sure about the Nexus. Unfortunately, their fix cannot be applied to our phones because we use a different battery driver...>.< sucks.
And bump charging works sometimes, idk why people turn off their phone to bump charge, thats actually worse than bump charging it when the phone is on. Bump charging when the phone is on is the best thing, the reason why is because percentage means actually nothing with these phones. THe percentage is read from the batterystats.bin file (I think..), which can easily be manipulated. Bump charging works because it rewrites that file once it hits 100% and at the same time, charges back to the highest voltage possible.
I've been working on a fix for our phones (i personally dont own an Incredible, I own an Evo and they use the same driver) and I'm pretty much close. Been on it 24/7 for the past few weeks and all I have to deal with now is the charger timer that seems to reset at a certain time that I cant seem to find yet. This fix should also calibrate the battery on each charge so that you will no longer need to wipe stats or bump charge or do any of that stuff.
so you can charge with the phone on until the led is green, unplug, plug back in (with phone still on) and itll change back to amber for a while?
ufvj217 said:
so you can charge with the phone on until the led is green, unplug, plug back in (with phone still on) and itll change back to amber for a while?
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if you unplug and plug back in instantly it wont do jack for ya. You gotta unplug, wait until you hit 99% and then plug it back in and wait for 100%. Doing that while the phone is on is best because if you've ever noticed, the batterystats gets messed up while the phone is off for the most part (ex: Recovery mode and stuff). Also, idk if this is true for the Inc, but with the Evo, if you have the phone on the charger while its off and power it on while the LED is green, it doesnt stay charging, it goes off the charger to use some battery to power on and then it charges and that messes with the batterystats which messes with the voltage for some odd reason.
Very nicely done. There are always going to be people who don't get it, but this is easily the best synopsis I've seen yet. People get all wrapped up in numbers, instead of actual use, and the percentage becomes way more important than it should be. Just do whatever you need to do (keep a charger handy, get a bigger battery) to support your needs.
I'm one of the fortunate ones... between the tweaks I've done with custom kernels and whatnot and the fact that I'm not a real heavy user, I have no problem making it from morning to bedtime with more than 50% remaining. And you know what? I don't care whether my phone's at 70% or 10% when I plug it in before bed. As long as it makes it that far, I'm happy. I could easily go two days between charges, but I don't bother, because there really isn't any point other than to gloat about my great battery life, which doesn't impress anyone. I've got a charger, and I use it every night. It works for me.
One of the best posts i ever read here! Kudos from an electrical engineer
When charging The ZeroLemon battery, you should always charge at the "Lowest Amperage" meaning Fast charge should "always" be turned OFF when charging any ZeroLemon batteries. Leaving the fast charge turned on will charge the battery faster, of course. However, it will "kill" the ZeroLemon battery over time, reducing it's charging life to a mere crappy timespan, and also reducing it's ability to distribute a charge for the device over the original intended time cycle. >This info is straight from ZeroLemon themselves. This is not just my opinion.<I have purchased many batteries from ZeroLemon, on my business account, and this is what they themselves, and their USA distributor instructed us to do for the absolute best performance of their battery.
Another thing to keep in mind is when charging the battery on the slow, non fast charge cycle. To always charge with the phone off. No, this isn't so the phone can charge the battery faster. It's so the battery will get the "Full Charge" it's intended to receive. What do I mean, you might ask? When charging the OEM factory battery, the software is programmed to look at the /data/system/batterystats.bin file to determine calculative information and statistical information about the battery itself. This information guides the system on where the battery is at its charge cycle along with various other related task.
Zerolemon clearly states: "Shut down, plug in the power supply and charge until full. (Preferably continuously charge overnight to ensure maximum power. Remember to not switch the phone on, until battery is fully charged.)"
So how do you know if this monster of a battery is fully charged? Well, there's a couple ways. You can look at the whitepapers or on the battery and get the full amperage/voltage cycle information, or you can simply use some simple math to determine what amount charge you're charging at and then determine the amount of hours it will take for a complete full charge.
Now, I can make this a little easy for you and help you out with this. If the battery is brand new, meaning it just literally arrived and you just opened it from the box. Charge for afull 12-18 hoursfor the first charge. Do this with the phone off. When you hit that time mark, you can turn the phone on for use. Now keep in mind I said 18-24 hours for the first charge. Since Zerolemon sends out the battery with some bit of a charge on it, it's impossible to get the exact amount of charge for sure. So when in doubt, charge it fully out. That means 18-24 hours. Yes, yes, that's one hell of a long charge. But let me tell you. I use my phone all day. Full screen brightness, everything turned on, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc. Watch videos, games, hit the forums, obviously . And I always get 3 to 4 days of use. That's right baby. 3 to 4 days of use. The secret is the long slow charge. These batteries are not single cell, they are a tricell makeup. The slower and longer the charge, the longer the battery will last.
Now back to the charging cyle info. You've already charged the phone up completely for the first time. Now use that sucka! And I mean use it till it completely gets to 5% and the system forces you that crappy power save mode where it dims the display etc. Power the phone off. Remove just enough of the rubber TPU case to lift up the battery from the contacts. Count to 3, then replace the battery, TPU, etc. Don't be shocked when you power it back on and you've got 80% full battery again. Remember this is a tricell, so it doesn't report correctly what the exact amperage/voltage is to the android system. Now continue to use the battery and repeat until the battery is at 5% all the time when reinserting it again.
Now, the step above is where everyone messes up and just depletes the battery to 5% only "one time" and then goes to charge the battery again. Don't do it! You're cheating yourself out of precious battery life.Follow the above cycle exactly as I said and you'll be thanking me later, that I promise. If you've already had the battery for a while and been charging it incorrectly, don't worry. Deplete the battery as outlined above, then charge for 18-24 hours, remove battery, insert battery, repeat till stays continually at 5% then recharge.
OK. Now let's move on. Once you continually hit that 5%, Start the charge cycle over again by charging the phone with Fast Charge turned OFF, the full 18-24 hours. Then repeat the steps outlined above again.
>>IT'S EXTREMELY IMPERATIVE THAT YOU DO THIS 5 CYCLES.<< (Sorry for the caps, but really need to stress the importance of this.)
Once you have completed the five cycles, you're on your way to always leaving that blasted charger at home, and never again being thought of as a "Wall Hugger" if you've seen the commercials .
=> Don’t stop charging even it shows 100% charged. And if you're seeing this 100%, then you didn't turn off the phone during the charge as indicated above, lol. A true "Full Charge" is only performed when the battery has been charged for 18-24 hours.
Charging Scenario
When you are doing the first "5 Full charge and Deplete cycles", the phone must be powered "off" while charging. This is due to the android operating system and the Note 4 thinking the phone is fully charged when it reaches 100% even though in reality it's truly not. The Zerolemon battery may only be in reality at 30%, 40%, 50%, etc. Remember, the device believes it has the OEM factory battery in it, and not the massive Zerolemon battery. Unfortunately if you're not rooted with a Developers Edition Note 4, it cannot differentiate between the two batteries. So for the first 5 full charges, (this is referred to as the conditioning of the battery,) turn the phone off when charging.
Now after the 5 cycles have been completed, and the conditioning has been done. You can charge the battery with the phone on. However its important to remember that:
1. When your little battery icon shows full, or if you have the battery % on, & it shows 100%, don't stop charging. It thinks you have the Factory OEM battery in place. To ensure that you have a "True Full Charge" the total noninterrupted charge time must be no shorter than 18 hours and no more than 24, if the battery is truly fully depleted.
2. Properly charging a battery of this size works as follows. The battery has been charged 18-24 hours and is fully charged. You use the device depleting the battery over a period of a few days, while in the process, when it hits 5% you remove the battery and then reinsert as mentioned earlier, then continue to use the device till the battery is actually fully depleted. This means the phone won't power on anymore.
Now at this point, you'd start the charging process again, for 18-24 hours.
Do not charge at every day or every night just because the battery is a little low. (Because almost devices are powerful hungry and batteries depletion is very quick, people are in a habit of just throwing it on charge whenever and however.) Only charge when the device is completely and fully powerless.
Routinely charging the Zerolemon battery in different increments will cause a severe and nonreversible battery retention that will prevent the battery from not only being able to give full use, but prevent it from being able to be fully charged anymore.
TIPS:
Zerolemon batteries for the Note 4 are notorious for prematurely shutting down the phone by means of loss of power if the phone is dropped or in some cases even bumped. The reason this occurs is because their is a small discrepancy in the exact battery size where the contacts meet the pins on the phone. In layman's terms, the Zerolemon battery is just a bit short. No, it's not gonna fall out of the back of the TPU case or anything like that. However, if you drop the phone, or even in some reported cases, bump the phone, the Zerolemons battery loses connection with the gold contacts from the device from within the battery compartment.
Reports have been made to Zerolemon concerning the issue, however Zerolemon has failed still yet, to resolve the problem accordingly. Most likely because just a simple change of plan, would literally open the door for thousands of recalls, refunds, etc, not to mention cost thousands of dollars to remap the sizing and make the correction to future batteries.
Well with this said, all is not lost. I've found, if you remove the TPU case, leaving the battery in place, you can insert a small shim of paper at the proper place, and this will totally resolve and eliminate the problem 100%.
You can use paper, plastic, Thin gasket material etc. Whichever is most convenient for you at the time.
The proper placing of the paper is crucial. Because you don't want to cover up the path to the speaker phone compartment any more than it already is.
Here's the easiest way to fix it.
Power off your phone. Now remove the TPU case and lay the phone carefully screen down so the battery compartment is facing upwards. Position the phone where the bottom of the battery compartment is closest to you, and the camera is furthest from you. Now remove the battery. On the bottom right side of the battery compartment you will want to insert your paper, plastic, "fix" etc to the bottom right side of the compartment. The paper thickness I'd recommend would be the thickness of a regular matchbook cover, or about 2 sheets of construction paper. The dimensions I used was about 1/8 inch tall, by 1 inch long. Don't lay the paper flat inside the battery compartment, doing so will cause the battery to be a little "thicker" and not make connection. You will want to "Stand Up" the little piece if paper, or if you're feeling savy enough, permanently afix the paper to the housing. Now when you go to reinsert your Zerolemons battery, you'll notice that it not only actually first a little tighter and snugger, like it should have been on day 1. But it also doesn't let the battery wiggle a little like before. Replace your TPU case, and power on your phone.
I'll upload some pics for you to show you how I did mine. If you got any questions on any of this, just ask.
Don't worry if you're a newby, a senior XDA member, or a Developer. You won't get any flaming or criticizing from me. Asking for help is always welcomed as far as I'm concerned.
The only dumb question is the question that's not asked.
Don't forget to hit the "Thanks Button!"
Your post was written on the same day that the Retail unlock was released, about maybe 6 hours earlier, and I'm just noticing this post this morning. First of all, I'm actually now on CM13. Secondly, I've disabled any automatic screen dimming at 5% and 15%. I still get warnings, which I do swipe away. My phone did reboot when it thought it got down to zero, only to find out that I was at 11%. I continued to drain again to 0%, tried to start up, no luck. It was drained. When I was fully charged, I did try deleting batterystats.bin as well, and apparently that did nothing. I'm about to try a mod for battery calibration. The difference between the time of your post and now, is that we're unlocked and rooted, so the mod would not have worked, then, but POSSIBLY, now. I guess I'll be a guinea pig, here.
JOSHSKORN said:
Your post was written on the same day that the Retail unlock was released, about maybe 6 hours earlier, and I'm just noticing this post this morning. First of all, I'm actually now on CM13. Secondly, I've disabled any automatic screen dimming at 5% and 15%. I still get warnings, which I do swipe away. My phone did reboot when it thought it got down to zero, only to find out that I was at 11%. I continued to drain again to 0%, tried to start up, no luck. It was drained. When I was fully charged, I did try deleting batterystats.bin as well, and apparently that did nothing. I'm about to try a mod for battery calibration. The difference between the time of your post and now, is that we're unlocked and rooted, so the mod would not have worked, then, but POSSIBLY, now. I guess I'll be a guinea pig, here.
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Hey, I saw that you mentioned in the other thread about someone had posted a beta file. I believe that you are absolutely correct. I'll do my best to dig around and see if I can find that file for us to test. I have tried depleting my battery literally till 0% is true. At that point I checked the mv on the battery and then fully charged using no fast charge cycle and also without turning the device. I have 5 converted DE's and now 6 true DE's. I'm going to test each device at the same time to get an average and also a very accurate account on the validation of the battery stats. Lol at the guinea pig that you mentioned. I've felt that way too. I'll start testing the devices at the same time in the morning about 8:00 am here in Hawaii. I'll report back what my findings are. Post back your findings and I'll do the same. Hopefully we can modify the file properly to meet the requirements for us Zero Lemon users.
Android.Ninja said:
Hey, I saw that you mentioned in the other thread about someone had posted a beta file. I believe that you are absolutely correct. I'll do my best to dig around and see if I can find that file for us to test. I have tried depleting my battery literally till 0% is true. At that point I checked the mv on the battery and then fully charged using no fast charge cycle and also without turning the device. I have 5 converted DE's and now 6 true DE's. I'm going to test each device at the same time to get an average and also a very accurate account on the validation of the battery stats. Lol at the guinea pig that you mentioned. I've felt that way too. I'll start testing the devices at the same time in the morning about 8:00 am here in Hawaii. I'll report back what my findings are. Post back your findings and I'll do the same. Hopefully we can modify the file properly to meet the requirements for us Zero Lemon users.
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Click to collapse
I don't know if this is significant or not but the manual states the capacity at 3.85V/3850mV. The Battery Calibration app I tried this morning said my battery was about 4380mV at 100%. I don't think that this was correct on the app's part. I could be wrong. What do you think? BTW, I'm at 58% right now after 9 hours of heavy use, I don't think that's right.
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
3850 from 4380, that is a good difference. What app did you use? I'll check using another app and we'll compare results. However also thinking about it, if I remember correctly, 3850mV should be correct. I was an original tester for ZeroLemon thats based out of china. They use BaxtelWireless as their Wholesaler / Distributor who is located in lower Texas, and I signed up as a tester / reviewer for them when they first started implementing the battery. BaxtelWireless contacted me later on to test out the battery. The only thing I really dislike, is the fact that it's a tri-cell battery and not single cell. if I remember correctly. They mentioned they were working on the possibility of making a single cell, however I'm positive the price would also increase of they do. After checking I think that 3850mV should be correct, but let me ask someone who works there to get a definite answer. I'll get back with you.
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
I got the 3850 figure from the manual
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---------- Post added at 08:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 PM ----------
Lookup Battery Calibration on the play store, it's by NeMa. That's what I used.
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@47%, 3924mV.
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Yup, that's what I'm seeing as well. 3850mV is what they say it should be.
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Have a look at this thread. This is the guy I was referring to that was trying to make a mod for this battery. I don't really understand what all he was doing but I don't think he's supported it in almost a year.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/not...nt/reserved-zerolemon-fuel-gauge-fix-t3131705
I feel like I've made some small progress, but honestly, I doubt it. Still seeing the 1% problem. I don't know if that will ever iron itself out or not.
First discharge:
my phone turned off at 0%
I turned it back on, it had 11% left over.
Both occasions, @1%, draining the battery seemed like an eternity.
Did not test battery pull
Tried using BatteryCalibration from the Play Store, it did nothing.
Second Discharge:
Battery drained down to 0% the first time through
Battery Pull did nothing. Turning off and on did nothing. Battery was in fact, dead.
Calibrated using Battery HD Pro. (I think you can do the same calibration with the free version but I'm not sure)
1% battery drain seemed like an eternity, again
I have my phone plugged in, now and I'm going to let it charge for about 21 hours before I turn it on, again. I'll check it when I get home from work in the evening.
Question: Would there be any difference in using the stock charger vs the charger that came with previous Note's with different voltages? I don't know enough about electricity to understand this or not.
thanks to OP for sharing!
i have an original samsung battery charger.
could i use it to charge my zerolemon 18-24hrs for those first 5 charges, while i use my phone with my old original 3220 mAh batteries in the meantime?
After the 5 cycles of 18-24 hrs of charging will I always charge this battery for 18hrs or more and do I always charge it with the fast charging off? After the 5 cycles will my note 4 % sign read true. Any help would be appreciated thanks.
Android.Ninja said:
When charging The ZeroLemon battery, you should always charge at the "Lowest Amperage" meaning Fast charge should "always" be turned OFF when charging any ZeroLemon batteries. Leaving the fast charge turned on will charge the battery faster, of course. However, it will "kill" the ZeroLemon battery over time, reducing it's charging life to a mere crappy timespan, and also reducing it's ability to distribute a charge for the device over the original intended time cycle. >This info is straight from ZeroLemon themselves. This is not just my opinion.<I have purchased many batteries from ZeroLemon, on my business account, and this is what they themselves, and their USA distributor instructed us to do for the absolute best performance of their battery.
Another thing to keep in mind is when charging the battery on the slow, non fast charge cycle. To always charge with the phone off. No, this isn't so the phone can charge the battery faster. It's so the battery will get the "Full Charge" it's intended to receive. What do I mean, you might ask? When charging the OEM factory battery, the software is programmed to look at the /data/system/batterystats.bin file to determine calculative information and statistical information about the battery itself. This information guides the system on where the battery is at its charge cycle along with various other related task.
Zerolemon clearly states: "Shut down, plug in the power supply and charge until full. (Preferably continuously charge overnight to ensure maximum power. Remember to not switch the phone on, until battery is fully charged.)"
So how do you know if this monster of a battery is fully charged? Well, there's a couple ways. You can look at the whitepapers or on the battery and get the full amperage/voltage cycle information, or you can simply use some simple math to determine what amount charge you're charging at and then determine the amount of hours it will take for a complete full charge.
Now, I can make this a little easy for you and help you out with this. If the battery is brand new, meaning it just literally arrived and you just opened it from the box. Charge for afull 12-18 hoursfor the first charge. Do this with the phone off. When you hit that time mark, you can turn the phone on for use. Now keep in mind I said 18-24 hours for the first charge. Since Zerolemon sends out the battery with some bit of a charge on it, it's impossible to get the exact amount of charge for sure. So when in doubt, charge it fully out. That means 18-24 hours. Yes, yes, that's one hell of a long charge. But let me tell you. I use my phone all day. Full screen brightness, everything turned on, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc. Watch videos, games, hit the forums, obviously . And I always get 3 to 4 days of use. That's right baby. 3 to 4 days of use. The secret is the long slow charge. These batteries are not single cell, they are a tricell makeup. The slower and longer the charge, the longer the battery will last.
Now back to the charging cyle info. You've already charged the phone up completely for the first time. Now use that sucka! And I mean use it till it completely gets to 5% and the system forces you that crappy power save mode where it dims the display etc. Power the phone off. Remove just enough of the rubber TPU case to lift up the battery from the contacts. Count to 3, then replace the battery, TPU, etc. Don't be shocked when you power it back on and you've got 80% full battery again. Remember this is a tricell, so it doesn't report correctly what the exact amperage/voltage is to the android system. Now continue to use the battery and repeat until the battery is at 5% all the time when reinserting it again.
Now, the step above is where everyone messes up and just depletes the battery to 5% only "one time" and then goes to charge the battery again. Don't do it! You're cheating yourself out of precious battery life.Follow the above cycle exactly as I said and you'll be thanking me later, that I promise. If you've already had the battery for a while and been charging it incorrectly, don't worry. Deplete the battery as outlined above, then charge for 18-24 hours, remove battery, insert battery, repeat till stays continually at 5% then recharge.
OK. Now let's move on. Once you continually hit that 5%, Start the charge cycle over again by charging the phone with Fast Charge turned OFF, the full 18-24 hours. Then repeat the steps outlined above again.
>>IT'S EXTREMELY IMPERATIVE THAT YOU DO THIS 5 CYCLES.<< (Sorry for the caps, but really need to stress the importance of this.)
Once you have completed the five cycles, you're on your way to always leaving that blasted charger at home, and never again being thought of as a "Wall Hugger" if you've seen the commercials .
=> Don’t stop charging even it shows 100% charged. And if you're seeing this 100%, then you didn't turn off the phone during the charge as indicated above, lol. A true "Full Charge" is only performed when the battery has been charged for 18-24 hours.
Charging Scenario
When you are doing the first "5 Full charge and Deplete cycles", the phone must be powered "off" while charging. This is due to the android operating system and the Note 4 thinking the phone is fully charged when it reaches 100% even though in reality it's truly not. The Zerolemon battery may only be in reality at 30%, 40%, 50%, etc. Remember, the device believes it has the OEM factory battery in it, and not the massive Zerolemon battery. Unfortunately if you're not rooted with a Developers Edition Note 4, it cannot differentiate between the two batteries. So for the first 5 full charges, (this is referred to as the conditioning of the battery,) turn the phone off when charging.
Now after the 5 cycles have been completed, and the conditioning has been done. You can charge the battery with the phone on. However its important to remember that:
1. When your little battery icon shows full, or if you have the battery % on, & it shows 100%, don't stop charging. It thinks you have the Factory OEM battery in place. To ensure that you have a "True Full Charge" the total noninterrupted charge time must be no shorter than 18 hours and no more than 24, if the battery is truly fully depleted.
2. Properly charging a battery of this size works as follows. The battery has been charged 18-24 hours and is fully charged. You use the device depleting the battery over a period of a few days, while in the process, when it hits 5% you remove the battery and then reinsert as mentioned earlier, then continue to use the device till the battery is actually fully depleted. This means the phone won't power on anymore.
Now at this point, you'd start the charging process again, for 18-24 hours.
Do not charge at every day or every night just because the battery is a little low. (Because almost devices are powerful hungry and batteries depletion is very quick, people are in a habit of just throwing it on charge whenever and however.) Only charge when the device is completely and fully powerless.
Routinely charging the Zerolemon battery in different increments will cause a severe and nonreversible battery retention that will prevent the battery from not only being able to give full use, but prevent it from being able to be fully charged anymore.
TIPS:
Zerolemon batteries for the Note 4 are notorious for prematurely shutting down the phone by means of loss of power if the phone is dropped or in some cases even bumped. The reason this occurs is because their is a small discrepancy in the exact battery size where the contacts meet the pins on the phone. In layman's terms, the Zerolemon battery is just a bit short. No, it's not gonna fall out of the back of the TPU case or anything like that. However, if you drop the phone, or even in some reported cases, bump the phone, the Zerolemons battery loses connection with the gold contacts from the device from within the battery compartment.
Reports have been made to Zerolemon concerning the issue, however Zerolemon has failed still yet, to resolve the problem accordingly. Most likely because just a simple change of plan, would literally open the door for thousands of recalls, refunds, etc, not to mention cost thousands of dollars to remap the sizing and make the correction to future batteries.
Well with this said, all is not lost. I've found, if you remove the TPU case, leaving the battery in place, you can insert a small shim of paper at the proper place, and this will totally resolve and eliminate the problem 100%.
You can use paper, plastic, Thin gasket material etc. Whichever is most convenient for you at the time.
The proper placing of the paper is crucial. Because you don't want to cover up the path to the speaker phone compartment any more than it already is.
Here's the easiest way to fix it.
Power off your phone. Now remove the TPU case and lay the phone carefully screen down so the battery compartment is facing upwards. Position the phone where the bottom of the battery compartment is closest to you, and the camera is furthest from you. Now remove the battery. On the bottom right side of the battery compartment you will want to insert your paper, plastic, "fix" etc to the bottom right side of the compartment. The paper thickness I'd recommend would be the thickness of a regular matchbook cover, or about 2 sheets of construction paper. The dimensions I used was about 1/8 inch tall, by 1 inch long. Don't lay the paper flat inside the battery compartment, doing so will cause the battery to be a little "thicker" and not make connection. You will want to "Stand Up" the little piece if paper, or if you're feeling savy enough, permanently afix the paper to the housing. Now when you go to reinsert your Zerolemons battery, you'll notice that it not only actually first a little tighter and snugger, like it should have been on day 1. But it also doesn't let the battery wiggle a little like before. Replace your TPU case, and power on your phone.
I'll upload some pics for you to show you how I did mine. If you got any questions on any of this, just ask.
Don't worry if you're a newby, a senior XDA member, or a Developer. You won't get any flaming or criticizing from me. Asking for help is always welcomed as far as I'm concerned.
The only dumb question is the question that's not asked.
Don't forget to hit the "Thanks Button!"
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18-24 hrs??? seriously???
---------- Post added at 06:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:47 AM ----------
IssacEsco said:
After the 5 cycles of 18-24 hrs of charging will I always charge this battery for 18hrs or more and do I always charge it with the fast charging off? After the 5 cycles will my note 4 % sign read true. Any help would be appreciated thanks.
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Definitely don't use the Samsung Adaptive Fast Charging adapter if you turn off the phone. Find another charger that is 2.0, otherwise, even if you have fast charging off in the settings...it will fast charge when the phone is charging when it's off and it will say it when you see the charging going on. Read that somewhere else on this forum and he was absolutely correct!
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if your phone believes the battery is at 100% doesn't it stop charging the battery and only draws a trickle charge? what good is leaving your phone plugged in when your phone itself will not charge it fully? there must be a way we can physically charge the battery itself. I'm about to take apart an old charger and alligator it into a regulated power supply. someone stop me if they think that's a bad idea.
How can you turn off your phone and not use it for 12hr+? kind of ridiculous if your cell phone is your main source of contact.....
Hi, I've had my Zerolemon 10000 mAh Battery & case for just over a year. Using it in a Note 4. Not being tech savvy I initially charged it to 100%. and I have done the plug it in every night thing & had it on fast charge. Now, I have a question, since I have done all these things wrong on this battery the battery is running out of charge within 3 to 4 hours at least. Can I reprogram this battery or have I ruined it?
Beckyboombang. said:
Hi, I've had my Zerolemon 10000 mAh Battery & case for just over a year. Using it in a Note 4. Not being tech savvy I initially charged it to 100%. and I have done the plug it in every night thing & had it on fast charge. Now, I have a question, since I have done all these things wrong on this battery the battery is running out of charge within 3 to 4 hours at least. Can I reprogram this battery or have I ruined it?
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I would also like to know