Flyer- Fully Discharging the Battery - HTC Flyer, EVO View 4G

Hi all,
I'm rooted, S-Off and on Honeycomb with the revolutionary method with CWM and all is working great and has been for over a month now.
I'm just worried regarding the battery. I've seen snippets of info that if the battery fully discharges, i'm screwed.
can anyone please confirm that it is either OK or NOT OK to let the battery run down on the Flyer?
thanks,

Yes, if Li-ion batteries are actually drained to zero voltage, they are useless. However, technically, there are safety measures both in the battery itself (safety circuit) and the device that protect the battery from complete discharge. The device will tell you that zero battery is left, and shutdown. So in most instances, you are protected.
HOWEVER, I have seen plenty of cases on Android devices (and older phones, such as Windows Mobile) where the safety measures don't always kick in properly. People will let there phone/device drain until it shuts off, then they can't get it recharged. In these cases, the voltage is still not actually zero. But if the voltage is below a certain threshold, it won't take a charge from the normal charger. Only way to bring these batteries back, is a special battery meter with a boost function. Or replace the battery. As most of us don't have access to such a meter (and might not help anyway, since the battery is not designed to be removable) you're pretty well screwed.
This doesn't happen often. But if it happens to you, yes you are screwed.
Another thing about full discharge cycles on a Li-ion battery, is that it will shorten the life of the battery in the long term.
Moral of the story, is don't drain the battery to zero intentionally or often. Some people do it to calibrate the battery meter. This is worthless, as the battery meter on phones and tablets are not accurate enough to justify running the battery until the device shuts down. Just drain to 10 or even 20%, recharge to full (leave it there a while) and repeat a couple times, if you want to calibrate the battery meter.
As for normal usage, avoid draining the battery until shutdown. Its fine if it happens accidentally once in a while, we've all done it. But don't let it happen frequently.

Related

[SOLVED] + [BRAINSTORM] Battery Calibration

Just wanted to open up a thread here to see what we can do about battery calibration issues.
Not sure, but I read around that people are getting phone shut downs at the 10%-15% ranges.
When in actual fact it should be somewhere around the 1%-5% range?
Was wondering if there is some possibility in coding the phone to read the battery state better? Thus, eliminating the need for calibrating the battery through tradition means (ie: wiping, charging, etc)
Thoughts?
EDITS:
We've managed to figure out huge boundaries for the battery.
There are currently two ways to get your battery into "learn mode" - which will adjust the values of your battery to accurately reflect it's "age" and mAh tracking. This will lead to a fix for those of you who are currently facing issues with the battery shutting down anytime before the 1% mark.
1st fix:
1) Drain battery
2) Just as the battery hits "Shutting Down", plug in your charger
3) Let the phone power down
4) DO NOT TURN ON THE PHONE
5) Let it charge up overnight or something along the lines of 4-6 hours, which should ensure it will be fully charged
6) Power up, your phone should be calibrated and will now shut off at 1%
2nd fix:
Head over to the Battery Calibration Tool Thread which spawned off from the discussions here!
>> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=765609
For those who have been following the thread and wonder what your status_reg value mean theloginwithnoname has kindly provided us with some datasheets and translations, which you can get with the following links:
Binary Conversion: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=8013370&postcount=548
Then refer to Page 25 of the following datasheet: http://datasheets.maxim-ic.com/en/ds/DS2784.pdf
OR you can try out mtw4991's method to get learn mode done with the battery app that's been created out of this brainstorm thread.
The link to his method is > http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9583271&postcount=340
I began this thread in other to simply find a fix for our current battery % meter. Basically, users (myself included) were having a problem with inaccurate battery % readings. Some N1's would shut down above 1% and this would leave many guessing when the battery would give out.
Needless to say, here at XDA - we managed to find the fixes. ;-)
And of course, we decided to take it to the next level.
How can we now push more out of our batteries?
RogerPodacter and theloginwithnoname have been working endlessly learning and understanding the how the battery registry works and together with dvgrhl they're finalizing a battery mod app which will help the N1 cope with the "learn mode" and changes. So do thank them for the great work they've been pushing out with! =)
They've helped us hammer out all the core details concerning the battery understanding, values, binaries, and we're wading through the mess to push the limits on the batteries (short of blowing them up as usual of course).
Be patient if the app isn't ready yet. And if you're a n00b, please don't mess around with the registry values and such if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing.
No one is gonna give a rat's poopoo if you blow up your phone and set your house on fire and gremlins kidnap your toes.
Peace out.
This thread is and methodology has served its purpose and many of us from this thread have moved on over to the Battery Calibration TOOL thread. The methods still work, but so do the newer methods at the tool thread, which I personally find is much easier and better.
If you'd like to use the manual method, it'll still work.
For those more interested in the newer method and I encourage you to do so - head on over through this link > http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=765609
+1
It happened to me yesterday. I am playing with my phone and I needed to check an important address on Google Maps, so I was thinking "Oh great I still have 9% battery" and then all of a sudden BOOM. It powered off. I mean seriously WHY have those extra 9% if I am never going to use them. So In reality my phone battery is like 80%
100%-(first 10% which drain in like 5-6minutes) - 10% that I never use cause the phone shuts off = 80% BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT COOL
happened to me on cm 5.0.7.1 about 7% battery
I guess this would be an appropriate time/place to ask this question. I had someone PM me asking how to calibrate their battery and I didn't know if I provided them with the correct response. What I've always done is let the battery drain ALL the way down until it dies~usually about 1% and then fully charge the phone while it is off. Then, let it die down once again on that charge and repeat the charging while the phone is off. Is that the correct way to calibrate the battery or am I taking unneccesary steps?
THATTON said:
I guess this would be an appropriate time/place to ask this question. I had someone PM me asking how to calibrate their battery and I didn't know if I provided them with the correct response. What I've always done is let the battery drain ALL the way down until it dies~usually about 1% and then fully charge the phone while it is off. Then, let it die down once again on that charge and repeat the charging while the phone is off. Is that the correct way to calibrate the battery or am I taking unneccesary steps?
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No idea as well honestly. I've never charged my phone while it's off... so that might be the issue...
But then again, my phone has often turned off at the 10% mark. So that's why I thought I'd get more input here on how we can actually find a way to calibrate our batteries or something.
i have two oem batteries and a dock..Everyday I completely drain the first and swap it out with a fully charged one off the dock and both batteries perform great and never shut down above 1% every single time. So the batteries are always completely drained and then have a slow no stress recharge, maybe this is why mine go to 1%?
chowlala said:
No idea as well honestly. I've never charged my phone while it's off... so that might be the issue...
But then again, my phone has often turned off at the 10% mark. So that's why I thought I'd get more input here on how we can actually find a way to calibrate our batteries or something.
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I notice that if I charge my phone while it is off and take it off about 20 minutes after the light turns green, the discharge rate is MUCH slower than if I charge it while the phone is on. Or, I will charge it while on, let it get to 100%, turn it off and continue to charge until the light turns green again. Either of those two ways give me the best results for battery life.
Doesn't the Li-on type of battery calibrate itself when charged from 0% (or the specified minimum) to 100%?
THATTON said:
I notice that if I charge my phone while it is off and take it off about 20 minutes after the light turns green, the discharge rate is MUCH slower than if I charge it while the phone is on. Or, I will charge it while on, let it get to 100%, turn it off and continue to charge until the light turns green again. Either of those two ways give me the best results for battery life.
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Hmm. Interesting thought. Guess letting it charge to 100 while its on is one thing, then turn it off so it maxes out before daily use. I'll try that tomorrow morning and see.
Stats have been recalibrated to pershoots kernels already. So tomorrow will be a good testing day.
LiOn batteries should NOT be drained completely. It is bad for them. You should simply charge to 100%, turn the phone off, let it continue to charge (you may be at 100% when in OS but not truly 100% to the battery) and then wipe battery stats.
hah2110 said:
LiOn batteries should NOT be drained completely. It is bad for them. You should simply charge to 100%, turn the phone off, let it continue to charge (you may be at 100% when in OS but not truly 100% to the battery) and then wipe battery stats.
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Yeah, the discharge part is actually true. There's more info here bout the batts, but nothing much bout calibration.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=669497
chowlala said:
Hmm. Interesting thought. Guess letting it charge to 100 while its on is one thing, then turn it off so it maxes out before daily use. I'll try that tomorrow morning and see.
Stats have been recalibrated to pershoots kernels already. So tomorrow will be a good testing day.
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The biggest thing I noticed right off the bat in doing this was that normally my battery drains from 100% to 90% in less than 30 minutes. After doing what I suggested, I see that my battery discharges much slower from 100% to 90%! Hope it works for you.
My phone was doing that ALL the time. Here's what i did that fixed the issue for me.
1.) Let my phone die as usual.
2.) KEPT IT DEAD... for 1 day
3.) Charged with the phone OFF for 1 day.
4.) Went to RA's recovery as soon as i turned the phone on and reset Battery Settings.
5.) Rebooted and all is well.
I hope this helps someone else.
(My phone would die at 13% EVERY time. It got really annoying when trying to Navigate when i forgot my USB cord for my PowerCup. :< )
And yes i know about the whole not letting Lion Batteries die. When i worked for T-Mobile and the customers would bring in their N1's doing this, every call to HTC this is what they told me to do. (Minus the whole awesome recovery and such). They said letting the battery drain will not hurt the phone as long as it regains 100% charge after the initial drain.
AGAIN. This worked for Me. So im not promising you anything. Plus the batteries are only 25 bucks from Google. And i have 4 extras... Just in case. I would invest in some if i were you. Cause lord knows, were going to do some SERIOUS stuff to our phones. Extra Batts dont hurt.
Lithium batteries don't have memories, that's a leftover idea from the old Nickel Cadmium (NiCad) and NiMh (Nickel Metal-Hydride) days. The idea with Lithium (Ion & Polymer) should pretty much just be charged up whenever. Letting them be drained completely isn't good for them and will reduce their lifespan (reduced mAh) although it won't almost immediately kill them ala lead-acids. Overcharging them via a circuit with a poor cutoff also isn't good for them as they'll heat up, phones or any decent AC charger should stop charging when they hit 100% though.
Probably about the best you can do is charge it to 100%, pull the battery and reboot the phone and then reboot it again. The charge calculation will be based on the rated mAh of the battery which depending on the quality of the battery and the charging system of the device could end up giving you some funny figures. Not much you can do about it though.
I just wanted to say that this link does mention a proper calibration charge, it just does not go into detail.
Item 3 of "General Lithium-Ion Battery (LIBs)Usage":
• Although it is said that LIBs do not have memory, it's not entirely true. LIBs have gauges that monitor performance of cells, and if you do a lot of small charges, it won't let those gauges to monitor a full battery potential, causing an invalid indication of charge level. A complete charge/discharge should be made when battery capacity seems reduced, that will calibrate gauges and they will provide your phone with correct charge level status. A full charge/discharge cycle should be done every 30 (or so) partial charges.
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My assumption of a complete charge/discharge cycle would be:
1. drain battery until the device dies
2. charge the battery to 100%
3. power device on
4. drain battery fully until device dies (no small charges!)
5. charge battery to 100%
This should allow the battery gauges to recalibrate and improve battery capacity.
People seem to be in the dark about lithium ion batteries, how they are charged, and how the device estimates battery charge remaining.
Lithium batteries do not have memory effects, but the phone does keep a file with charge info about the battery; it uses this to estimate charge left and how to charge safely when the device is powered on.
When properly charging a Li-ion battery, the last 10% of the charge should take almost as long as the time it takes to charge from 0 to 90% (well about half as long meaning a full third of the charging time should be going into the last 10% of the charge) Charging with the device off, charges the battery more completely and consistently.
Li-ion battery chargers use a type of charge cycle called constant amp/constant voltage. The battery will be force fed amps until the battery's voltage peaks and it will then be fed a constant voltage. (around the 90% charge mark) During the constant voltage phase, the amps that the battery is taking in will be monitored; as the battery gets closer to full charge the amperage will drop more and more, until it is just a tiny trickle. When it gets to that point, the battery is fully charged. Obviously charging with the device still powered on creates a problem for that type of charging. So the battery can only be charged to the peak voltage, then the charge cycle must stop; as the last 10-15% of the charge can not be completed safely.
It is always good to let a device run until dead and then charge with the device off a couple times when the device is new, and then charge the device from empty while powered off once every couple months. (do not do it too often, as Li-ion batteries prefer to be between 50-80% charge for longer service life) This allows the device to maintain a proper reference data file on the battery and its charge state. this data file is what Android uses to estimate the charge in the battery, if the file is not accurate, the device may power down sooner than it should, or not charge fully to a true 100% state. (peak voltage state when powered on that is)
Also, Li-ion batteries are rated for capacity from a discharged voltage of 3v. So a 1500Mah battery is rated to provide 1500mah of power from fully charged to a final discharged voltage of 3v.
I do not know what the minimum operating voltage of various devices is, but if it is higher than 3v; then the phone must shut down at its min operating voltage and not the 3v needed to get full capacity. My Nexus one shuts off around 3.5v so there is around 25% of the actual rated battery capacity left. (remember what I said about Li-ion batteries liking to be between 50-80%, this left over capacity means that running the battery dead repeatedly is less harmful than if you drained the battery to a true 0% state)
There is also a voltage drop on a battery when under load. So if you are putting a heavy load on the device (like a 3D rendered game heavy gps use) then the battery voltage may drop to below the device’s min voltage. This means that if the phone shuts down during this time, you could probably turn it back on and get a few hours of standby or a few more minutes of light use. This could be another cause for people seeing shut downs when the battery gets around 10%.
The amount of power in a battery is high, especially in Li-ion batteries with their high energy densities. Over charging a Li-ion battery can cause an explosion, literally, that little battery in your phone could remove some fingers. Over discharging is bad as well, as it can start a fire; though like I mentioned above, the cut off voltage is above the 0% state, so that is unlikely here.
Ive proposed this before and got a bit shouted down, but thumbs up if anyone comes up with anything
As i see it, its not a problem with the battery. Its a problem with the battery meter. Since following a regime of deleting my batterystats.bin file, i dont see that issue. Its the same on my g1 as it is on my n1.
This is what i do... when i charge my phone, i charge it until 100%. When it reaches that 100%, i use either use the terminal or root explorer to delete the batterystats.bin file. After which i immediately power off the phone. Now, when its powered off(and still attached to the usb charger) the light should be green. But usually its not! Sometimes it charges up to a full hour longer before it turns green! When it turns green, power the phone back up and enjoy tue extra kick of battery life. Its not actually gaining battery life, its just resetting tue battery meter in the phone. This could only be done with a rooted phone. Oh, i think that this whole innaccurate battery meter thing is a problem with android in general. The meter becomes innaccurate with time. Sometimes extremely innaccurate.
Using the terminal...
su(press enter)
rm /data/system/batterystats.bin(press enter)
Then power off
Wow. Lotsa pewpewz here. Haha.
Again, after all the discussions, seeing that most of us agree the N1 keeps "stock" of how the battery chargers, is there a way for us to check or see how the battery is being calibrated, etc?
Not so much an app to modify the calibration, cuz that'll just be too dangerous, but something more like a tool to monitor it, so we know if it's calibrated right or wrong.
Deleting the batterystats.bin file isnt an app. Its either a script you run to delete it or physically deleting it. And its not dangerous. Ive done it well over a thousand times with my g1 and n1 combined. If you wanted to find out how the calibration work, i guess you could make a copy of your batterstats.bin and read it

3D maintenance

I havent gotten a new phone since 09 Hero.....whats the deal with battery charging. Do I need to fully charge the phone before using it? Do you drain the battery fully before re-charging it?
what give the battery the best life possible?
Never, ever, never, ever, never, never, ever drain a lithium based battery to nothing. Very, very bad. Charge it and keep it above 50% for the firstweek.
Swyped from my Atari 2600
overclockxp said:
Never, ever, never, ever, never, never, ever drain a lithium based battery to nothing. Very, very bad. Charge it and keep it above 50% for the firstweek.
Swyped from my Atari 2600
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Thank you. That is the type of advice I need.
kinextions said:
I havent gotten a new phone since 09 Hero.....whats the deal with battery charging. Do I need to fully charge the phone before using it? Do you drain the battery fully before re-charging it?
what give the battery the best life possible?
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Even your Hero should be the same. Most modern cell phones use Lithium Ion which do not have memory effect.
There is no memory for Li-ion batteries so go ahead and just use your phone. You do not have to keep it above or below a certain charge. The phone will not allow the battery to drain to completion so you do not have to worry about that. It is very bad to let a Li-ion battery completely drain but there are fail safe measures implemented in the phone/battery to prevent that. 0% charge on your phone does not mean 0% battery, its just the mA at which your phone thinks the battery has 0% battery remaining.
I wonder if there's going to be a similar procedure to the OG EVO's plug, unplug, turn off, charge, unplug, turn on, turn off, charge method (or whatever it was) to maximize battery life.
mevensen said:
I wonder if there's going to be a similar procedure to the OG EVO's plug, unplug, turn off, charge, unplug, turn on, turn off, charge method (or whatever it was) to maximize battery life.
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Bump charging works for lots of phones to my understanding. Something about how the phone at first doesn't charge to 100% - when it gets to a certain point it just keeps it maintained at that level .
While it is true that lithium ion batteries don’t suffer from “memory” problems such as NiCad batteries they do have a lifespan. For example, the lithium battery in the laptop that I am using right now, and have used for the past year, currently has a 98% charge and is not charging. That’s much, much better than a NiCad battery would be. I can really see the NiCad issue in my rechargeable cordless tools.
But lithium batteries will eventually die. Just ask the first generation iPud owners. Their batteries were failing just after a year of ownership and Apphole wouldn’t do anything about it. They had reached the end of life of their batteries.
Lithium batteries do take a little bit to break in though. You’ll notice a slight improvement as time goes on for the next month. But I would still refrain from draining the battery too much.
Thanks for the input...I too have the hero, and was curios...
...is it Friday yet?
there was a recent article I seen from a link in the g2x forums where they go to actual experts on the lithium who designed the actual cells and ask them how is best to charge them.
the honest answer is for life being your most concern. that means for the battery to keep a consistent charge over the life of the phone without losing actual daily life on the battery,
you have to plug it in when the phone ask at about 20%. then unplug it when the phone says the battery is full. Do not leave the battery plugged in for hours over full. said something about the charge disburst weird or something
anyway it was a link in the g2x forum in general. im sure you can finds it. Ill look if you really want me to,
Lots of info on Li-ion batteries:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
Being that the Battery stats are stored on the /Data partition, how is this minimum threshold managed?

Full Drain the Battery?

There seems to be a debate on this topic as to whether you should do a FULL drain on your battery and I wanted to know what people's thoughts were on this in this forum.
I've used my phone twice now to the point where it has auto powered down on it's own. I will then hit the 'Power' button to ensure that battery is truly at 0% (the capacitative buttons blink for a second to confirm that I've hit the power button but there is no more juice left to turn the phone on).
I will plug into the wall charger and allow it to charge for 4 hours (usually around 4 hours, I'll check back to see and hit the power button and the onscreen battery display will show 100% charged).
I will unplug my phone, power on and keep using until the phone fully drains and powers off on it's own again before repeating this cycle.
However, others have stated that this is NOT necessary for Lithium Ion battery and can actually damage the circuitry of the battery? I've always been under the impression that you need to do a complete & full battery drain for lithium ion batteries at least 3 -5 full cycles/times before the battery has been conditioned/optimized for capacity.
Maybe I'm wrong...after all I'm coming from a G1 and this practice helped my atrocious battery life on that dinosaur!
If this is wrong, when should I be plugging my phone back in to charge? When it gives me the first warning to charge in (battery level turns orange - I assume this about 20% battery left) or on the "critical" battery warning when the battery icon in the notification panel turns red (assuming this is about 10% battery left)?
from what I've read in the past, letting your phone drain completely down until it shuts itself off is not good for the battery. I could be wrong but thats what I've read
nyydynasty said:
from what I've read in the past, letting your phone drain completely down until it shuts itself off is not good for the battery. I could be wrong but thats what I've read
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Yeah, I've heard both sides and I've conditioned my battery for the G1 because it seemed to drain faster if I plugged it into charge when there was 30% or so still left.
Well, I've done two complete cycles so I guess I'll just try recharging when it hits the red mark next time.
When you plug in to charge? Orange, red or whenever to top off?
i plug my phone in when i go to bed. I dont care what the battery is at. I also charge it while i'm at work so when I leave, its around 90-100%. My battery rarely reaches red.
nyydynasty said:
i plug my phone in when i go to bed. I dont care what the battery is at. I also charge it while i'm at work so when I leave, its around 90-100%. My battery rarely reaches red.
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LOL - that would prematurely killed my battery capacity on the G1! I went thru two batteries before I started draining all the way down. Made a difference between 4-6 hours and 6-10 hours.
Seems like this phone doesn't need to do that tho.
But what're you getting on average for battery life and display on time then?
nyydynasty said:
i plug my phone in when i go to bed. I dont care what the battery is at. I also charge it while i'm at work so when I leave, its around 90-100%. My battery rarely reaches red.
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I do the exact same thing. First with my Captivate and now with the SGS2 and the battery life on my captivate held pretty much exactly the same charge for the entire 15 months I used it. The battery on this SGS2 seems to last about 150-175% of the Captivate battery under the same conditions. I just came back from a week on the road where I spent 9-12 hours a day away from a charger and was using my phone constantly all day long and would get back to the hotel room with 30-40% battery left. Considering I was listening to music, playing plants vs zombies and sending and reading push email constantly throughout the day I am very satisfied with the battery life on this phone. I've never done any kind of conditioning or special battery maintenance.
DefTaker said:
LOL - that would prematurely killed my battery capacity on the G1! I went thru two batteries before I started draining all the way down. Made a difference between 4-6 hours and 6-10 hours.
Seems like this phone doesn't need to do that tho.
But what're you getting on average for battery life and display on time then?
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i stopped looking at my battery stats a long time ago. I'll peak in there once in a while but I dont really care what the stats show because I'm always around a charger. As long as I get through 12 hours or so without charging, i'm happy.
Some devices need a full drain cycle to properly calibrate the fuel gauge - ours does NOT.
Lithium ion batteries don't like deep discharging - in fact discharging them too much will permanently damage them (fortunately, all batteries sold to end users have built-in protection chips to prevent overdischarge - but do you REALLY want to rely on that chip?)
Similarly, they don't like charge being forced into them - so don't "bump charge". (Bump charging is removing and immediately reinserting the charger when the phone says charging is complete.)
For long-term storage, store them at around 50% capacity if not being used. LiIons that are stored at 100% charge lose capacity MUCH faster than ones stored at 50%.
A Li-Ion that has been sitting for a long time (months...) will develop a passivation layer that can be detrimental to performance - a few charge/discharge cycles will fix this. You don't need to do a full discharge/recharge - probably even from 90 to 70 and back up a few times should be fine.
Entropy512 said:
Some devices need a full drain cycle to properly calibrate the fuel gauge - ours does NOT.
Lithium ion batteries don't like deep discharging - in fact discharging them too much will permanently damage them (fortunately, all batteries sold to end users have built-in protection chips to prevent overdischarge - but do you REALLY want to rely on that chip?)
Similarly, they don't like charge being forced into them - so don't "bump charge". (Bump charging is removing and immediately reinserting the charger when the phone says charging is complete.)
For long-term storage, store them at around 50% capacity if not being used. LiIons that are stored at 100% charge lose capacity MUCH faster than ones stored at 50%.
A Li-Ion that has been sitting for a long time (months...) will develop a passivation layer that can be detrimental to performance - a few charge/discharge cycles will fix this. You don't need to do a full discharge/recharge - probably even from 90 to 70 and back up a few times should be fine.
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what about short charging during the course of the day? For instance, while I'm at work, I like to plug it in for a bit and then use it off the charger. Then before I leave, I charge it again for a bit. Do you think thats okay to charge the phone for short ~1 hour bursts?
No, the battery itself doesn't do well with deep discharges, but every device with one has circuitry to manage this and keep it from happening. The phone will shut off before the battery reaches a critically low discharge state. Just as it will cease charging before it blows up. Just because the phone shuts off does not mean that the battery is too low.
Assuming the phone has the proper cutoffs, it's not really any different to do two discharges to 50% or one to 100%. There have been studies that say leaving it on a charger is bad, doing two 50% cycles is worse than one 100%, etc. I've always just trusted that the phone manufacturers design the battery monitor and control circuits correctly and not worry much about it. And I've never had to replace a battery yet and always get acceptable life.
It's lithium ion, not nickel cadmium.
Full drains are bad for lithium ion.
Sent from my SGS II
nyydynasty said:
what about short charging during the course of the day? For instance, while I'm at work, I like to plug it in for a bit and then use it off the charger. Then before I leave, I charge it again for a bit. Do you think thats okay to charge the phone for short ~1 hour bursts?
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That's the best way to charge it.
Sent from my SGS II
MikeyMike01 said:
That's the best way to charge it.
Sent from my SGS II
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that makes me even more glad that its what I've been doing forever - lol
thanks
lithium ion batteries dont like being under 30%. and they also dont do well if they are kept at 80 percent or above all the time. for longest battery life don't just let it sit on the charger all day after it fully charges.
I agree with Mikey here.
Also, batteries take charging current better (less wear) at lower states of charge. That's why I put a variable-current charging algorithm into my Infuse kernels (charginghacks branch on github)
800 mA at low voltages (200 above stock), dropping to 550 near the end (50 below stock).
Unfortunately, charginghacks is likely not going to be possible with our hardware. One of the differences between the I9100 and I777 is a different battery charger circuit - ours is far less flexible.
Entropy512 said:
I agree with Mikey here.
Also, batteries take charging current better (less wear) at lower states of charge. That's why I put a variable-current charging algorithm into my Infuse kernels (charginghacks branch on github)
800 mA at low voltages (200 above stock), dropping to 550 near the end (50 below stock).
Unfortunately, charginghacks is likely not going to be possible with our hardware. One of the differences between the I9100 and I777 is a different battery charger circuit - ours is far less flexible.
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Click to collapse
This phone actually charges with the screen on though, so it's not like the Infuse where the battery would drain with the screen on and the phone charging.
MikeyMike01 said:
This phone actually charges with the screen on though, so it's not like the Infuse where the battery would drain with the screen on and the phone charging.
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Infuse would charge with the screen on - but not if the screen was on AND the CPU was cranking.
(worst-case was navigation at full brightness - and I've seen reports that the I9100 also has the same problem.)
Entropy512 said:
Infuse would charge with the screen on - but not if the screen was on AND the CPU was cranking.
(worst-case was navigation at full brightness - and I've seen reports that the I9100 also has the same problem.)
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Click to collapse
When web browsing, playing a game, or other general use late at night I'd plug the Infuse into the charger. It would still drain. Doing the same on the SGS II and it at the very least maintains it's battery level, so it's a drastic improvement over the Infuse.

Myths about batterystats.bin

So i was browsing the Nexus S forum and Google+ and found an interesting post by one of Android/Google engineers : https://plus.google.com/u/0/105051985738280261832/posts/FV3LVtdVxPT
Today's myth debunking:
"The battery indicator in the status/notification bar is a reflection of the batterystats.bin file in the data/system/ directory."
No, it does not.
This file is used to maintain, across reboots, low-level data about the kinds of operations the device and your apps are doing between battery changes. That is, it is solely used to compute the blame for battery usage shown in the "Battery Use" UI in settings.
That is, it has deeply significant things like "app X held a wake lock for 2 minutes" and "the screen was on at 60% brightness for 10 minutes."
It has no impact on the current battery level shown to you.
It has no impact on your battery life.
Deleting it is not going to do anything to make your more device more fantastic and wonderful... well, unless you have some deep hatred for seeing anything shown in the battery usage UI. And anyway, it is reset every time you unplug from power with a relatively full charge (thus why the battery usage UI data resets at that point), so this would be a much easier way to make it go away.
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Click to collapse
The whole idea of erasing that file having any effect on battery life is pure superstition and wishful thinking. The battery usage UI describes what your device has been doing that has been consuming battery; it doesn't change how the device is using the battery.
You want to "refresh" your battery stats? Charge your phone. When you unplug it again, the device knows it's at full charge (because the battery firmware says so), so the stats tracking treats that as a known milestone for reporting purposes.
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interesting!
I never wipe my batterystatus.bin till now!
I also think it doesn't doing anything but never knew that reson thanks for sharing
Does this mean that calliberating your battery has NO effect? I've seen so many devs themselves recommending it. (ofcourse I might be understanding this whole thing wrong)
myozeus said:
Does this mean that calliberating your battery has NO effect? I've seen so many devs themselves recommending it. (ofcourse I might be understanding this whole thing wrong)
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well, franciscofranco, our kernel 'god', didn't wipe batterystats.bin in his life before. however i always flash things on a full charge just in case
well when you calibrate the battery you only del this file.
this is a one second task
on a macbookpro the calibartion of the battery takes a long time.
so I would not really call this calibration at all.
Thanks for the info...
It'll save time for the people like me ;-)
i never used that option ever
i have very good battery life xd
cekuhnen said:
well when you calibrate the battery you only del this file.
this is a one second task
on a macbookpro the calibartion of the battery takes a long time.
so I would not really call this calibration at all.
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Click to collapse
A Laptop battery has many cells, and, once a while, they get different charges among them, that's why you have to fully discharge your laptop battery once a month, to get them all to the same amount of charge.
Since our phones have one cell in their batterys, I don't know if it's really necessary to calibrate them.
myozeus said:
Does this mean that calliberating your battery has NO effect? I've seen so many devs themselves recommending it. (ofcourse I might be understanding this whole thing wrong)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no. caliberating does have good effects. but caliberating does not mean deleting the file. it means charging full n emptying it full n charging full again...
harshdoshi25 said:
no. caliberating does have good effects. but caliberating does not mean deleting the file. it means charging full n emptying it full n charging full again...
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Actually, lithium ion batteries do not need calibration. Period.
The elements its comprised of have no "cell memory" and the battery firmware is hardcoded with the knowledge of what a full charge should be. Anytime you drain your battery past normal thresholds, it just puts extra wear and tear on the cells and reduces its ability to hold a full charge. By intentionally draining the battery in one sitting, all you're doing is stressing the battery and causing the problem you're trying to correct.
Long story short: Don't calibrate; it just hurts your battery.
Now, if you had a NiMH or an older LiPoly battery, I'd say go right ahead and try to calibrate them if they aren't holding a charge. These types of batteries do have "cell memory" and can often forget what a full charge is.
This information is widely available; it's no secret and I'm not making it up. You can search for yourself or read up on it at Battery University.
Tonhos said:
A Laptop battery has many cells, and, once a while, they get different charges among them, that's why you have to fully discharge your laptop battery once a month, to get them all to the same amount of charge.
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Click to collapse
Actually, capacity drops in multi-cell batteries are typically due to voltage drops in certain cells. Draining the battery won't bring them back; you're only going to hurt the capacity of the rest of the cells. The only solution is to replace the defective cells.
Placebo placebo placebo, like I have always said. And like "theanykey" said, do not let lithium ion battery go completely empty, it just reduces battery lifespan. Seriously.
calibrating a Lithium ION battery does have some effect. 9x out of 10 there is some type of protection circuit on the battery that monitors its maximum charge, lowest charge, and wear levels and static values set by the manufacture.
Often times there can be a false wear level (wherein the wear gets set too high, usually caused by disconnecting the battery from a charge at like 95% or running the battery down to below 10%) and the charging circuitry within the battery WONT charge above that level.... to circumvent that improper wear level... a full charge, then FULL drain, then full charge is needed to properly reset those values and gain you extra battery life as the battery gets charged more.
nd4spdbh said:
calibrating a Lithium ION battery does have some effect. 9x out of 10 there is some type of protection circuit on the battery that monitors its maximum charge, lowest charge, and wear levels and static values set by the manufacture.
Often times there can be a false wear level (wherein the wear gets set too high, usually caused by disconnecting the battery from a charge at like 95% or running the battery down to below 10%) and the charging circuitry within the battery WONT charge above that level.... to circumvent that improper wear level... a full charge, then FULL drain, then full charge is needed to properly reset those values and gain you extra battery life as the battery gets charged more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wear level has nothing to do with usable capacity and is not accounted for during charging. It's an arbitrary number that exists solely so people will replace their batteries sooner than necessary. If I recall, its not uncommon for wear level to be calculated by charge cycles. So, by "calibrating", you may actually worsen the wear level.
Also, you do realize that lithium ion batteries never fully discharge, right? Once they do, they're dead.
If you want a technique that actually increases short-term capacity(at the expense of ruining the battery's longevity), look up bump charging.

The 1 percent solution ?

OK, first of all, we all know that the S6 has NEVER been known for being a battery life champion. BUT, here's the problem .....
Battery reports relatively consistent decline in charge over time, until it gets down to 1%. At that point, the device still has sufficient charge to run for about one hour with the display on and set at full brightness.
Same on Stock Nougat, L.O.S 14 and L.O.S. 16. Same after full factory re-sets on all three. Same on pull and re-connect battery, which is a factory-new Samsung replacement for the original (not the 7 edge mod)
OBVIOUSLY, there is something not quite right about battery capacity reporting here.
Suggestions?
nezlek said:
OBVIOUSLY, there is something not quite right about battery capacity reporting here.
Suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ion Lithium batteries do not like to be completely discharged, to my knowledge ideally they should always be operated between 20% and 80% of their capacity.
Some laptop's do shut-down them selves when battery reaches 5% to safe guard the battery health.
So, yes, 1% reported by the battery does not actually include the "reserve" charge to prevent damages and, unless you really have to, do not use you phone with battery below 10% and charge it !
Under normal circumstances
enryfox said:
Ion Lithium batteries do not like to be completely discharged, to my knowledge ideally they should always be operated between 20% and 80% of their capacity.
Some laptop's do shut-down them selves when battery reaches 5% to safe guard the battery health.
So, yes, 1% reported by the battery does not actually include the "reserve" charge to prevent damages and, unless you really have to, do not use you phone with battery below 10% and charge it !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Under normal circumstances, yes, definitely, keeping it between 30% and 80% is ideal, but when the goal is to accurately calibrate the battery / charging monitor circuitry, more accurate results are to be obtained by running the device to the point of battery exhaustion, at which point the reserve capacity designed into all lithium batteries still remains. But this is NOT something to think about doing on a daily basis. An S6 or S6 edge first run to the point of shutdown will actually re-boot but shut down just about immediately thereafter - iterations are not advised. You want it to have just enough left to get it to re-boot and stay running while charging, at which point you can monitor the recharge . Check out the data from Battery University or the support pages for Accu Battery for more details. Trying to use up the built-in safety margin is a fool's errand, and if you've ever seen a mishandled lithium cell turn a vivid red while the device in question melts around it, it should give you a healthy respect (if for some reason you did not have it in the first place) for not messing with or even attempting to mess with the reserve. The problem here is that the "1%" remaining on the charge meter (which is above, beyond, and independent of the untouchable reserve) actually appears to represent about 15% of the rated capacity of the battery, or in this case, over an hour of screen-on run time, and by never running that out, a current-flow-based app like Accu Battery will invariably under-report capacity going forward as a result. Such apps measure how much current is drawn to get from 'x' percent to 'y' percent being reported, but when the amount of current draw to get from 1% to zero is a range of around 300 mAh, for a battery nominally rated at 2,550 (for an S6) or 2,600 (for a S6 edge) as the total capacity, the problem of how accurate the "1%" figure is should be kind of self-evident. I am not willing to see how low a "0%" capacity report can be pushed down. Sanity has to rear its ugly little head at some point, after all.
Many alternative kernels, etc.. claim to address this problem, but I have yet to find one that actually does the job. It is rumored that Samsung service facilities can do a complete reset of the capacity reporting capability, but who knows? Maybe the luck of the draw gave me a dud battery from Samsung as the replacement. :crying:

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