Battery drain / high current - MTCB Hardware Development

It is winter time and I just wanted to check my car battery condition. Measured voltage in the morning I was surprised it was just 12.4V. investigating further I noticed small and constant voltage drop (1mV per few seconds) so I suspected current drain. And yes I found it to be around 0.5A! Taking out Radio fuse - it dropped to almost 0. So it is headunut that draws such a huge current in a 'power off' state.
Yes I checked my ACC and B+ wiring and it is correct. And yes my unit (KGL 2.83) has stand by function and it appears to work (if I turn ACC of and on in 30 sec it gets instantly on and if it is more than 30 sec it boots from start).
Anyone else checked 'power off' current drain of these units?

I setup power off on 2hours and my battery was dead in 4-5 days.

Happy to hear other have issues
I have just finished tracing my issue back to the head unit. If my car is left for a day with out running the battery is drained. The culprit is the head unit.
You can see the unit is still on as the led for the volume nob and dvd unit led are lit even after the car it powered off and locked up. I have it installed in a 2011 mini cooper. I have to constantly jump my car due to this flaw.

Related

Charger/dock that automatically cuts power

This might be wishing the impossible but I was wondering if there any charger and/or dock on the market that will automatically cut the power when the phone is fully charged.
I know the concept is workable because I've seen a different product that works along the same principles - a trailing socket that completely cuts the power when the load drops.
This could be adapted to suit a phone charger so that when it drops to a trickle, the charger cuts the power completely.
I know it's probably unnecessary but the reason I'm asking is that I know it's not advisable to leave your phone on charge overnight but given how easily the HD chews it way through batteries, having to do so is bound to prove inevitable at some point and I'd like to avoid having to switch off my handset when it does happen (after all, what's the point in having a phone if you can't be contacted on it?).
I suppose the alternative is some sort of program that chimes when the handset is fully charged, so that I'd be woken up and can take it off but I'd rather have a good night's sleep
Step666 said:
I know it's not advisable to leave your phone on charge overnight
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Why do you think that?
Surely the charging circuit is controlled by the handset, and it stops feeding power to the battery when it is fully charged...
Two parts.
Firstly, whilst there is a charge control circuit in the handset, that's all well and good whilst the handset is off but not so good if it's left on.
If the phone is off, it will charge 'til full then drop to a trickle charge to stay there without damaging the battery. If it's on, it will do the same thing, except when the phone checks in with the network or does anything else that uses the battery, the charge level will drop, the charger will ramp up to full power, hit maximum, drop back down to a trickle and so on - it's just not as good for the battery over time.
Secondly, it's better for the environment.
Since I first posted this, Carphone Warehouse in the UK has released a range of 'eco-chargers' for Nokia, SE and Samsung phones that cut out when the load drops (ie when the phone reaches full charge) and will stay off until the user presses a button on the wall plug.
It's a good idea, if a somewhat-impractical design. Placing the button on the wall plug is a bit stupid IMO.
I was actually using a Motorola wall charger at work recently and it seems it has the same function built-in.
When I checked to see if it was fully-charged, my HD wasn't showing as being connected to a charger, it was just showing a full battery. At first I thought it had been un-plugged it switched off by a colleague but when I checked, it wasn't. So I disconnected the phone and re-connected it and the charger symbol appeared in the bar at the top of the screen but, lo-and-behold, a few minutes later the same thing had happened.
Surely chargers these days are intelligent enough to drop to virtually zero output once the battery has charged and then only supply sufficient to maintain that charge.
It's not like leaving the tap on in the bathtub running overnight and flooding the bathroom.
The vast majority of chargers are capable of trickle charging but I already addressed that in my last post.

[Q] Device Battery Drain

Ok - this is completely nuts. When I place my Photon ON my eee transformer, or my wifes TouchPad, the Photon becomes unresponsive. Pressing and holding the power button does nothing. I have to remove the battery or plug it in. In the past, it would reboot and everything would be fine. Battery would appear to be at the same (or near) charge level.
I would take pains to not place the phone near those devices and I have not had the phone lock up. Today I absentmindedly placed a full charge (near full, unplugged 100% charge @ 12:30pm) and placed the phone onto the transformer @ 1:00pm. I checked @ 1:45 and it was unresponsive. I placed the phone on the charger and it came to life... only now the battery was completely drained!
Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a fix or do I just have to keep my phone from other electrical items?
I recharged the phone it went from <5% charge to 100% in less than 30 minutes, so I guess it didn't totally discharge the battery - something just made it think it was discharged.
All-in-all still a very weird happening.
I'm typing this while my Photon is resting on my Touchpad and it's not freezing. How long does it take for it to become unresponsive?
As stated in the OP - 45 minutes. I did not use it during that time.
I have a rather large electrical box that I place my phone on at work while it charges. I see the same thing happen often. The battery will falsely discharge (not sure how it can discharge faster than a 1A capable rated charger can charge it but whatever) I will come back to my phone later and it will have shutdown and is now in the 'charge mode', the one where say you shut your phone down and then plug in the charger and the 'battery' shows up, and it will often be very low.
Normally I just power the phone back on and unplug it and all is good.

Battery No Longer Calibrating Properly

Hey Everyone,
I apologize if this is a repost. I know I read somewhere (I believe here) about a similar issue, but I couldn't find it in searching.
A little background - AT&T SGS2 running stock rom (2.3.4), rooted, using a custom kernel (2.6.35.6) I got off of here.
Anyway, my phone has been working great for months. All of a sudden, my battery indicator is completely wacky and innacurate. It seems to have started after I came back from a trip and had to put it in 'airplane mode' a few times.
The battery level indicator goes down very quickly, and is not a true indication of my phone's charge level. I noticed it a couple days ago (after we came back) where after about 6 hours, I was down to 40%. Normally after a full day's usage I am still at ~80% by the time I get home from work. Since my phone had been running for weeks without a reboot, I decided to reboot it, thinking maybe I had some overzealous background processes running. It came back online with the battery indicator at 8% (down from 40% a minute prior)! After about 30mins or so, it began to go up, and settled around 14%. It stayed at this level for hours, until I plugged it in when I went to bed.
The next morning, same thing, it would lose 1-2% every few minutes until it got down to <10%, where I would get a warning about a low battery level. But once it hit that mark, it would stay there for hours and my phone would work perfectly fine.
As I mentioend above, I thought I read a similar story where the recommendation was to turn the phone off, charge it up all the way, and then turn it back on after it was fully charged. I tried that last night, but my phone is down to 87% after only 2 hours of non-use.
I've made sure that UV/OC'ing was disabled, that no background apps are doing anything weird, etc. And it's not like my battery is really dying quickly - it's just that Android thinks it is. I've checked the level using multiple programs, and all report the same incorrect information.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it? Thanks!
You have encountered two separate issues, one of which is widely documented (fuel gauge reaction to rebooting), one of which is unexpected but possible on UCKH7 (abnormal drain).
But it doesn't look like the battery is really draining that much quicker, only that it's showing that it is. For example, while it might take me only 3 hours to go from 100%-10%, I'll stay at 10% for hours.
It's like the battery is no longer calibrated properly.
Do you use Samsung original charger? If not, try. It should go away.
Take your battery out for a few minutes. The SG2 differs in that it uses a chip for battery calibration/stats. You need to cut power to it completely to reset it. Now, if it still does it afterward, either the battery is faulty, or the phone's ability to measure voltages is wonky.
Also, are you using the phone's Power Saving mode? Maybe the battery is dying but the phone is taking steps to make it last longer?
---------- Post added at 10:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 AM ----------
CyberGhos said:
Do you use Samsung original charger? If not, try. It should go away.
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I used to never use my Samsung charger and never had issues. However, months of using my blackberry charger has rendered it now ineffective. The charger dongle was slightly smaller, and its continuous wiggling messed up my phone's power port slightly. It's a good thing that my Samsung charger still works.
When we were on vacation, I was using my wife's charger for her phone (T-Mobile G2x) so we didn't need to take two (seemingly) identical chargers with us. My understanding was that the pinout and voltage were all the same, so I didn't think it would matter. Maybe that had an impact?
Normally I use my Samsung charger, and have been since we got back.
I haven't tried removing the battery yet, since its in a hard shell case and was hoping I could resolve the issue without taking it apart. But I'll try that tonight.
Power saving mode is disabled. I've also disabled BT, Wi-Fi, GPS, and shut down every app. In the time since my first post (84%) and now, I'm down to 58%, and my phone has been sitting on my desk unused the entire time.
According to the built in battery monitor, Android OS accounts for 92% of battery usage, with Display at 3%, Cell Standby at 3% and Phone Idle at 2%.
As I mentioned above, I thought I read something about a 'trick' to reset the battery gauge by turning the phone off, charging it to 100%, unplugging it, and then turning it back on. Was I mistaken?
Thanks for the responses.
FYI - I just pulled the battery, let it sit for a minute, and plugged it back in.
Battery level went from 58% to 39% after it powered back on.
I'll try charging it again to see if it has any noticeable impact.
Oh, I did want to mention that I've been very religious when it comes to charging my phone properly and trying to "take care" of the battery. I never let it get below 20% (outside of recently due to the issue), I always charge it up to 100%, I never do quick "let me just charge it for 15 minutes to make a call" type charges, I always use a wall charger and not a car charger, etc.
Down to 38% during the time it took me to type this...
phonic said:
When we were on vacation, I was using my wife's charger for her phone (T-Mobile G2x) so we didn't need to take two (seemingly) identical chargers with us. My understanding was that the pinout and voltage were all the same, so I didn't think it would matter. Maybe that had an impact?
Normally I use my Samsung charger, and have been since we got back.
I haven't tried removing the battery yet, since its in a hard shell case and was hoping I could resolve the issue without taking it apart. But I'll try that tonight.
Power saving mode is disabled. I've also disabled BT, Wi-Fi, GPS, and shut down every app. In the time since my first post (84%) and now, I'm down to 58%, and my phone has been sitting on my desk unused the entire time.
According to the built in battery monitor, Android OS accounts for 92% of battery usage, with Display at 3%, Cell Standby at 3% and Phone Idle at 2%.
As I mentioned above, I thought I read something about a 'trick' to reset the battery gauge by turning the phone off, charging it to 100%, unplugging it, and then turning it back on. Was I mistaken?
Thanks for the responses.
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That to me sounds like you might have an app creating a wakelock and preventing it from going into deep sleep.
phonic said:
But it doesn't look like the battery is really draining that much quicker, only that it's showing that it is. For example, while it might take me only 3 hours to go from 100%-10%, I'll stay at 10% for hours.
It's like the battery is no longer calibrated properly.
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Click to collapse
With the exception of high load immediately following a reset (which is why it goes funky on a low-battery reboot), it's basically impossible for the fuel gauge to go out of calibration. It's designed to continuously converge towards truth.
Check the raw battery voltage when it seems to be funny. If your voltage is consistently low, you might be experiencing a hardware failure (like maybe the battery's protection circuit is on its way out.)
After pulling the battery, putting it back in and recharging it, it seems to be working well now. Too early to say for sure, but I went the entire afternoon and evening (up until now) with some mild usage, and am only at 84%. So far so good!
phonic said:
FYI - I just pulled the battery, let it sit for a minute, and plugged it back in.
Battery level went from 58% to 39% after it powered back on.
I'll try charging it again to see if it has any noticeable impact.
Oh, I did want to mention that I've been very religious when it comes to charging my phone properly and trying to "take care" of the battery. I never let it get below 20% (outside of recently due to the issue), I always charge it up to 100%, I never do quick "let me just charge it for 15 minutes to make a call" type charges, I always use a wall charger and not a car charger, etc.
Down to 38% during the time it took me to type this...
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The phone has a voltage drop which causes the drop from 58 to 39 when you reboot it. I'm not a fan of it either.

Charging current with screen on

Hi, I'm coming from an SM-930F and now have a SM-965F. I'm experiencing a strange charging behavior. I became aware of this when noticing that the S9 plus when connected to my Aukey QC 3.0 charger in my car via the OEM cable (screen on and GPS active) can only hold, but not increase the battery level. This was completely different with my S7 (same charger) which achieved an increase in battery level of 30% per hour, all other things equal. I now did some tests with a plug power meter and found that the charging current goes down immediately when the screen is switched on by roughly 75%. The charging power decreases from 6-7 W to 1.5 W. Please note that this is the gross current/power flowing from the wall socket to the device. With the energy consumption of the display, the net current flowing into the battery is negligible which explains the observation above. Interestingly, the effect is also present with the Qi charger, but to a much lesser extent (only 20% reduction of charging current with screen on). The S7 does not behave this way.
Has anybody observed similar effects or could check with his/her own device? Is this an intended behavior? Does this mean that - effectively - the S9 plus cannot be used while charging?
Best regards
Christoph
I have a USB multimeter and have checked several phones of mine.
This behavior is inherent to Qualcomm Quick Charge. I came to the S9+ from a Droid Turbo 2, both exhibited the same behavior.
Also i've never seen voltage spike above 9V, even though it's supposed to go up to (in theory) 12v (QC2.0)
Samsung support told me that this was not normal. I sent the device to them now. We'll see whether this will make a difference.
machristoph said:
Samsung support told me that this was not normal. I sent the device to them now. We'll see whether this will make a difference.
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1.5W is waayy too low for modern smartphone, I'm averaging about 5W with the regular "cable charging" status.
I'm having issues trying to trigger the fast charging mode on my S9+ with the variety of QC2/3 capable chargers that I have laying around. Just bought a voltmeter to do more testing to see what's going on with these chargers.
I don't even get consistent result using Samsung's charger and cable, so I'm wondering if my port is jacked.
Samsung phones don't fast charge when the screen is on, but it shouldn't drop as much as you're seeing. It should work pretty much as the S7 did.
Hi folks,
I still have an issue with the charging behavior of my S9+ and, as time has gone by and I have collected some more information, I am seeking your advice again.
My problem is that cable chargin while screen is on is more or less impossible.
This is not about fast charging not working. I am aware that fast charging is not fully operational while screen is on.
But 9 out of 10 times my phone does not charge at all while screen is on when connected by cable.
However:
- Charging on QI charger with screen on is working.
- Cable charging with screen off (even with always on display switched on) is working normally (not superfast, but roughly 30% per hour which is ok for me)
- Even with screen on, status bar notification says that fast charging is active and gives "normal" estimated charging times. But the battery level won't increase over time (or only with very low rates).
I already tried various chargers and cables without any effect.
I resetted the phone for several times. I verified that the behavior described above also occurs with a plain phone without any Google or Samsung account or any other apps than stock installed.
Brightness of screen does not really matter (with lowest level you might get very slow (1% per hour) increase in battery life, with highest level it is closer to -1%/h).
I even sent it to the support where they told me they could verify and fix the problem --> without any effect.
I changed the phone. Unfortunately, the new one first seemed to work flawlessly, but showed the same behavior after some cycles.
Interestingly, sometimes (1 out of 10) cable charging with screen on is working at least somehow. Some days ago, I could increase batterery level by roughly 10% within one hour. But I could not repeat that.
I attach screenshots of GSam Battery Monitor which show that charging rate goes down as soon as display is switched on.
Do you have any ideas? How is your phones charging behavior while screen is on?
Best regards,
Christoph
I'm just speculating on this but I always was under the assumption it turns down the charging rate due to heat, having the screen on, GPS going, etc heats the phone. The newer models seem to be more sensitive to it and throttle back faster.
My dock sits on up on the windshield and it doesn't take much when it's sunny out for the phone to stop charging all together, it overheats when running GPS, screen on and the sun is hitting it. I need to find a new mount to move it lower down on the dash...
Thanks for your reply. I also suspected that temperature could play a role here. But I have not been able to verify that yet. Attached you'll find also battery temperature for the charging cycle shown in my previous post. I also let sit my phone in the fridge for a couple of hours before charging without any significant effect.
On the other hand, I find charging rate to be lower on hot, sunny days. Today, with cloudy sky, I could increase battery level by 4% during my 30 minutes commuting time. Thus, if there is a relationship with battery temperature, it's not a simple linear one...
I had to move my phone mount recently because of some changes I made to my car, previously it sat in front of the AC vent and I didn't have issues, now it's not and that sucker overheats and stops charging in no time when it's sunny out. If you can position it where a vent is blowing cold air on it, it should help.
Unfortunately it's already sitting there...
Hi,
I have a charger with a qualcomm QC 3.0 port and other regular 9V 2A ports, so I have the same problem when my phone is connected to QC port, but for some reason it's charging normally when connected to the regular ports.
My phone is the european exynos version.
Interesting, mine is the exynos version, too. I'll try to test a regular port, too.
And also good to know, that I'm not the only one with similar problems...

False Low Battery Alert

My HDX 7" has developed a behavior such that when plugged into charger it shows 100%. But immediately after disconnecting the charger a low battery alert is seen and then it shuts down.
Sometimes (just after that happens) it can be immediately restarted, and the battery shows 100% when it boots, and it behaves normally (gradually discharges) for a while.
Then, again, suddenly the charge will drop from from, say, 87% to 0% instantly, and the machine issues a warning and shuts down.
So I think the battery is actually OK (because it can come back and behave normally for a period, powering the unit for a reasonable time-span, even though it has previously issued the low-battery warning), but there is some sort of bad connection associated with the 'low battery' sensing. .
(I -can- work around it by keeping it permanently on the charger.)
Unit is about 4 years old.
Thanks for any thoughts, and especially if anyone has also had this behavior and been able to correct it.
skyhawk64 said:
My HDX 7" has developed a behavior such that when plugged into charger it shows 100%. But immediately after disconnecting the charger a low battery alert is seen and then it shuts down.
Sometimes (just after that happens) it can be immediately restarted, and the battery shows 100% when it boots, and it behaves normally (gradually discharges) for a while.
Then, again, suddenly the charge will drop from from, say, 87% to 0% instantly, and the machine issues a warning and shuts down.
So I think the battery is actually OK (because it can come back and behave normally for a period, powering the unit for a reasonable time-span, even though it has previously issued the low-battery warning), but there is some sort of bad connection associated with the 'low battery' sensing. .
(I -can- work around it by keeping it permanently on the charger.)
Unit is about 4 years old.
Thanks for any thoughts, and especially if anyone has also had this behavior and been able to correct it.
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Sorry for bad news - textbook symptoms of a failing Li-Ion battery. Voltage momentarily collapses and reported charge level drops dramatically (often to zero). You may be able to nurse a few more good cycles from the pack but total failure is likely not far off. Replacements are getting hard to find; cracking open an HDX without shattering the screen is a greater challenge due to copious use of glue. Your best defense is to keep the device tethered to a power source which *may* slow internal decay and eventual total shutdown due to high internal resistance. Good luck.

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