Help Droid battery issues - Charging to slowly

[twiy06]

So i got my droid two days ago and I am a technology consultant for 12 years.

I have had the iphone and curve for a long time together.

I can safely say that the droid is the current king of the hill best phone on the market. Having said that i am having battery issues.

My friend got the phone too and had battery issues where the battery just didnt charge or charge extremely slow. I feel like my battery is doing the same.

It drains very fast... and by the end of the day its at 10%. That doesnt bother me because of how much i use the phone.

What bothers me is how slow it charges. It literally take like 2 hours to get a full charge using AC adapter! With the adapter plugged into my computer it takes roughly 3 hours to get a full charge!

I am wondering if my phone is a lemon. How long does it take you guys to do a full charge? I am wondering if because the verizon rep gave me the battery at 50% charge and i started using it... did i fry my battery? Thats not supposed to happen on new droids.

All feedback is appreciated. I might go exchange it and get a new one unless this is normal.

 

[Barbara]

So i got my droid two days ago and I am a technology consultant for 12 years.

I have had the iphone and curve for a long time together.

I can safely say that the droid is the current king of the hill best phone on the market. Having said that i am having battery issues.

My friend got the phone too and had battery issues where the battery just didnt charge or charge extremely slow. I feel like my battery is doing the same.

It drains very fast... and by the end of the day its at 10%. That doesnt bother me because of how much i use the phone.

What bothers me is how slow it charges. It literally take like 2 hours to get a full charge using AC adapter! With the adapter plugged into my computer it takes roughly 3 hours to get a full charge!

I am wondering if my phone is a lemon. How long does it take you guys to do a full charge? I am wondering if because the verizon rep gave me the battery at 50% charge and i started using it... did i fry my battery? Thats not supposed to happen on new droids.

All feedback is appreciated. I might go exchange it and get a new one unless this is normal.

My first full charge took an hour and a half with the wall charger. That was when the battery was almost completely discharged. Subsequent charges have been less than an hour but that was with the battery at 40% or above when I started the charge.

 

[JoeKC]

Two hours doesn't sound that bad. My BB Pearl has always taken that long.

 

[bubbarob1978]

From 20%-50% my battery takes anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes to fully charge using wall outlet. From what I have read, my times are in line with others. It seems like the Droid charges rather quickly using the wall outlet option versus just the USB cable hooked to your laptop etc..

 

[diddiyo]

Sitting on a train right now. Figured id charge it since thwre was an outlet next to the seat. 80% to 'charged' in less than 10 minutes?! :O

 

[GrandMasterB]

Every Device I can remember having so far has taken 2:30-3:00 hours to charge. My Droid charges from completely dead/shutdown to 100% in and hour and a half flat. I was very happy with that

 

[The HITMAN]

I always top my battery off. Even if I'm at 99% before I go to bed, I'll plug it into the Motorola Cradle and hook it up via USB to the PC and charge it until I wake up the next morning. I've always kept my batteries in tip-top shape that way.

 

[Kev50027]

I had a charging problem when I got the phone, it wouldn't charge beyond 90%. I depleted the battery completely (until it died), then recharged it, and not only did it charge all the way, the phone seems to last forever now. I use it all the time, and I rarely go below 75% after a full day.

 

[someguy9]

Took me 3 hours to do a full charge from pc

 

[johnlgalt]

I noticed something. I had a Motorola H690 BT headset that also uses microUSB to charge - so I connected that charger to my droid. It takes forever. The BB Storm2 charger, however, took very little time.

So, I did some exploring. I saw somewhere that 800 mA was the recommended current through the lines to charge the DROID, but online I have seen that most chargers (especially car chargers) are only outputting 500 mA. There are other options, though, as I saw at least one simple car charger with USB port on it that puts out 1000 mA. Still haven't gotten an official specification as to what can be sent to the phone.

I think that the current drawn from USB connections to computers is very limited, versus the actual wall charger - and I think this is done on purpose so as to not quickly deplete laptop batteries nor to exceed the USB line voltage specifications. 5V @ 1000 mA is 5W of power, and that can take its toll on laptop batteries if left draining for an extended period of time.

That being said, however, I am to sure if the wall charger is limiting its output or not....and if it is, to what extent....

 

[ktlk]

I must have the lemon of them all. Mine usually won't even take a charge. The thing will be on the charger and the screen will say to hook it up to the charger. If I let it die and wait 15 minutes and then hook it back up to the charger, it will take a charge, slow as it may be. However, it will work for 30 minutes, show a decent charge, then just fail. To top that, when it does complete the charge and is still on the charger, it will show a dead battery a few minutes later. Its like I have to take it off at 90% and then have a 30 minute window to use it. The Verizon store has no idea what it is. Hate to have to send it in and be without a phone for a week...

 

[johnlgalt]

I did some searching online. turns out that not all car chargers are built the same.

iLuv - 5V 500mA output

For only $0.83 each when QTY 50+ purchased - Car Charger (Cigarette Lighter) to USB Female Converter - Black | Car Charger Accessories 5V 1000mA output

For only $3.94 each when QTY 50+ purchased - Car Charger (Cigarette Lighter) to USB/Firewire(1394a) Converter | Car Charger Accessories 5V 500mA output (USB)

For only $6.00 each when QTY 50+ purchased - Car Charger Multi-Socket With Light And USB Port | Car Charger Accessories 5V 500mA output

Zip-Linq USB Power Cigarette Lighter Adapter - ZIP-PWR-DC, $8.95 5V 150 mA min / 400 mA max output

USB Geek, Your USB Solution!! 5V 1000mA output

USB Geek, Your USB Solution!! 5V 2000mA output

USB Geek, Your USB Solution!! 5V 1000mA output (2 UBS plugs, does not specify if this is total output or per port output)

My guess is that wall chargers may do the same, with some transformers offering more current, and thus being able ot charge the DROID faster, than others....

E.g. The blackberry AC charger has a 5V 700 mA output, but hte charger that came with the DROID has a 5.1V 850 mA output.

This, to me, suggests, that I should be able to use hte 1000mA and even the 2000mA chargers with ease....

And if I could find a charger putting out more than 850mA for the home use, it should charge the DROID more quickly, right?

 

[michaelk]

...
What bothers me is how slow it charges. It literally take like 2 hours to get a full charge using AC adapter! With the adapter plugged into my computer it takes roughly 3 hours to get a full charge!
....

heads up on the laptop charging- the USB spec is very clear about how much power a device may pull from the host device (computer). so if the droid is following the spec it can't just pull as much as it wants but must limit it to the USB spec. We're just used to soo many devices ignoring the spec and sucking all they want that it's surprising when one actually doesn't suck all it wants.

Also if it follows the spec (some phones do and others dont)- it's supposed to first hook in with like a trickle charge (100ma off the top of my head), then ask the USB host "hey can I have more power" and ONLY once it has permission from the host is it allowed to draw more (500ma MAX if i remember correctly- compared to the 800ma posted above that a wall wart might provide). Since everyone started aggreeing on micro usb as the new charging standard for smartphones new devices are supposed to negotiate to allow as much as safely can be delivered but since that's a newer thing I'm not sure anything but the newest computers would allow more than the 500ma max of the older usb rules- and hopefully that bit was integrated into the droid (I think it's supposed to short the data connection with a certain resistor or something to signal it wants more than 500ma.)

 

[michaelk]

...

E.g. The blackberry AC charger has a 5V 700 mA output, but hte charger that came with the DROID has a 5.1V 850 mA output.

This, to me, suggests, that I should be able to use hte 1000mA and even the 2000mA chargers with ease....

And if I could find a charger putting out more than 850mA for the home use, it should charge the DROID more quickly, right?

I'm not an electrical engineer or anything but i beleive the droid's charging circuit will only draw a particular maximum mA. for arguments sake lets say it's 800- any charger over 800 will only give the droid 800 becasue that's all it asks for. You wouldn't want a 750 in this made up example but buying 1000, 2000 or anything over 800 wont do you any good. they'll all do 800.

 

[johnlgalt]

As you noted, the USB spec is 500 mA - yet the charger that comes with the DROID provides 850. So, what is the max power draw? That we do not know - we know it is probably more than 500, as it would seem a bit ridiculous for Motorola to make a charger put out more current than is needed (even accounting for fluctuations, this allows for a 40% drop in current and still exceeds USB specification...)

Obviously, though, if the hardware needs more than 850mA of current, the wall charger would probably be providing more, or at least that is what makes sense to me....however, I am still flummoxed as to whether I should get the 2000mA charger or the much cheaper 1000mA charger....

I suppose my question is this - does anyone know how much current the DROID actually is able to draw if given free reign?

 

[syntrix]

I just scanned this thread, but the wall/ac charger will charge faster than a USB cable.

Also charging increments are in 10%... I wish that someone would do 1% drivers.

I see a lot of people complain that they have run 10 hours and are down to 40%. Well that still buys you a lot of time

At least you aren't running an apple product that would be drained in 1/2 that time, with less than 1/2 the screen resolution!

 

[michaelk]

As you noted, the USB spec is 500 mA - yet the charger that comes with the DROID provides 850. So, what is the max power draw? That we do not know - we know it is probably more than 500, as it would seem a bit ridiculous for Motorola to make a charger put out more current than is needed (even accounting for fluctuations, this allows for a 40% drop in current and still exceeds USB specification...)

Obviously, though, if the hardware needs more than 850mA of current, the wall charger would probably be providing more, or at least that is what makes sense to me....however, I am still flummoxed as to whether I should get the 2000mA charger or the much cheaper 1000mA charger....

I suppose my question is this - does anyone know how much current the DROID actually is able to draw if given free reign?

my GUESS would be that it probably draws something just south of 850. I'd guess moto would have included a charger that gets the quickest charge rate. But feel free to buy the 1000mA and let us all know.

actually I have a kill-o-watt meter, I'll fiddle with it and see if it gives me any kind of logical readings- my kids have a 1000mA usb gamestop brick for charging their nintendos- I'll check what the draw is with the moto and with the gamestop and see (but I'm not sure if that tells us everything- there might be variable amounts of loss in the 2 different transformers?)

 

[syntrix]

I'd be wary of running a 2amp charger. Sure the amps are there, but you have no idea of the step down transformer circuit, and if the droid lith-ion can handle that type of a charge.

I could even go and explodering batteries, or render your droid useless.

 

[michaelk]

played with the kill-o-watt a little.

FIRST- the stupid USB block from gamestop doesn't charge the droid- seems the droid is looking for that usb negotiation for acceptable power. So I'd be weary of buying just any old usb charger. ONE time it pulled a few watts and for a split second and then gave up- so it might have been asking the charger if it could have more power but gave up when it couldn't. The display on the droid didn't say it was charging like it normally does. I couldn't get it to do it again was just that once- so not sure what was going on.

then i tried the droid charger and it drew 4 watts or 0.10 amps (I always thought watts were volts times amps- but 119v (at my house via kill-o-watt) * 0.10 amp = 11.9 watts , not .10 so I'm not sure what exactly the kill-o-watt is doing. This is the first time I ever took it out of the box to play with)

Besides the droid charger I also have a chargepod. It's basically a charger sort of octopuss - plug in on mini usb and then it splits it to 6 devices and you can get various adapters. (well hexapuss I guess- LOL). it outputs up to 3 amps. That drew 7 watts or 0.15 amps on the kill-o-watt meter. So assuming the chargepod and the moto transformers are as efficient the chargepod is giving the droid 1.5 times as much juice. So perhaps the droid would use a 1275 mA if given the chance? (850x1.5)

can someone give us (alright me ) the quick explaination of amps and watts?

 

[johnlgalt]

The home charger charges using 5.1V @ 850mA, thus delivering a max of 4.335 W of power, right along what you noticed. Since the DROID was drawing 4A, it is safe to say that it probably uses ~800mA of power.

Power = current x voltage. Therefore, if the Hexapus was allowing the DROID to draw 7W, that would equate to ~1400mA, or 1.4A. That is a significant increase over the 850 suggested by the Motorola home charger, and thus seems to support my theory that allowing more current may allow it to charge faster....

As for overloading the battery, well, one would expect that the charging circuitry would have overload protection, but there is also this - electrical devices will only draw the current they need, the rest gets sent back into the circuit. It's why your standard wall sockets can deliver up to 20A (throughout the total circuit), so you can actually plug in those 1100W Microwave ovens into a wall socket without worrying about tripping a breaker, b/c there is more than enough power there to go around. A difference of voltage, however, can prove disastrous (try using a 9V battery on a 3V incandescent bulb to see what I mean).

At least, that is my understanding of it, although I do realize that there is an innate difference between the electricity in our house (AC) and that being used by most electronic devices (DC).

 

[cpetku]

The charger should be designed for the idle current of the droid plus the charge rate of the battery. Many times a lithium ion battery will be rated at 0.5C for the charge rate. Since C ~ 1.5AH then 0.5C = 750maH and 50 to 100ma for the back light and device operation while charging wouldn't seem out of line. All of this aligns with a 850ma charger, so yes, a two hour charge from near 0% using the droid accessory would make sense. Likewise since a PC is limited to 500ma, the charge time will increase by about 40% so 3 hours makes sense here as well.

Charging a Lithium Ion battery at a substantially higher rate than the cell manufacturer recommends can result in reduced life or damage. Most decent lithium charger circuits are programmable and monitor/adjust the current going into the battery making an over sized external wall adapter useless. Lithium has the highest energy density of all the current battery technologies and gives the best run times, but when damaged it is also one of the most volatile. I'd just stay with the Droid accessories and be safe.

Note: "C" stands for the rated battery capacity

 

[johnlgalt]

Since the house charger has no backlight / LED< I'll assume it is just either using 100mA for operation, or else it is just providing extra current.

Now, as to electronics: again, my understanding was that if you give it more current than it needs it only uses what it needs and shunts the rest back via ground to the system....

 

[DroidsInvade]

I don't really understand all this business about volts and 800a or whatever. I've been plugging my droid in to charge before bed and when I wake up 7 or so hours later it is stuck at 90%. What's that about?

 

[ktlk]

I don't really understand all this business about volts and 800a or whatever. I've been plugging my droid in to charge before bed and when I wake up 7 or so hours later it is stuck at 90%. What's that about?

I would do what I did when mine didn't charge right. Bring it to your closest authorized retailer and have it exchanged on the spot. I called tech support and they placed a note in my account to have it exchanged without question. I did have to do all of their little tests first, but it saved a ton of hassels. The only downside was I had to reload my apps. As long as you write them down beforehand, that's not to hard either...

 

[cboese]

I had similar problems and wrote a little tool, that will show the current available from USB. You can get it for free from the alternative android marketing SlideME (I had to use that one because you need a credit card for the google marketplace and I dont have one).

USBCurrent | SlideME

At the moment it is only confirmed to work on droid/milestone. No root needed!