marknbrandon

Hi Board,

I have purchased the Seidio Extended life battery (2600mAh) about 1 week ago and i do not feel it is performing as expected.

Here are the issues i am facing:-

1.) The phone takes about 1 hour to report fully charged (similar to standard battery), but if i unplug the charger then re-insert, the battery charge is reported at 60%.

When the battery reaches 100% again, i repeat the same process and this time the battery reports as 70%.

This repeats until the battery is "actually" at 100%

2.) The battery seems to drop charge irregularly, the first 10% is lost after a very short period of time (4 minutes on the last check!)

3.) Once the battery reports as being down to 20%, if i re-boot the phone, it then reports charge of 60% again and the process starts again.

I have enclosed 2 attachments to support this information, the image file is a graph i pulled from an app called "Battery Graph", as you can see, the battery level does not drop on a smooth basis, if it was working correctly i would expect a smooth curve, not sharp drops.

The second attachment is a zip file which contains an excel spreadsheet showing the full breakdown of the battery % drop during yesterday.

I have used an app called Battery Refresh to fully drain the battery probably now about 6 or 7 times (as recommended on the back of the battery).

Has anyone else got this battery and is having a similar issue?

Thanks in advance.

Attached Images

Battery % Line Chart.JPG (76.1 KB, 22 views)

Attached Files

Battery % Line Chart.zip (84.1 KB, 2 views)

hef

i think what you need to do is completely discharge the battery and then do a full continuous recharge maybe three or four times so that the phone can adjust to the new higher capacity so it knows how much it can recharge before stopping. i remember having to do a similar thing with laptops when you increase the battery size.

marknbrandon

Hi hef,

Thanks for the advice, but sadly i have already followed this process, in detail i have performed the following actions:-

1.) Fully discharged the battery using Battery Refresh.
2.) Left the phone OFF then fully charged the battery (including the removal of the power several times until the battery was truly reporting 100%.
3.) Ran the root command "rm /data/system/batterystats.bin" once the battery was fully charged.
4.) Ran the battery normally through the day, then ran Battery refresh again
5.) Charged the battery again with the phone OFF

**NOTE** - I performed steps 4 & 5 each night for the past 2 nights

6.) Fully discharged the battery again (last night)
7.) Today i have charged the battery with the phone ON

So far....Same results.

Brendanmurphy

No battery but the OEM battery will report properly within the android system. It may say your losing 10% but you are not the phone just cannot read the battery properly.

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marknbrandon

Hi,

I do not quite agree with the last post to be honest.

My housemate has a Seidio battery also and his phone (G1) reports the battery correctly and also the power % remaining correctly.

I have reset the battery stats in Android and it is still reporting incorrectly, so i suspect it may very well be a faulty battery.

There is no reason why the phone should lose 10% within the first 5 minutes of being unplugged, then regularly drop 10% on average per hour, then spend 5-6 hours at 5%, then back up to 60% again if i re-boot the phone.

fejker

Just a thing about Li-ion batteries. It's not a good idea to discharge them completely. When doing that you corrupt the fuel cells and with time loose battery capacity.

Here's some useful info:
How to prolong lithium-based batteries

QUOTE:
A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.

colnago

But is the G1 running the same OS as the Droid? I also have a Seidio, for a Motorola Q, but it reports charge levels accurately. "EVERYONE" with the Droid is reporting incorrect readings with the Seidio, even someone who bought another "off-brand" extended battery:

Want longer battery life? Seidio's extended batteries are ready.


...it's not the battery.

FWIW, the Seidio should have come with "conditioning process" instructions.

cdl

Sorry I can't help on this, but I actually have a question, if you don't mind: does the extended battery make the Milestone much thicker? Or does it fit in the very same space as the standard battery?

Thanks

colnago

Any battery that is above 2000mAh for a cell phone is most likely going to be "double thickness" of the OEM battery, and require a larger battery door. Its just the nature of the current technology. More power, bigger form factor.

seidioseidio

Hello,

Thank you for your comment! We wanted to see if we could clarify a few things for you:

1. Motorola Droid is not able to read the battery meter correctly because of Motorola's programming limitation. The firmware was wrote to not accept higher capacity batteries than the OEM ones. Therefore, when you have our 2600mAh, you may get some incorrect readings.

2. Based on the above, please note that we recommend you charging it full by leaving it on the chargers for more than 8 hours, or overnight.

3. Some people have had luck with the free Widget "Battery Left" on the Marketplace and teaching it to "learn" about the high capacity batteries. We are not affiliated with Battery Left and its developers, so please use the app at your own discretion.

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Regards,

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forum@seidio.com

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marknbrandon

Hi seidioseidio,

Thanks for the information.

I will give that app a try and see how i get on.

One question though....When the battery is fully charged (or apparently fully charged - i.e, it goes down when unplugged then plugged back in again), the charge light goes out and as far as i can tell it does not charge the battery anymore. When i charge my battery (the first charge of the day without unplugging it), it takes about 1.5 hours to report fully charged - leaving it in for 8 hours surely makes no difference after that?

hef

any idea where this specific bit of programming exists?
i'd be up for trying to fix this as an extended battery is one of the more functional accessories someone could buy. i'd quite like one at least.

mikeubell

Does anyone have any experience with the extended life battery for Nexus One? I realize it has only been out for a short time.

hef

wrong forum genius.

vido.ardes

There is a nexus one forum where you will probably get a better answer.

Lets keep this on topic please

jandaco

I have a Seidio extended battery also.
It is not just that the battery is wrongly reported the whole charging regime is wrong. Charging overnight is not convenient and Seidio should have warned of this problem or bring out a fix.
When I tried 'Battery left' I used it till the phone turned off as instructed and got 63hours, admittedly I don't use the phone much. However on recharging it behaved as a standard battery lasting less than 24 hours.
I am now trying the remedy charging overnight to see if I can regain the full capacity, however all this hassle completely negates the advantages of an extended battery and I am very tempted to send it back as not fit for purpose. Maybe it is possible to write an app that will enable the extended battery to fully charge in a reasonable time.
This does only apply to the Milestone as my son's G1 treats the extended battery as one would expect.

dieKatze88

In regards to the 5 minute drop from 100% to 90%:

First of all, the phone is reporting the battery correctly. For sanity purposes most Lithium Ion battery software monitors will round down to prevent a full discharge which causes the cells to be permanently damaged.

Secondly. Is this your first smart phone? Seriously the last two I've had report battery in 10% increments. Its just something you have to get used to. Yeah. Your phone says 100% battery power for about 5 minutes. but it says 90% battery power (actually between 90% and 99%) for a few hours.

hef

seriously, does nobody know where the bit of code is to unlimit or at least change the limit in the software to allow for a bigger capacity battery?
with root it has to be modifyable.

akusokuzan

most of the programming for how the phone operates is in the bootloader, which is locked. the only way we'd be able to change that is with a custom fw, which is impossible with the locked bootloader.

Szadzik

Someone got through to the part where we can overclock, maybe someone could do this.

For the time being just use an external battery with a USB output and you will be fine.

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