Resurrected Triumph (Battery)

[nomonkeynodeal]

I just wanted to put this out there somewhere. I was having trouble with battery life so I decided to reset the battery stats and completely discharge the battery. By taking it out of the phone and connecting a couple DC motors to it until they stopped running. What could possibly go wrong.

So anyway, fast forward to the part when my phone is completely dead: It wasn't powering on or charging at all. The charge light wasn't going on. I tried pressing the power button with the battery out, different cables, different computers, a wall charger, etc for an hour. Nothing.

After researching lithium-ion batteries a little I got the idea that it might need just a little charge for the phone to recognize the battery at all. No clue if this reasoning is correct, but I decided to try directly charging it manually.

I connected a 5v dc adapter to the corresponding + and - pins on the battery for 40 seconds. Voltage was previously nothing on the battery, but after this it read ~3v. I put the battery in the phone and it immediately started charging!

 

[thangfish]

Glad you got it back working.

I would just like to caution people that may read this...

1. a lithium ion battery cannot normally be run completely dead while in your phone, because there are measures in the circuit to prevent it. Even if your phone goes to 0 and shuts off, they still have some juice left. They should never be killed completely, because it damages them.

2. lithium ion batteries can explode. Don't try the manual charge thing.

To put it simply: Don't try this at home!

 

[nomonkeynodeal]

No, you should definitely give what I did a shot if your battery is dead. It's very unlikely that battery is doing to "explode" when exposed to an approximately normal charging voltage for less than a minute. If you're unwilling to take a risk like this, you probably shouldn't be willing to drive in a car, or go out of the house, or even step in a dangerously wet shower.

To put it simply: You can get killed living, or sit still and quietly wait to die as the nannies have instructed you.

 

[warrior12]

No, you should definitely give what I did a shot if your battery is dead. It's very unlikely that battery is doing to "explode" when exposed to an approximately normal charging voltage for less than a minute. If you're unwilling to take a risk like this, you probably shouldn't be willing to drive in a car, or go out of the house, or even step in a dangerously wet shower.

To put it simply: You can get killed living, or sit still and quietly wait to die as the nannies have instructed you.

Hes just trying to watch out for peoples safety. Charging batteries like that CAN be dangerous and hes just letting everyone know.

 

[thangfish]

No, you should definitely give what I did a shot if your battery is dead. It's very unlikely that battery is doing to "explode" when exposed to an approximately normal charging voltage for less than a minute. If you're unwilling to take a risk like this, you probably shouldn't be willing to drive in a car, or go out of the house, or even step in a dangerously wet shower.

To put it simply: You can get killed living, or sit still and quietly wait to die as the nannies have instructed you.

True, the risk of explosion is small. The risk of bursting into flames is a little higher.

So normally one weighs the possible advantages against risk.

In this case there are none.
The only thing you did to help your battery life was to reset your battery stats. Li-ion are totally different than Ni-cad.

Just so you know, if a Li-ion battery is completely discharged to 0v, it is ruined and no heroic steps can recharge it.

More to the point, I guess: you didn't revive your battery, you fixed your phone. There was nothing wrong with the battery itself (except perhaps a reduced capacity, from which it would still suffer), as you proved by your results.

Li-ion batteries age from the time they are manufactured, whether they are used or not.
The best way to extend the life of a li-ion battery is to charge it before it gets too low and keep it from getting too hot

 

[nomonkeynodeal]

Just so you know, if a Li-ion battery is completely discharged to 0v, it is ruined and no heroic steps can recharge it.

It was actually discharged to zero volts. Confirmed numerous times over the course of an hour.

you didn't revive your battery, you fixed your phone. There was nothing wrong with the battery itself

So when the battery read zero volts and then read three volts subsequent to charging, what happened there?

 

[thangfish]

It was actually discharged to zero volts. Confirmed numerous times over the course of an hour.

So when the battery read zero volts and then read three volts subsequent to charging, what happened there?

All lithium ion batteries have a chip that prevents discharge below 2.5v. when you reach that point you read nothing, as further discharge is prevented. When you charge back above that point (your phone can't do it), you can again read voltage.

I can provide some links if you would like to read further (or just don't believe me). There is also a post some where on this forum, giving details of how to properly recalibrate the battery level on your phone. It's pretty straight forward.

edit: I found it

http://androidforums.com/triumph-all-things-root/475947-correct-ways-recalibrate-battery-better-accurate-batttery-life.html

 

[jerrspud]

this is the method I use
http://androidforums.com/triumph-al...cts-scaling-other-battery-related-issues.html

 

[thangfish]

Thanks jerrspud! that's the one I was thinking of.

 

[nomonkeynodeal]

When you charge back above that point (your phone can't do it), you can again read voltage.

Right, that's what I did and it successfully solved the problem with the battery. This is exactly what I said was my reasoning in my original post.

Nowhere in my original post do I recommend draining the battery they way I did. I quite clearly acknowledge that this was a mistake. What I do recommend is recharging it as I did in the event it is completely drained and dead.

 

[batvette]

Glad you got it back working.

I would just like to caution people that may read this...

1. a lithium ion battery cannot normally be run completely dead while in your phone, because there are measures in the circuit to prevent it. Even if your phone goes to 0 and shuts off, they still have some juice left. They should never be killed completely, because it damages them.

Yup.

2. lithium ion batteries can explode.

It's not so much they tend to assplode but they will catch fire from excessive internal heat generation.

Don't try the manual charge thing.

Manually charging isn't itself inherently dangerous it's that manually, it's highly unlikely you're giving it a safe or desirable rate of current and voltage. In this case 5v is pretty high. I manually charge unprotected 18650's off a BK digital power supply, you don't really want to give them over 4.2v at any time. Had he applied that 5v with enough current for just a few more minutes... they will go into a runaway heat state, even when you disconnect the charge voltage the internal short will use the battery's stored energy to continue generating heat until it erupts in flames.
(18650 is the most common battery used in all chinese high performance flashlights- and they are also ganged together in most laptop battery packs, but the cells are unprotected individually. Rather than buy the protected cells for $8-10, I get used laptop battery packs and tear them open. Usually the batteries are good. Best of all the per battery cost drops to $1-2. Just getting them apart though is an adventure and can easily result in, well, as fire professionals like to call them, a "conflagration")

To put it simply: Don't try this at home!

As in many things those people who don't already know all this stuff prolly should not. The rest of us know exactly where our fire extinguishers and safety eyewear are located and do just fine.