Droid runs without the battery

[ajm144k]

Did anyone catch this yet?

If you take out your battery, then plug in your Droid to the charger... it turns on. I've always thought phones should do this, but I've never had one that did until now.

It acts normal, as in still connects to data and voice, etc. I can't really see how this is too beneficial, but thinking back on the days of a blackberry, when those things' battery died the phone's data and voice would not turn on with or without the battery until about 20 minutes of charging.

 

[Hockey4jack]

This works for many phones haha.

 

[superdesi]

I've heard not to do taht with electronic devices that have batteries and chargers. something about teh circuits messing up when the device is plugged in without a charger so the device ends up taking up more charge from teh battery when u do put it in. but im no electrical engineer, it was only word of mouth, couldve even been a message in a dream

 

[bthoward]

Its not an issue and most anything should be able to handle this perfectly fine and I am actually an electrical engineer..

 

[Geoj]

This is epic...

 

[d1pham]

On long GPS trips you could take out your battery and run it off the charger to conserve your battery...

 

[bthoward]

On long GPS trips you could take out your battery and run it off the charger to conserve your battery...

Or you could just plug it in and not remove the battery and get the same result with less effort...

 

[d1pham]

Or you could just plug it in and not remove the battery and get the same result with less effort...

Not necessarily true. Over the weekend I had my Droid plugged in (using the original charger and power inverter) during a 4 hour drive and I noticed that something very odd was going on. It seemed to be charging, however the battery would never reach full capacity thus making me think the battery was being used to a certain extent. Additionally, by the end of the trip the battery/device were both very hot. That said, on the return trip I removed the battery and ran it off the charger and everything seemed to be fine. Wasn't there a post on this forum indicating that heat would lead to the premature death of batteries?

 

[GtRacerH]

Or you could just plug it in and not remove the battery and get the same result with less effort...

But that would make too much sense for most people.

 

[Barbara]

Not necessarily true. Over the weekend I had my Droid plugged in (using the original charger and power inverter) during a 4 hour drive and I noticed that something very odd was going on. It seemed to be charging, however the battery would never reach full capacity thus making me think the battery was being used to a certain extent. Additionally, by the end of the trip the battery/device were both very hot. That said, on the return trip I removed the battery and ran it off the charger and everything seemed to be fine. Wasn't there a post on this forum indicating that heat would lead to the premature death of batteries?

That's an excellent point. If you're going to leave it plugged in all night because it's in a dock or you're in the car on a long trip, maybe it's best to remove the battery?

 

[Tymanthius]

Not necessarily true. Over the weekend I had my Droid plugged in (using the original charger and power inverter) during a 4 hour drive and I noticed that something very odd was going on. It seemed to be charging, however the battery would never reach full capacity thus making me think the battery was being used to a certain extent. Additionally, by the end of the trip the battery/device were both very hot. That said, on the return trip I removed the battery and ran it off the charger and everything seemed to be fine. Wasn't there a post on this forum indicating that heat would lead to the premature death of batteries?

I leave mine plugged in a lot, and it always reaches 100% w/o excessive heat. It does get slightly warm, but not even enough to make my hands happy on a cold day.

I'd suspect it has something to do with your particular setup, than the Droid in general.

 

[d1pham]

I leave mine plugged in a lot, and it always reaches 100% w/o excessive heat. It does get slightly warm, but not even enough to make my hands happy on a cold day.

I'd suspect it has something to do with your particular setup, than the Droid in general.

Nothing spectacular with my setup. I had it in the cardock hooked up to the original charger plugged into a power inverter. I don't even attempt to touch crappy car chargers. Anyway, I've verified this on other Droids and long extended use of the Navigation feature heats up the device.

 

[Barbara]

Nothing spectacular with my setup. I had it in the cardock hooked up to the original charger plugged into a power inverter. I don't even attempt to touch crappy car chargers. Anyway, I've verified this on other Droids and long extended use of the Navigation feature heats up the device.

Can you test and see if it heats up the device while plugged in on Navigation with the battery out? I would be interested in the outcome.

 

[Tymanthius]

Nothing spectacular with my setup. I had it in the cardock hooked up to the original charger plugged into a power inverter. I don't even attempt to touch crappy car chargers. Anyway, I've verified this on other Droids and long extended use of the Navigation feature heats up the device.

I don't use Nav, so that may well be the diff. The processor is working harder on yours than on mine.

I'm a cable guy, and I use my Garmin for finding addresses. Not as nifty as the Droid, but easier to type into 10 times a day. And I've had hit & miss results with the voice recog. But I've always had that, b/c my voice is 'fuzzy' according to my ex-wife.

 

[d1pham]

Can you test and see if it heats up the device while plugged in on Navigation with the battery out? I would be interested in the outcome.

Yup, I did. The device was definitely running warm (increased CPU usage + being docked?) with the battery pulled. To any extent, whether it was the device or battery itself warming up, I don't think it is good for the battery to be exposed to any type of excess heat.

 

[d1pham]

I don't use Nav, so that may well be the diff. The processor is working harder on yours than on mine.

I'm a cable guy, and I use my Garmin for finding addresses. Not as nifty as the Droid, but easier to type into 10 times a day. And I've had hit & miss results with the voice recog. But I've always had that, b/c my voice is 'fuzzy' according to my ex-wife.

 

[Kase]

I think its smart to take battery out on long trips. ive had the same problem where i would use google navi and my battery was at 60 percent and took a 2 hour trip and when i took it off the car charger it was still @ 60%. my previous laptop i used to use it while charging and in less than a year the battery went dead. i bought a new laptop and now i take the battery out while i used it @ home and no prob with the battery.

 

[ajm144k]

This works for many phones haha.

care to expand? maybe name two other devices that do this? i've never had a phone do this for me, and always wondered why they didnt (since laptops do).

 

[DuckHunter]

I'm thinking about using the Droid for a long trip coming up... like a full day of interstate travel. My only concern right now is the temp. I've used the Droid for 1-2 hour drives and it works great...but gets hot. Is this something I should be concerned about? I imagine if it gets TOO hot it would shut itself down.

 

[cgalbraith]

Not necessarily true. Over the weekend I had my Droid plugged in (using the original charger and power inverter) during a 4 hour drive and I noticed that something very odd was going on. It seemed to be charging, however the battery would never reach full capacity thus making me think the battery was being used to a certain extent. Additionally, by the end of the trip the battery/device were both very hot. That said, on the return trip I removed the battery and ran it off the charger and everything seemed to be fine. Wasn't there a post on this forum indicating that heat would lead to the premature death of batteries?

Any device sold to the public will have a built-in mechanism to prevent overcharging, excess heat, and possible fire. The manufacturers lawyers would absolutely insist on it!

In your case, I suspect that your inverter (converts 12V DC into 120 V AC) might be the culprit. Inverters, especially inexpensive ones, don't produce anything like a pure sine wave and I've seen that create problems with devices that expect a pure sine wave voltage waveform in the past. If you want to be sure, use the car charger adapter to charge the phone and see if you get the same result.

I charge mine with the car charger adapter (from Verizon) and have had no heat issue and the phone charges to 100% and stays there.

Hope this helps...

 

[ac3smith]

Any device sold to the public will have a built-in mechanism to prevent overcharging, excess heat, and possible fire. The manufacturers lawyers would absolutely insist on it!

In your case, I suspect that your inverter (converts 12V DC into 120 V AC) might be the culprit. Inverters, especially inexpensive ones, don't produce anything like a pure sine wave and I've seen that create problems with devices that expect a pure sine wave voltage waveform in the past. If you want to be sure, use the car charger adapter to charge the phone and see if you get the same result.

I charge mine with the car charger adapter (from Verizon) and have had no heat issue and the phone charges to 100% and stays there.

Hope this helps...

Same here. Verizon car charger with the car dock. I run google navigator all the time and the phone always works well and charges while running without getting more than warm.

 

[Grecho]

Not necessarily true. Over the weekend I had my Droid plugged in (using the original charger and power inverter) during a 4 hour drive and I noticed that something very odd was going on. It seemed to be charging, however the battery would never reach full capacity thus making me think the battery was being used to a certain extent. Additionally, by the end of the trip the battery/device were both very hot. That said, on the return trip I removed the battery and ran it off the charger and everything seemed to be fine. Wasn't there a post on this forum indicating that heat would lead to the premature death of batteries?

its actually battery management, lithium ion batteries will benefit in the long run from not being left on 100% charge all of the time while plugged in for extended periods, laptops have the same management options, for optimized battery life.

 

[Grecho]

Any device sold to the public will have a built-in mechanism to prevent overcharging, excess heat, and possible fire. The manufacturers lawyers would absolutely insist on it!

In your case, I suspect that your inverter (converts 12V DC into 120 V AC) might be the culprit. Inverters, especially inexpensive ones, don't produce anything like a pure sine wave and I've seen that create problems with devices that expect a pure sine wave voltage waveform in the past. If you want to be sure, use the car charger adapter to charge the phone and see if you get the same result.

I charge mine with the car charger adapter (from Verizon) and have had no heat issue and the phone charges to 100% and stays there.

Hope this helps...

I can also confirm that i do not have any problems while using the verizon car charger.

 

[shanen]

It was an active thread for a while, but upon reviewing it I'm not sure that there was any conclusion here... I can add a few data points, including a fresh one. Even if there is no definitive answer, maybe someone has a long experience to report? Or perhaps I should be the one to start a long-term experiment?

First, even before finding this thread, I had discovered that this (booting from the USB without the battery) was also true for my new Huawei Android smartphone. I never tried this with my old HTC, but that was partly because the antenna was in the cover of that phone. If this is a safe mode of operation, then it might be something I should do on a regular basis, since I am often tethered with the USB cable for long periods of time. There was some concern expressed about the quality of the power from a USB port, but in general I think that's going to be pretty well filtered and safe.

Second, the reason I have the new Huawei is because the HTC prematurely killed its battery and HTC could not or would not explain such things as discussed in this thread. I remember reading that the HTC phone had a thermal cutoff that was supposed to protect the battery from overcharging, but there were a couple of times it went into an overheated mode with strange flashing. At the end, as the battery was becoming kaput, it sometimes refused to charge completely, so I regard that as in important symptom of a near-death battery.

One additional thing I've been wondering about is whether or not carrying the phone in a shirt pocket will reduce the life of the battery through body heat... Whatever the reason, I hope my new Huawei lasts longer--but one of my criterion for selecting this phone was the relatively low price of the replacement battery.