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Battery idea, similar to the Maxx. Don't mind the bad drawing.

mbarn

Member
Apr 1, 2010
57
10
NJ
Why can't someone make an extended battery like the Maxx? Instead of just the battery pack, utilizing the entire back to produce a nice streamlined back cover/battery. Utilizing the entire area below gives more room for battery space. See my terrible drawing below.



batteryidea.JPG
 
Only thing is, your camera performance would drop, especially in marginal lighting, as less light would be able to reach the lens. Plus that would be a very expensive battery, it would have to have the latches to attach it built in, etc.

I also wonder how feasible (or host cost prohibitive) it would be to have a battery with non-rectangular/non-uniform shape? It's got to be more costly to manufacture something like that, and may not even be possible except for something CLOSE to that shape approximating two rectangles stacked on each other. I don't know enough about battery technology to answer those questions, just throwing ideas out there for why it may not exist.
 
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I thought lithium ion polymer (vs. standard lithium ion) batteries were supposed to be able to be any shape. If that's the case, it should be possible. Right?

Hmm, wasn't aware of that. If that's the case, I definitely don't see a good engineering/technical reason why it couldn't be done. I guess I had assumed the newer Li Ion polymer tech was similar, but I may be totally wrong. :)
 
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I've long thought this would be an excellent way to create extended batteries that don't create as much of an increase in thickness... or a really giant increase in battery life with an increase in thickness.

There's no technical reason why you can't create a battery whose electrical contacts go into the "well" left by the old battery (I'm not sure if you can actually make that space useful for capacity). I'm guessing the issue is that it's not cost effective. Square batteries can be used in anything - multiple form factors, multiple devices. You can even "fudge" a little by modifying the form factor for an existing battery cell - so if you have a 2000 mAh cell that's a little smaller than the Nexus battery cavity, it's not very expensive to fill out that space.

If you go with something like that, you actually have to design and manufacture a completely different form factor and battery for each device.

That's just speculation but it would explain why this hasn't been done.

Has there been a teardown of the RAZR Maxx that shows the battery? I figured they had done more to the internals than just put a specially shaped battery in there.
 
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How are you accounting for the camera and speaker, if the battery takes up the entire back of the phone?

Also, what about the NFC chip?

You'd obviously have to design the battery such that there is space for the camera.

The speaker is not relevant, it is below the battery compartment.

The NFC would be handled just like it is now - the antenna would still be in the battery.
 
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You'd obviously have to design the battery such that there is space for the camera.
Which doesn't explain how he is accounting for the camera. Taking up the entire back of the phone, with a battery, presents this hurdle.

The speaker is not relevant, it is below the battery compartment.
It depends how far down he wishes to extend the battery to produce a smooth backing which tapers with the phones curve. His illustration extends past the battery bay, in both directions.

With those accommodations, it will likely look like this, which I don't think is the intention (a large block of a battery, masked by a cover).

seidioonline.com

My guess is this is exactly why Moto went with a sealed battery. Too many design limitations with anything removable. :(
 
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Re various battery shapes, it IS possible, but not economically feasible. Virtually all Li-ion batteries used in portable devices, including 1) standard prismatic Li-ion ones with wound 'jelly roll' electrode-separator assemblies stuffed into aluminum cans, 2) stacked-electrode Li-ion types with non-sticky separators, vacuum-packaged in flex pouches or 3) mostly large-area Li-ion 'polymer'(sic!) cells, such as those used in tablets, ultralight laptops and the newest smart phones, are rectangular in shape, with a uniform thickness. Those that are built-in into some curved plastic covers do not efficiently fill the space inside the cover/pack. Making nonrectangular cells is quite possible and it has been done (also, all pacemakers etc have semicircular cells of a different type), but not on a high-speed assembly line; just imagine having to punch out all shapes and sizes of the electrodes, then assemble them in the right order, with the anode always 0.5 mm wider along each edge than the cathode... It would cost several times more than a few bucks a typical cell costs to make, at a significantly lower production speed and yield.

Now, you may ask why do we have to pay $30 or more for a $1 control circuit and 10 cents worth of plastic, and who pockets the difference, but it's a different question... ;-)

And, on a separate note, there are no true polymer batteries on the market; true polymer batteries only work at temperatures higher than 60-80C. All these so-called 'polymer' cells either use microporous polyethylene or polypropylene separators coated with a thin layer of a polymer adhesive (like in a Scotch tape) to bond the electrodes, with the entire stack or jelly roll infused with a liquid electrolyte, or a monomer is added to the liquid electrolyte before the infusion and then polymerized at higher temperature to trap the liquid in something that feels like a Jell-O. Importantly, all of these cells always contain a liquid electrolyte; the gluing is done just to keep the electrodes and separators in close contact without the need for a heavy metal can.
 
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Probably possible, but only if manufacturers start caring about battery life. Manufacturers have been neglecting battery life for a while and its sad. Thank God for the maxx because it will force manufacturers to change that in the near future. they need to realize 6-8 hours of battery life is not acceptable.......and neither is expecting people to change to a backup battery in the middle of the day.
 
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Manufacturers of what: phones or batteries? Don't you think your statement is a bit overreaching? They certainly do care, but when you try to design both a very slim phone and a phone with long talk/use time between recharges, as with everything in life, they are faced with a dilemma. The radio needs a certain minimum power to get the high-speed signal through all that local and galactic electromagnetic noise to the tower; there's no help coming soon for that problem. The LCD screen backlight or AMOLED needs a lot of power to overcome the ambient light (sun light!) and provide a good contrast; I'm not even mentioning the microprocessor... And you can only safely squeeze so much energy into a tiny battery before you turn it into an pocket-sized explosive device... Just think a bit about it before you start generalizing.
 
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Which doesn't explain how he is accounting for the camera. Taking up the entire back of the phone, with a battery, presents this hurdle.


It depends how far down he wishes to extend the battery to produce a smooth backing which tapers with the phones curve. His illustration extends past the battery bay, in both directions.

It's an illustration done in paint. It's not hard to understand what I mean. I appreciate your over exaggeration.
 
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It's an illustration done in paint. It's not hard to understand what I mean.

Come to think of it, the easiest way to design such an extended battery would be to have two cells in parallel: one more or less the original size, and another thinner cell covering most of the phone back. Such 3 cells, although larger in size, are used in the tablets; they can be made as thin as 2-3 mm, and the lost capacity would be made up by the larger area. The larger cell would have to end below the shiny plastic around the LED as nobody would make a cell with a cutout...
 
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It's an illustration done in paint. It's not hard to understand what I mean. I appreciate your over exaggeration.
:rolleyes: It has nothing to do with paint and wasn't an attack on your drawing. I was also going by what you stated, below:

"utilizing the entire back to produce a nice streamlined back cover/battery. Utilizing the entire area below gives more room for battery space"

The above led me to believe that...you were using the entire back of the phone...as you both stated and illustrated. No exaggeration on my part, and it is what Moto did with the Maxx, only within a sealed unit, which allows them to work around certain practical/function issues while still lending to aesthetics. Its the problem we run into with a removable battery, hence the odd looking seido 3800 unit, which is still a "square battery pack", with an attempt to address the above considerations I had listed.

In short, we would need a new OEM nexus, purposely designed, to see anything like the Maxx (realistically). There have been articles mentioning why removable batteries result in design limitations or compromises, especially in thinner phones.
 
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