11 replies to this topic

[HeikoH]

G'day!

The battery life of my Skate has worried me ever since I got the phone. It was nice and slim, but needed battery swaps or charging multiple times a day for constant texting and surfing on EDGE and Wi-Fi. I checked online for extended batteries that would save me from the hassle, but I couldn't find any.

Recently I had some time to extend my spare battery (bought from eBay for USD4.50 which originally had half the capacity of the stock battery) with with a genuine Nokia BL-5C. The battery life improved substantially, but I still wasn't happy with the 4+ hour screen time (0% brightness all the time). Last night I added a second BL-5C cell to the pack, which made the phone look much like a banana with my silicone case on, but it doesn't feel too bad in the hand, at least for me. With 13 hours since boot, over 6 hours of screen (half of it 40, and the other 0%) time and Wi-Fi always on, I've managed to kick the battery level down to 14%.



I'll post a few pictures of my power plant tomorrow, in case anyone's interested.

PS. There's a lot to improve (eg using an OEM battery as the main cell to improve capacity even more, modifying a silicone or hard case for a better fit etc).

[omegavesko]

Hah, that sounds impressive. I'd definitely like to see what it looks like.

[HeikoH]

Some pictures as promised. As lazy I am, I can't be bothered resizing them right now.











As a side note, yes, I can't really charge with the silicone cover on the phone right now, but as I only need to charge it at night, I don't really mind. My hard cover will probably arrive in a week which I'll cut and glue into the correct size.

Latest update: 7 hours and 17 minutes of screen time and the battery still had 9% of juice in it. I gave up and put it to charge for tonight. We'll see again tomorrow.

Edited by HeikoH, 11 November 2012 - 11:17 PM.

[omegavesko]

Wow, that's well over twice the screen time I can get out of mine. Great work, I can't say I would've thought of something like this.

[Pablo87]

Hello I want to give you few advices since you like to mod battery to get extra juice.
First: That Nokia BL-5C battery has only 1020 mAh so x 2 = 2040 mAh which is low capacity for two batteries. Forget it and buy original Samsung Galaxy Note battery which have capacity of 2500 mAh and it's ~ same size as these two nokia batteries. Here's picture to get idea what size iz SGN battery:





This one battery in pictures is not original samsung so it has only 30-35 % power of original Samsung battery so i do not recommend it. With this chinese copy of SGN Battery on my note I can get about 2.5h screen on time and with original battery screen on time is around 6.5 - 7h. This comparations are only for you to get idea how low budget chinese batteries are bad and not real capacity as advertised.
And if you buy original samsung you cannot expected that with this battery you will get so much screen on time on Skate as I have on Note because Skate have TFT display and Note have S AMOLED which is far more energy efficient than TFT.

You also could try Samsung Galaxy Note 2 battery which is 3100 mAh and same thickness and height as SGN1 but it's longer:



EDIT: Where did you wired up middle pin from battery ?? And what is for that middle pin ?

Edited by Pablo87, 12 November 2012 - 12:38 PM.

[HeikoH]

Thank you Pablo for the input!
I was thinking of using a Samsung battery as well to maximize space efficiency, but I haven't had resources to buy genuine Skate and Samsung batteries yet. The best idea in my opinion would be buying them from shops with review systems (DealExtreme etc) or refer to reviews on XDA that have links to eBay. I know that Chinese batteries tend to die very fast and I shouldn't really rely on them for building a battery pack. The safest way to do the whole thing would be using Skate's charging controller and attach a single extended HTC (or something similar with truly high capacity) battery to it.

PS. I am aware of the fact that this idea itself is potentially dangerous and you should never connect lithium-ion cells with different wear levels and capacities together.

Edit. The middle pins on batteries are for data (mostly battery model). It isn't connected to anywhete, but gets its voltage through the controller chip. In my Chinese battery there are 2 small cells connected in parallel (double capacity, same voltage), yet in the OEM one there is a single one. I should have described the process more accurately.

Another edit. Since morning I've used my phone for 17 hours 47 minutes and 29 seconds, of which I've kept the screen on for 4 hours 27 minutes and 13 seconds (46%) and Wi-Fi has been on for 4 hours 24 minutes and 36 seconds (16%) - every other moment my phone was on EDGE. The battery still has 41% of charge left.

Edited by HeikoH, 12 November 2012 - 11:08 PM.

[ethan59]

Hard work.
Congratulations to you.

[igibi]

Lawl well why not try and fit there teh battery from ZTE v9a light tab 2,it has 3400 mAh,it is a bit longer but i think it will be better than those two .My ZTE v9a battery lasts for two days with gaming and surfing over 3g and WiFi.

[HeikoH]

The cheapest battery for V9 is USD27 and even that is a remake. I would rather get a battery with similar advertised capacity (an extended one) made for HTC etc, which tend to be somewhat cheaper.

Edited by HeikoH, 13 November 2012 - 03:35 PM.

[razzmataz1478]

HeikoH, on 11 November 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:

Some pictures as promised. As lazy I am, I can't be bothered resizing them right now.










As a side note, yes, I can't really charge with the silicone cover on the phone right now, but as I only need to charge it at night, I don't really mind. My hard cover will probably arrive in a week which I'll cut and glue into the correct size.

Latest update: 7 hours and 17 minutes of screen time and the battery still had 9% of juice in it. I gave up and put it to charge for tonight. We'll see again tomorrow.

What the...? I admire the work you've done here, this is really something!

[HeikoH]

Thanks for the supportive words! By the way, has anyone tried buying this Pisen battery ( http://item.mobilewe...nid=36783782359) or has found genuine batteries sold online? Every one sold on eBay tends to have Chinese text above the bar code, rather than warnings in different languages as my original one has.

[HeikoH]

It has come to my attention that after upgrading from CM 7.2 to Paranoid, my battery life has increased. Both times I was using equal amounts of Wi-Fi and EDGE.


On my usual day to day route, Paranoid seemed to have better reception than CM 7.2.


And also the screen on time. Both being on the same level.


On CM 7.2 I was also using TxPower, but it doesn't seem to work on ICS.

Edited by HeikoH, 30 November 2012 - 01:51 AM.