Warning - Battery Charging

[Guest jonhitch]

Just to let you know of an experience I had over the weekend. I had run my battery right down - I wasn't near a computer to sync and didn't have my mains charger with me. When I noticed I only had a small amount of charge left I decided to turn off the unit and charge later.

When it came to charging I attached my unit to a usb sync cable and left it to charge. However no light came on and I was worried that the connection was not working properly. My Wizard had no charge too so I couldn't turn on to check. I decided to attach to my mains charger and let it top up overnight.

The next morning - still no charge! At this point I was starting to panic. The unit would not respond to anything and would not show it was charging. Agghhh! I went online and found (via howardsforum) that this has happened to a number of other users. Apparently if the charge left in the battery is too low then it will not even take charge!

I tried everything however the only way I was able to charge the battery was to remove it from my Wizard, strip down a USB cable and charge using the bare cables (try at your own risk!). My battery then charged up enough for me to then insert in the machine and the battery to then top up as normal!

So the moral of the story is - don't let your battery run down too low!

[Guest TomaHawk]

thats ridiculous if it happens on all of them

or is it a problem wiht some.

the point of having WM% is so it doesent matter if it runs out.

[Guest jonhitch]

thats ridiculous if it happens on all of them

or is it a problem wiht some.

the point of having WM% is so it doesent matter if it runs out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd be interested to know how many others have had this problem. This was the first time in 2 months for me - I'll be more careful of running it down in the future!

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

You should never attempt to run your battery too low as it can damage it.

Now this leads to wether the battery is poorly designed and does not have a decent undervoltage protection.

[Guest hellfire666]

You should never attempt to run your battery too low as it can damage it.

Now this leads to wether the battery is poorly designed and does not have a decent undervoltage protection.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hello ,

thats a normal problem.. when the battery is down it can happen that the charger can´t charge the battery. You have to give a " shock" to the battery ..that means its ok when you put it on a charger which is not watching what status the battery is having at the moment..

after some minutes or less it should be possible to charge the wizard with your normal charger.

In the worst case a battery which is down can change the polarisation..i don´t know if the word is right smile...

greetings hellfire

[Guest jonhitch]

I'd never heard of that before. Will be more careful in the future!

[Guest andysalmon]

Hello ,

thats a normal problem.. when the battery is down it can happen that the charger can´t charge the battery. You have to give a " shock" to the battery ..that means its ok when you put it on a charger which is not watching what status the battery is having at the moment..

after some minutes or less it should be possible to charge the wizard with your normal charger.

In the worst case a battery which is down can change the polarisation..i don´t know if the word is right smile...

greetings hellfire

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What utter rubbish. That's like saying a kettle won't boil with only a small amount of water in it!! Batteries are designed to be run absolutely flat. It will reduce the working life of them and they much prefer to be kept charged, but it's either a faulty battery of the charging software at fault.

[Guest jonhitch]

What utter rubbish. That's like saying a kettle won't boil with only a small amount of water in it!! Batteries are designed to be run absolutely flat. It will reduce the working life of them and they much prefer to be kept charged, but it's either a faulty battery of the charging software at fault.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would have agreed with you completely if it wasn't for my experience at the weekend. I tried charging it with the mains charger and a number of usb sync cables but with no joy!

It only charged after I had taken the battery out and charged directly using the bare cables! Once it had enough charge in it the sync cable and mains charger were both able to top it up and it has been fine charging since (I just don't let it run down quite so much!).

If it's rubbish then I'm interested to hear your explanation :?:

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Andy I think you missed the word "Not" in your post as Li-ion batteries are not designed to be run flat as you will damage it unlike ni-cd etc.

[Guest hellfire666]

What utter rubbish. That's like saying a kettle won't boil with only a small amount of water in it!! Batteries are designed to be run absolutely flat. It will reduce the working life of them and they much prefer to be kept charged, but it's either a faulty battery of the charging software at fault.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

thank you smile..

i was racing with rc cars ofer ten years ...

and believe me honey a battery which is down can change the polarisation...

and a charger can although have problems to charge a battery where the charging rate is to small... thats a problem of the charger.

i can´t believe that there is a difference betwen the batt in a phone..

we where pushing our batteries really hard .. we always tried to have the most power so with nearly every new cell which was sold on the market we changed our working with the cells...charging discharging and so on...

with older nc batts where pushed down to zero...(more punsh)

but all newer ones don´t like this..

and the thing he told... that he had to put the batt to a charger without the phone shows that he had this problem that the charger could not start the charging...

batteries are desighned to run flat?...smiling ok....nice to read...

believe me the batteries don´t like that really ..they will work but thats not good for the performance..

hellfire

[Guest MitchellO]

I have run my KJAM to 2% and it charged fine.

[Guest Metoo]

What utter rubbish. That's like saying a kettle won't boil with only a small amount of water in it!! Batteries are designed to be run absolutely flat. It will reduce the working life of them and they much prefer to be kept charged, but it's either a faulty battery of the charging software at fault.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You need to check your facts. As awarner says, they are NOT designed to run flat, in fact the internal structure is permanently damaged if they fall below approx. 2.5V per cell. Your analogy is utter rubbish too - you yourself admit that a kettle needs a "small amount of water", i.e. a minimum charge. What happens if you turn the kettle on with absolutely no water?

The batteries used in PDAs and mobile phones have internal controllers which temporarily disconnect the battery when it gets close to the low voltage limit to prevent further discharge. That's why it may become unresponsive to normal charging. If the cell voltage falls below approx 1.5V the controller considers it faulty and permanently disables the battery. This is done for consumer safety - as Lithium can be highly explosive if mistreated (e.g. by trying to charge a faulty cell).

Edited December 16, 2005 by Metoo

[Guest JayX]

the problem is, sooner or later is likely to happen to most of us that the phone is left unattended and drops into the 0%, i mean.. i charge my phone nightly cos i tend to use the GPRS etc during the day, so my battery runs flat pretty quickly, if i'm not staying at my place that night and i'm unable to charge and the next day the phone runs dry without me realising it.. i don't really want to have to start pulling cables apart just to use my phone again. one of the many things lauded about this handset is that due to its OS if the battery did run flat you wouldn't lose your data, but they never mentioned about being able to turn it back on!

[Guest Metoo]

the problem is, sooner or later is likely to happen to most of us that the phone is left unattended and drops into the 0%, i mean.. i charge my phone nightly cos i tend to use the GPRS etc during the day, so my battery runs flat pretty quickly, if i'm not staying at my place that night and i'm unable to charge and the next day the phone runs dry without me realising it.. i don't really want to have to start pulling cables apart just to use my phone again. one of the many things lauded about this handset is that due to its OS if the battery did run flat you wouldn't lose your data, but they never mentioned about being able to turn it back on!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's one reason why you have the option of turning the phone completely off (press + hold power for >5s). It allows you to conserve what you have left overnight, and if the power runs out the next day, to electronically "disconnect" the battery (as if you had taken it out) to prevent it draining down below the internal limit.

Edited December 21, 2005 by Metoo

[Guest majorjam]

This is a common problem, with any form of smart charging if a cell falls below nominal voltage it will not charge, you should take battery out of phone for couple of hours (still very small drain on battery whilst in phone) a good battery will recover- then insert back into phone and charge :)

[Guest dan13l]

I let my Vario battery deplete to the point where the device wouldn't turn on, and it charged with no problems at all. I probably won't do it again though :) - I tend to try to keep the phone topped up.

[Guest DarkEmerald]

I tried everything however the only way I was able to charge the battery was to remove it from my Wizard, strip down a USB cable and charge using the bare cables (try at your own risk!). My battery then charged up enough for me to then insert in the machine and the battery to then top up as normal!

This forum has already proven itself to me once with excellent advice about ActiveSync, and now here. I managed to drain off my Qtek Wizard's brand-new battery unexpectedly and had this same fairly horrifying experience.

I dared the bare-wire jump-start and it worked like magic. But first I had to go hunting for a little tech info about USB cables. Thought others might find

this article of value. It illustrates exactly what you'll find inside a USB cable and gave me the nerve to apply those bare wires to the + and - terminals of my rather expensive little battery.

Wizard is charging now. Thanks, jonhitch!

[Guest Alan_D]

I wonder how many of you have read your phone manual properly ?

My Vario has the following statement in it

Some batteries perform best after several full charge/discharge cycles.

Obviously I don't know if this statement is made in O2 or Orange or I-Mate manuals (be interesting to hear from any of these owners who know where their manual is ;) )

I remember a couple of years back being told that new Li-ion batteries have to be "conditioned" to work at their optimum by doing the full charge/discharge cycle a couple of times.

I'm not knowledgable in this so only going by what I was told but i "conditioned" my Vario by running the battery down until I could no longer turn it on and it charged completely both times after and I have also had it discharge normally such that it shut itself off and it charged AOK afterwards.

Maybe this is the "fix" for the charging issue :??:

Have a stonking New Year everyone :D :D

[Guest Metoo]

Yes I've found this true, particularly on laptop Lithium batteries. Two full cycles after the first charge brings them to full performance.

BUT, this means charging as soon as the low voltage warning appears, as the discharge curve is very steep at that point. Running it down further (e.g. until the device won't turn on) runs the risk of the voltage dropping too much and triggering the internal battery protection.

Edited December 28, 2005 by Metoo

[Guest JesseRPI]

This really helped explain how lithium ion batteries work, and what the best way is to care for them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

[Guest jonhitch]

This forum has already proven itself to me once with excellent advice about ActiveSync, and now here. I managed to drain off my Qtek Wizard's brand-new battery unexpectedly and had this same fairly horrifying experience.

I dared the bare-wire jump-start and it worked like magic. But first I had to go hunting for a little tech info about USB cables. Thought others might find

this article of value. It illustrates exactly what you'll find inside a USB cable and gave me the nerve to apply those bare wires to the + and - terminals of my rather expensive little battery.

Wizard is charging now. Thanks, jonhitch!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Glad to be of help DarkEmerald - like me you will probably never let it run down again. I'm keeping hold of my stripped down charger cable just in case though!

As for doing some full charge and discharge cycles I usually wait until I get my first warning message before charging (around 20%). If I had a new battery should I actually run it till it turns itself off - I was under the impression that newer batteries didn't have those problems anymore!

Happy New Year O:)

[Guest Emad]

My battery ran to zero when abroad which was annoying.

Didn't take charge with a usb cable.

Came back, didn't take charge with a motorola usb charger (red led).

Did take charge with the ac adaptor provided with it. Weird.

Have ordered a new battery from ebay just in case of future run downs - about £14 or so.

[Guest NightFox]

This is a common problem, with any form of smart charging if a cell falls below nominal voltage it will not charge, you should take battery out of phone for couple of hours (still very small drain on battery whilst in phone) a good battery will recover- then insert back into phone and charge ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I used to have a Creative Zen MP3 player (still have it actually) - the battery charge wasn't lasting to good, so I followed the instructions on their web site for "reconditioning" the battery - run it COMPLETELY down and then recharge it. Trouble was, once it was completely flat it wouldn't recharge for the same reasons as everyone's talking about here - sealed unit as well so no way of removing the battery! D'oh!

[Guest m1.carson]

This sometimes works with old laptop batteries that won't charge [li-ion], take them out and warm them gently, airing cupboard/ cool radiator, you have to give them long enough to warm right through, then try a charge.

My granny taught me that one, it can work.

[Guest jonhitch]

Interesting - thanks m1.carson - worth bearing in mind!