PPCGeeks - battery life increaser ***Huge***

PPCGeeks (http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/index.php)

- HTC Touch Pro (http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=63)

- - battery life increaser ***Huge*** (http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=47625)

Re: battery life increaser ***Huge***

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lat (Post 558793)

a) It's bad to discharge your battery completely every time; topping off li-on batteries helps reduce cycles and will give it a longer life

b) USB ports provide a maximum of 500mA, and your wall charger likely provides something like 2000mA. The higher amperage one will charge your phone faster, but reduce the lifespan of your battery (heat, etc). Please note that's reducing the LIFESPAN, not the immediate charge.

c) If you really want to be anal, for different test conditions, you have to use the exact same programs and monitor current draw with a program such as acb Power Monitor. It's not likely that you do that, so that pretty much makes any observations invalid, as it'd be based upon your useage (programs, backlight dependant on light sensor, etc) of the day.

a) Discharging my battery every time helps me to get better battery life. I am not talking about overall life I am talking charge to charge. I am not concerned right now with overall life.

b) I see where you are coming from, but my phone gets hot if I am texting too much without it charging, so I don't guess I care if it gets hot while charging.

c) I really don't want to be anal. I don't know when I said I did. My diamond would go from 8am to 12pm with moderate use and be dead. I am pretty much doing the same stuff plus more with my TP and it lasts all day, usually from 8am til about 10pm or 11pm. That is a drastic improvement. I can actually turn my wifi on and the phone not be dead in 30 minutes!!!!

Re: battery life increaser ***Huge***

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baffles (Post 559283)

Okay, lets get a few things straight here. There seems to be a lot of stupidity in this thread, false information, guessing, whatever.

First of all, the reason you were to discharge till it shuts off every so often then charge fully has nothing to do with the battery itself, but the electronic calibration of the fuel gauge. The reason you seem to get better battery life after doing it is because the percentage it reads is more accurate after doing so. There are no mysterious chemicals in the battery or 'gunk' from manufacturing that have to be broken down.

As far as the USB port goes, USB ports top out normally around 500mA, versus the wall charger which puts out 1 amp. So it gives you half the power. However, power output doesn't mean too much, because li-ion batteries have to be charged specifically. As the battery gets fuller, the charge rate must be decreased, which is why the last 20% or so always takes the longest. A slow charge versus a fast charge doesn't really affect the battery 'conditioning' or whatever, it just pushes the battery more to its limits while charging. The only effect this has is long term usability being affected.

Lastly, these batteries are fine to "completely drain." The phone shuts off long before the battery is even close to being deeply discharged. Running it until it shuts off doesn't run the battery flat, it just runs it to the low end of its useful cycle, so there isn't much more damaged caused by a full cycle than if you only drain it half and recharge it.

Baffles you speak wise words man. haha. I want to talk about the last thing you said though because I had 2 batteries with my touch. I would run the phone to dead every single time I switched batteries. So it would die I would switch batteries and repeat. The old battery in my vogue now won't even take a charge. The one I bought is still fine, but it had probably 100 less cycles on it. The dead battery I only had for about 6 or 7 months btw.

Re: battery life increaser ***Huge***

Quote:

Originally Posted by Palladium (Post 558896)

Let's hit the inaccuracies one at a time.

1) the biggest battery drains are (in order, DOCUMENTED)
Cellular Radios--- 400-700 mA
Wifi Radios 300-400 mA
Bluetooth Radios 200-300 ma
GPS Receiver 200-300 mA
Backlight 100 mA
LCD Screen 10-20 mA

2) the charge time is slower on USB because you have HALF the charging current available (500 mA on USB, 1000 mA on the HTC Charger)

3) I am not talking about charging with the backlight since most people will not change the default for it to power down after 60 seconds of inactivity on AC power.

4) There appears to be an issue when the unit is allowed to sleep in that it does not draw additional power from the charger USB after the charge cycle is completed, and begins to discharge the battery. In my opinion losing 10-20% of your battery capacity is significant.

D! Don't you just hate it when someone throws numbers at you!

:)

tsp

Re: battery life increaser ***Huge***

Plus, despite the smartest practices and usage, sometimes you just get a better/worse battery. I had two identical backup batteries from Seidio for my 6700 that I used in basically the same way, swapping them every few weeks. One NEVER gave me more than 8 hours, regardless of use. The other always gave me at least 12 hours.

Just after the warranty period ran out (by just a few days), the short-lived one died entirely. The other one is still going strong 18 months later.

Also, has anyone noticed any differences in performance by shutting off the "accept all incoming beams" setting on the TP? I know this was a big battery eater on the 6700, but I'm not sure if it would make any difference on a device without IR.

Re: battery life increaser ***Huge***

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exil3d (Post 558578)

Just what I was thinking. I slower charge is a better charge. A faster charge dont pack all the juice. Kinda like conditioning the batter. The more you use it the better it gets. Except that the slower you charge it.. the more it accepts efficiently.

The battery circuit will only charge as fast as it wants to. You could plug the phone into a 5A USB charger, and it won't charge any faster. You can only LIMIT it, which doesn't make sense, because HTC would have designed the charging circuit to take 1A.

The limiting factor in charging is heat. We could charge it with more amperage, if it was actively cooled. HTC and the battery manufacturer must have decided that 1A was a number that kept things in balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TurboFool (Post 558761)

That part definitely contradicts all advice by battery experts. It's bad for the life of a LiIon battery to let it drain completely.

Yes that is very bad, but also, these phones turn off at 10%-20%, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by esqueue (Post 558841)

These threads are filled with so much false information about lithium batteries that it is ridiculous. Lithium batteries themselves don't NEED drain cycles to help performance. Doing this multiple times is actually bad for a battery. Some manufactures recommend a complete drain only when you thing that the reading is off then this calibrates the battery to get better readings.

Bingo. Laptops have the same thing in the BIOS. It's called "conditioning," but really you are just training the battery guage. Older batteries actually needed conditioning, but not Lithium-Ion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baffles (Post 559283)

First of all, the reason you were to discharge till it shuts off every so often then charge fully has nothing to do with the battery itself, but the electronic calibration of the fuel gauge. The reason you seem to get better battery life after doing it is because the percentage it reads is more accurate after doing so. There are no mysterious chemicals in the battery or 'gunk' from manufacturing that have to be broken down.

Exactly. I have seen my battery guage do some CRAZY stuff. Sometimes it is accurate, sometimes not. I can charge my phone for 5 minutes, and it will go from 10% to 50%. If I do anything on the phone, it will drop quickly. It all has to do with the way voltage is interpreted by the charging circuit, and the battery driver/WM itself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baffles (Post 559283)

As far as the USB port goes, USB ports top out normally around 500mA, versus the wall charger which puts out 1 amp. So it gives you half the power. However, power output doesn't mean too much, because li-ion batteries have to be charged specifically. As the battery gets fuller, the charge rate must be decreased, which is why the last 20% or so always takes the longest. A slow charge versus a fast charge doesn't really affect the battery 'conditioning' or whatever, it just pushes the battery more to its limits while charging. The only effect this has is long term usability being affected.

SOME USB ports do 500mA, but most of the time, you will find that you are putting out much, much less, especially on a laptop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalnel (Post 559674)

Ain't it the truth? There are so many variables that it's hard to figure out what is draining the battery. I have been running battery-monitoring utilities to see what the hell is causing my battery to drain before noon every day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalnel (Post 559674)

Also, has anyone noticed any differences in performance by shutting off the "accept all incoming beams" setting on the TP? I know this was a big battery eater on the 6700, but I'm not sure if it would make any difference on a device without IR.

It's weird, because we don't have an infrared port, but I have heard some people say this. I don't see how it's possible, unless you have BT turned on at the same time, and somehow this setting is causing the phone to "listen more," for incoming BT requests. I don't know.

I can safely say that my battery performance is far below that of my old Touch, but something I would be willing to work with, given the other aspects of the phone work properly--which mine doesn't.