Hello Google Android world, please welcome this shameful WinMo apostate into your ranks right away because I'm honestly a good guy who wants to start helping you all buy more batteries smartly as, when it comes to capacity claims of everyone other than HTC that I know of so far, you are in a sea of lies and gross exaggerations. I know this from publicly testing ten batteries for the HTC Touch Pro2/Rhodium/Tilt 2, batteries from the same factories that stamped out many of the third party batteries being sold for the N1, including batteries made by Mugen and Seidio.
As of now for the N1 I have tested the OEM which is rated at 1400mAh, two Seidios and an oversized Cameron Sino. At a 250mA current over a discharge from the phone's charging cutoff down to the phone shutdown cutoff (~4.14V and 3.5V respectively), the OEM clocked in at 1357mAh, or 97% of its claimed capacity. That is the best claimed versus actual figure I've seen so far (update: except for a new TP2 2150mAh), though on par with the Touch Pro2's OEMs which I tested, also in the mid 90s. So I say hello a little short on information, inviting any of you who want to help find the truth to let me borrow your batteries to test after which, as I've been doing with the TP2 crowd, I would fedex them right back. Also the information I can bring to the table you can use to get an idea of what to expect from their N1 counterparts.
How this works:
I am using the Computerized Battery Analyzer III. The software which is somewhat sophisticated plots out milliamp hours (mAh) burnt over the descent of voltage from 4.14V to 3.5V, the level of voltage in the batteries at which point the HTC/Google Nexus One and the Touch Pro2s decide to stop charging itself and decide it's time to turn themselves off because they're too low on juice. The CBA software plots out data in graphs, PDFs, CSVs, the whole deal. I hook the batteries up to the CBA which is plugged into my computer. With the software that came with the CBA I have the CBA test the batteries at 250mA, a current in the neighborhood of what the average user would average were he to do his thing (including having push-mail fired up with the screen on bright, downloading and browsing rss feeds, the occasional call, the occasional call being recorded etc) without interruption. Looks a little like this:
I'm not Colombo out to get the third party guys that exaggerate their numbers a little bit nor am I here to rewrite Wikipedia's take on capacity calculation industry standards. You know what? Scratch that, I'm starting to hate these guys, lying and overcharging way too much. If you're a manufacturer or a battery company sympathizer and want to break my balls about voltage cutoffs, read this simple explanation which I feel sums up our position well.
Tl;dr? This is to supply you with information that will help you choose which battery to buy. And to hurt the crooks.
Doug Simmons
Test results and other info.
This table is a hotlinked image to data on the mother site of this, batteryboss.org on which the actual links work. Hit refresh if you've been here before in case your browser cached the image.
Updates:
August 7th: After doing a dry run I ran the AMZER 1800mAh for the EVO. So far it's in first place for being the biggest ripoff on the gallon. First place.
August 5th: Received Carl's AMZER 1800mAh for EVO, doing a dry run discharge now, hopefully get some data for you tomorrow morning.
July 28th: Finished Carl's Seidio 3500mAh for EVO 4G.
July 6th: Completed round one of EVO stock (John Doward). Got the coveted Amzer 1800 and a Seidio 3500, both EVO, en route thanks to Carl Willi.
June 12th: Completed first run of a Mugen 3200mAh for the Hero. Both disappointing and unsurprising. Most cost ineffective battery I've tested.
June 11th: Jasper and Dan's batteries on the way back to them. Thanks again. Hey, Mugen 3200 for Hero and EVO 4G stock on their way! Hey, just got the Mugen. Charging.
June 10th: Completed testing for a no name Hero battery and the stock Incredible battery with the EVO 4G stock on its way. Nice. Returning those batteries to my man Dan and my other man Jasper. Hey, anyone wanna send me that Amzer 1800 for the EVO? Please?
June 7th: Just ran test number one of a no name oversized Hero battery. Underwhelming. Almost done with second test.
April 26th: Ran the Seidio 1600 again after deep cycling a bit (got worse). Got some press!
April 16th: Mailed back Wade his oem 2150 yesterday, today will mail Sean's bad Mugen back to Mugen so he can finally get a damn refund, also mailing back Roto his Cameron Sino 2400 as the testing's done. Currently experimenting with a high then low (repeat 3x) current thing with Roto's Seidio 1600 to see if it produces a more flattering result (his idea). Much obliged fellas.
April 15th: Latest test of a Touch Pro2 HTC/OEM 2150mAh scored 2150mAh on the frickin' dot! Not an N1 battery but just goes to show that if you don't like being lied to, go OEM. Finish oversized Cameron Sino.
April 14th: Was going to have another run of the 1600 ready for you but the god damned windows update forced a reboot last night. Argh. Anyway, just got a Touch Pro2 2150 HTC/OEM battery. Though it's not for our phone, it's worth knowing whether or not HTC can maintain its batting average for its oversized batteries so this will yield important information for you folks. Friggin' windows updates. What the hell is that, Microsoft, forcing reboots? Oh, easily disabled if you hit start > run > blahblah.msc > whatever > whatever? FU MS. /rant
April 13th: Finished first run of the Cameron Sino 2400mAh, weighing in at 2025mAh. Nothing to write home about in terms of a company not exaggerating about their capacity but hey, that's a pretty good price. Unlike the oversized Seidio 3200 this one does come with a back door whereas Seidio is too cool to hook you up with that.
April 12th: Rotohammer's Seidio 1600mAh has arrived, charging. First run of Seidio 1600 an unsurprising disappointment. A Cameron Sino 2400mAh also arrived (thanks Roto) and is just about fully charged for its first run.
April 9th: In a continued effort to outdo himself Rotohammer just ordered a 2400mAh-rated Cameron Sino, on its way to me. Lucky I got his attention. Extremely helpful. Thanks.
April 8th: N1 Seidio 1600mAh should show up today, thanks to Rotohammer.
April 3rd: Finished Seidio 3200mAh, five runs. Learned that it's rated slightly more honestly than Mugen but is the most expensive battery per tested amp hour. Still, highest capacity. I got a new and fast and really badass server and now have a our own forum which you can fire up at forum.batteryboss.org. Finished the new Andida for the TP2, pretty weak, but for some of you the price may be right.
March 30th: Completed dry run of a Seidio 3200mAh. Need to test it at least two more times for conditioning and accuracy but Seidio is now in the lead against Mugen in terms of not lying so much about their claimed capacity. Good job, Seidio.
March 29th: Mugen engineers respond (see table). Rotohammer's Seidio arrived, charging now baby, yeah! Should be very interesting.
March 27th: Rotohammer's sponsoring a test of a Seidio 3200mAh, battery en route. Thanks.
March 20th: Just ran the first test of the Nexus One's OEM, not bad.
March 18th: Just ordered a Google Nexus One. I got an extra battery so the first thing I'm using this for is to prepare a battery for testing. Need to figure out if it has different voltage cutoffs, need to figure out how to present the data and what to do with my site, .. hmmm.
Copypasta from TP2 thread:
March 16th: Mugen wants me to send me another battery to test, I agreed and mailed them back Jeremy's battery. Also mailed Sean/Telek his OEM 1500mAh. Thank you both fellas. Also DeathmonkeyGTX offered to sponsor a test of the HTC 2150mAh -- thank you!
March 13th: Finished no name #2 3600mAh (2466mAh ). In search of voltage cutoffs for Touch Pro/Fuze, please help.
March 12th: Mugen has expressed interest in sending me another battery to test, I expressed willingness. And to you I express curiosity into which device to expand the testing.
March 8th:Finished round two of no name #2 and fake OEM #2. Waiting on another ebay OEM to verify authenticity and a fresh Andida courtesy of my main man Shawn Martell.
March 7th:Added intriguing head to head chart matches.
March 6th:Completed a few more including fresh standard legit OEM, also discovered two counterfeits.
March 2nd: Completed no name #1, cheapest per mAh so far. Dropped Jason's battery off in the mail as promised.
Feb 28th: Completed tests of the Seidio, mailing it to jasonweaver.
Feb 27th: Just received Seidio 1750mAh from jasonweaver in addition to 1500mAh no name ebay cheapo. Nice.
Feb 27th: Mugen 1800mAh testing completed, table updated. Thank you very much jcr916 who bought the battery and had it shipped to me, now I'm going to mail it to him.
Feb 22nd: Thank you jasonweaver and jcr916 who are hooking me up with a barely-used Seidio and a brand new Mugen 1800mAh respectively. Those test results should be interesting as from what I've gathered those two brands have the best reputation and are priced accordingly so let's see if they deserve it.
Telek and I just laid down some dough for five more batteries this weekend. So I'll have a lot of testing to do shortly. Stay tuned for the results!
Testing hardware:
I am using the West Mountain Radio CBA III (Computerized Battery Analyzer) which you can buy along with some toys from these guys for $149. I bought something else from them, didn't like it and they offered to shave the cost of the thing I didn't want off the price of the CBA III without even asking me to return it. Good people. The CBA III is the most accurate and reliable device we could find for these testing purposes and we spent many hours arriving at the final testing procedure. No corners cut. There is no indication whatsoever that the results it's produced are inaccurate, certainly not relative to each other given its consistency. All testing procedures were identical including the current of 250mA, starting voltage and bottom cutoff (4.14V and 3.5V respectively, the top and bottom cutoffs of the Touch Pro2, which I use to charge the batteries with original HTC wall charger). The 250mA current may be a little high and won't produce as flattering a result versus a 100mA current, but it's both a normal current we burn when we're doing stuff on the phone, it keeps each of the three tests inside six hours usually and most importantly we use that current on every single test of every single battery so this is a standardized test. Finally the OEMs get 95% of their claimed rating on this current so we believe that that current is the sweet spot to supply you with information to use to buy your next battery.
Doug Simmons
Want to help?
First I'd like to thank Sean Graham, Jeremey Riley, Jason Weaver, Shawn Martell and Wade Woosley who've decided to do the following for me with TP2 batteries:
The next time you decide to buy a battery, hit me with a PM first so that I can give you my address. Have the battery shipped to me, I'll test the sucker then I'll hit up FedEx and get it to you asap. I have to test the battery at least three times for posterity so give me three or so days to shoot it over to you. I'll write a bit about how grateful I am you decided to help this project, yada yada, and we'll all be happier as a result. This is very valuable information and I know the batteries are also valuable to you so just borrowing your brand new battery for a little while, I realize, is a tall order. But that's a great way to help everyone out without spending a dime. I'll cover the postage to get it to you, I'm not asking for donations, I just want to run the damn tests.
Already have a third party battery but want me to test it anyway? Yes please, I am still interested in used batteries, including used OEMs to get an idea of longevity.
So once I survey the scene for shopping links I'll use this third post to list the batteries on my Christmas list.
Interesting post. Keep it up, love the idea behind this. Is it possible for you to determine how long before the n1 battery goes below 60% of its capacity by chance? and is there anyway to best optimize them for longer life?
This is a great reference. thanks
Do you think you can use your machinery to test the difference between two OEM batteries, running different kernels? For example this Undervolted kernel by Kmobs, a lot of people would be interested in seeing hard stats in the difference in battery useage over the stock kernel.
tips
ram130 said:
Interesting post. Keep it up, love the idea behind this. Is it possible for you to determine how long before the n1 battery goes below 60% of its capacity by chance? and is there anyway to best optimize them for longer life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! As I said I am brand new to Android so I can't tell you what software to use on the phone, including roms and screen brightness managers, to make a single charge go another few miles. I can however, and this may have been what you were asking, tell you that the more you use the battery at lower charges, like below 30%, the faster you'll eventually wear it out. So the more you charge the better. Another thing I can tell you is that the hotter the battery runs the sooner you'll kill its longevity. So heavy things like tethering and youtube for extended periods will lead you to having to buy another battery significantly quicker than if you ran up your miles (milliamp hours) on lower currents. For individual discharges, one thing you may not know is that when the phone is on 3G and you're getting a weak signal or the phone, in GSM world, is on 3G but can only find itself an edge tower, the phone beefs up its transmitting power a lot. If you don't need 3G, especially if you're in a rural area where your signal isn't always strong or you're not getting any 3G (or in an unlucky corner of your office), maybe flip off 3G. I don't know if there's a setting for this on Android like there is on WinBlow but keep your wifi power setting on the lowest unless you know its affecting your wifi negatively too much.
Whenever you've got a data connection open, you're losing a lot more juice. So if you care more about your charge lasting than you do about constant immediate emailing, really frequent RSS updates and so on, go easy on the frequency so that you're using data only when necessary. If you go that route, remember to change all your synced stuff accordingly otherwise it won't help much if you switch your Gmail cycling down to a half hour but forget to turn your Facebook syncing off immediate.
There may be something like this for Android and if there is someone please mention it, but for WinMo, WMLongLife by Chainfire, author of WMWifiRouter, is a radio management program that very smartly decides when to ramp up and down to and from 3G and when to kill the data connection. If something like that does not exist and you're a programmer, check the thread for inspiration. Great if you want to save juice without devoting your life to toggling 3G all the time yourself.
Back to heavy use, if you do have a spare battery, I would advise designating one of them with a sharpie to be the battery you use during periods of your life, like watching videos on a long flight or running GPS software (especially Navigation since it uses not only a lot of processor and does the GPS math but it also uses data) when on road trips, even and especially if you've plugged it in to your cigarette lighter, go with the designated batter for those purposes, that way you can preserve one good battery to make it through a long day of work with no problem without much degradation. Your other battery will wear out faster of course, so for that consider a cheapo no name which, once I get my hands on some cheapo no names, you can buy wisely from information I give you. Don't trust their information, their ratings have no bearing on reality whatsoever. I'll give you actionable data as soon as I can test them.
Third party standalone chargers = BAD idea. Odds are, and certainly if the charger has two pins instead of four, that it gives a constant current charge unlike the OEM which goes hard when it's safe (when the battery's got empty room and is not hot) and then scales back when it senses that it needs to. That means the OEM charger that came with your phone or your phone itself when you plug in another source whether it's the wall charger or USB, or a standalone if you find one that's definitely HTC. The constant current chargers give a weaker charge than it could during most of the charge and then too strong a charge during the final clip. So that way, even though it may fill the tank up all the way, it takes longer to charge and it will hurt your battery's longevity. By how much? Can't tell you, but because of the threat of one of these dinko chargers not even having something to detect the cutoff voltage, ... bad idea, don't trust them unless you're using it on a $6 cheapo.
liam.lah said:
This is a great reference. thanks
Do you think you can use your machinery to test the difference between two OEM batteries, running different kernels? For example this Undervolted kernel by Kmobs, a lot of people would be interested in seeing hard stats in the difference in battery useage over the stock kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And thank you.
When I test batteries with this thing, I charge the battery and hook it up to the tester, not the tester into the phone to see what's doing with the battery as its being used by the phone. So I'm not testing to see how much different software, whether it's a strobe light program, HTC Sense, a custom rom or an underclocking mod, let you get the same happy phone experience while putting a lighter load on the battery. Rather I hook the thing up and tell the tester what load to put onto the battery (I use 250mA) and collect the data in the exact same way as I do for every battery I test. I'm brand new to Android and, though I'm loving it, I haven't even tried to root it yet, let alone experiment with different kernels.
From my experience with WinMo custom roms, I have never found a custom rom that had more battery drain than it would to its stock counterpart -- if that counterpart was running similar things like Sense instead of the old TouchFlo. I imagine your chefs or whatever you call them are pretty competent when it comes to making battery tweaks and trade-off decisions, however some roms will likely burn more rubber in order to deliver you more eye candy. In my old world there are barebones roms that have everything stripped down just to the point where the thing can boot, thereby delivering the best speed, most free ram, program stability and battery performance. Were I to flash one of your custom roms, once I got over my eye-candy phase at least and prioritized battery performance, I'd go for the new kernels with the least frills and install the frills myself as needed.
So I got my N1 last Friday and was immediately addicted, wailing on the thing, wishing I had immediately gone Android the moment it was first released instead of trying to run messy ported on my WinMo phone which is now collecting dust. That phone, parenthetically, takes a 1500mAh battery whereas the N1 takes 1400mAh. In spite of that, and in spite of the N1 having a larger screen, crazy fast processor and just being much more badass in general, lasts significantly longer than the WinMo phone on a single charge. Both are HTC phones so, unless the screen technology is really a whole lot different, to account for that I can only account for it with superior software. It's been so good to the point that I have been unsure that this project would get much attention from you folks than it's been getting from the WinMo crowd as they may be much more starved for battery information than you.
I love this thing.
If any of you have more advice than that please dump it here.
Doug
Mugen
I'm not surprised by the issue with The Mugen Power battery. I've had problems with them in the past.
See:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2097942&postcount=47
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2104774&postcount=50
I prefer to see a test done on a customers battery, not hand selected units from the manufacturer.
d0ugie said:
So I got my N1 last Friday and was immediately addicted, wailing on the thing, wishing I had immediately gone Android the moment it was first released instead of trying to run messy ported on my WinMo phone which is now collecting dust.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I felt the same way! And since I've been a Linux user for 15 years, It feels sooo good to be fully Microsoft free!
Damnit damnit, Mugen asked me to test another in case the one they sent was defective, asking that I mail it to them first, and I went ahead and mailed it to them, figuring I had enough data, and this not occurring to me. I didn't send back the counterfeits because I wanted to hang onto evidence for who knows what but it never occurred to me that whoever cooked up their batteries might have actually labeled them with different ratings. That is absolutely stunning. At least we've got the picture you took. Ouch man, that would really have pissed me off if I had bought a battery from a company I thought was reputable and saw that -- on top of the suspiciously underwhelming performance that led me to dissect it.
Still haven't received anything from Mugen, going to follow up with them. Also just let the guy know who bought that battery for me to test to get in on your discovery to find out how he wants to handle this, assuming they send me another. Other than saying they would I don't know why they'd bother.
Thanks for that, huge help, though also a huge disappointment.
dude! I love this thread I've always been careful when it comes to batteries, bought the nexus seidio 2800 mah battery and I can say there is no way I'm getting double life that they claim.
That should be the next battery to test out even though they only have the 3200 mah one now.
-Charlie
Let Mugen do the right thing and replace an under performing unit. If they want to play games, I'll have 10 people each buy a Mugen battery, I'll send them to you for testing, then open each of them up on video. If they try to deceive me, I'll setup a website dedicated to exposing any fraud.
Rule: Never piss off a geek with resources to prove a point.
d0ugie said:
Thanks! As I said I am brand new to Android so I can't tell you what software to use on the phone, including roms and screen brightness managers, to make a single charge go another few miles. I can however, and this may have been what you were asking, tell you that the more you use the battery at lower charges, like below 30%, the faster you'll eventually wear it out. So the more you charge the better. Another thing I can tell you is that the hotter the battery runs the sooner you'll kill its longevity. So heavy things like tethering and youtube for extended periods will lead you to having to buy another battery significantly quicker than if you ran up your miles (milliamp hours) on lower currents. For individual discharges, one thing you may not know is that when the phone is on 3G and you're getting a weak signal or the phone, in GSM world, is on 3G but can only find itself an edge tower, the phone beefs up its transmitting power a lot. If you don't need 3G, especially if you're in a rural area where your signal isn't always strong or you're not getting any 3G (or in an unlucky corner of your office), maybe flip off 3G. I don't know if there's a setting for this on Android like there is on WinBlow but keep your wifi power setting on the lowest unless you know its affecting your wifi negatively too much.
Whenever you've got a data connection open, you're losing a lot more juice. So if you care more about your charge lasting than you do about constant immediate emailing, really frequent RSS updates and so on, go easy on the frequency so that you're using data only when necessary. If you go that route, remember to change all your synced stuff accordingly otherwise it won't help much if you switch your Gmail cycling down to a half hour but forget to turn your Facebook syncing off immediate.
There may be something like this for Android and if there is someone please mention it, but for WinMo, WMLongLife by Chainfire, author of WMWifiRouter, is a radio management program that very smartly decides when to ramp up and down to and from 3G and when to kill the data connection. If something like that does not exist and you're a programmer, check the thread for inspiration. Great if you want to save juice without devoting your life to toggling 3G all the time yourself.
----------------
Doug
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Click to collapse
Thank you so much for your post. I am truely learning alot from you and thank you for the advice. I will be sure to follow them trust me. I got two questions though, do you think its best to charge your phone off or on? Also my battery was at 15% while on a call then I plugged in. After about 10min I hang up and now its charging while on, its been 12min and so for its at a whopping 106* F, really hot..is that normal? I know heat is bad, but I can't do anything to fix it.
d0ugie said:
Third party standalone chargers = BAD idea. Odds are, and certainly if the charger has two pins instead of four, that it gives a constant current charge unlike the OEM which goes hard when it's safe (when the battery's got empty room and is not hot) and then scales back when it senses that it needs to. That means the OEM charger that came with your phone or your phone itself when you plug in another source whether it's the wall charger or USB, or a standalone if you find one that's definitely HTC. The constant current chargers give a weaker charge than it could during most of the charge and then too strong a charge during the final clip. So that way, even though it may fill the tank up all the way, it takes longer to charge and it will hurt your battery's longevity. By how much? Can't tell you, but because of the threat of one of these dinko chargers not even having something to detect the cutoff voltage, ... bad idea, don't trust them unless you're using it on a $6 cheapo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean standalone? i bought a motorola phone charger because the US pins don't fit here, i did notice the output is lower, so i expect long charge time. Is that still going to have the same problem not throttling it down at the end.
I suppose my best bet is a pair of pliers to bend the htc charger pins to fit in our wall sockets.
Also, in regards to heavy, for example navigation+ music in a car. Does having it plugged in to power help with that? what happens when it is simultaneously charging and discharging? I also suppse a good tip is to place the mount in front of an air-conditioning vent too, if it is a warm day, the phone will get super hot in minutes, but if you are air con-ing, it will stay cool.
ram130 said:
Thank you so much for your post. I am truely learning alot from you and thank you for the advice. I will be sure to follow them trust me. I got two questions though, do you think its best to charge your phone off or on? Also my battery was at 15% while on a call then I plugged in. After about 10min I hang up and now its charging while on, its been 12min and so for its at a whopping 106* F, really hot..is that normal? I know heat is bad, but I can't do anything to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Charging the battery and using the battery both create heat. That said, the total heat you'd get from charging during casual use of the battery should not be great enough to warrant the nuisance of not being able to keep your phone on until you finish charging it each time. But 106F (41 Celsius) is indeed whopping hot and, according to not necessarily precise software tests I did on other HTC devices, that is the neighborhood of heat at which the phone eases back the charging current to the point where the phone may either charge at a current about even with what your phone is burning, leaving it without any net gain while running at too hot a temperature for the health of your battery or it will begin to drop the charging current toward zero so that your phone is discharging, waiting until the temperature simmers down until it turns the juice back up.
But what the hell is causing this if you didn't have things like wifi and GPS and streaming video going while talking to someone on your earpiece at the same time? Could be a runaway process, something whacky with something software related, something wrong with the battery, something wrong with the phone or something messed up with the charger. Since you plugged the phone in and didn't use a separate third party charger into which you plop the battery to charge, since the phone was involved, it's probably not the charger. My first guess would be something sketchy software-wise. The first thing I'd do is go into Settings > About phone > Battery use and seeing if anything looks crazy when it lists what software or functions are accounting for how much of the drain relative to each other. If something is burning juice harder than the screen, the good news is is that it might not be a hardware issue, might be something that could be solved with a soft reset. Could just have been a fluke. Can you recreate the problem? If you shut the phone completely off and it appears to charge without overheating, my guess is that the hardware is okay and there is no defect. And in that case, task management and auto-killing programs may be of interest.
liam.lah said:
What do you mean standalone? i bought a motorola phone charger because the US pins don't fit here, i did notice the output is lower, so i expect long charge time. Is that still going to have the same problem not throttling it down at the end.
I suppose my best bet is a pair of pliers to bend the htc charger pins to fit in our wall sockets.
Also, in regards to heavy, for example navigation+ music in a car. Does having it plugged in to power help with that? what happens when it is simultaneously charging and discharging? I also suppse a good tip is to place the mount in front of an air-conditioning vent too, if it is a warm day, the phone will get super hot in minutes, but if you are air con-ing, it will stay cool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By standalone and third party I meant one of those little cheapo things you plug into the wall, generally without any wiring, and you put the battery into it instead of charging the battery while it's in your phone. Unless it's the OEM, there is some small danger to using these things but the convenience and cheapness, if you use multiple batteries, may make it worth using anyway, though I'd keep your OEM battery away from it and only use cheap third parties in it.
I'm 80% sure that as long as your phone's involved, meaning the battery's in the phone and something is plugged into the phone to charge it, if you use a weaker charger .... no I'm not 80% sure, let me ask Telek first. But if you've got an outlet that packs a voltage that the charger is indicated to be able to handle, typically 110-220 volts or in that neighborhood, then it's just a matter of getting the thing plugged in (safely) whether you buy a cheap adapter or go nuts with paperclips.
When it's charging and discharging, that's two things heating it up, but I'd be surprised if a serious AC made enough of a difference to make it worth moving the phone to where you otherwise wouldn't mount it. In spite of the extra heat from also charging the phone, running it on a low charge is also not great for longevity purposes but I think, I'm speculating, outweighed by the heat. If your battery's running in excess of 40c, that's not an ideal situation, but hey, you gotta drive sometimes and not devote your life to air conditioning alignment and plugging and unplugging your car charger constantly. I've done enough speculating -- Telek's the expert on this, let him weigh in.
d0ugie said:
Charging the battery and using the battery both create heat. That said, the total heat you'd get from charging during casual use of the battery should not be great enough to warrant the nuisance of not being able to keep your phone on until you finish charging it each time. But 106F (41 Celsius) is indeed whopping hot and, according to not necessarily precise software tests I did on other HTC devices, that is the neighborhood of heat at which the phone eases back the charging current to the point where the phone may either charge at a current about even with what your phone is burning, leaving it without any net gain while running at too hot a temperature for the health of your battery or it will begin to drop the charging current toward zero so that your phone is discharging, waiting until the temperature simmers down until it turns the juice back up.
But what the hell is causing this if you didn't have things like wifi and GPS and streaming video going while talking to someone on your earpiece at the same time? Could be a runaway process, something whacky with something software related, something wrong with the battery, something wrong with the phone or something messed up with the charger. Since you plugged the phone in and didn't use a separate third party charger into which you plop the battery to charge, since the phone was involved, it's probably not the charger. My first guess would be something sketchy software-wise. The first thing I'd do is go into Settings > About phone > Battery use and seeing if anything looks crazy when it lists what software or functions are accounting for how much of the drain relative to each other. If something is burning juice harder than the screen, the good news is is that it might not be a hardware issue, might be something that could be solved with a soft reset. Could just have been a fluke. Can you recreate the problem? If you shut the phone completely off and it appears to charge without overheating, my guess is that the hardware is okay and there is no defect. And in that case, task management and auto-killing programs may be of interest.
.
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Click to collapse
Exactly my point. What the hell could be causing it. Today I did a master reset once more, mainly angry with how things where running. Its fast again and so far I have not tried reproducing the situation as yet. I only use GPS for 5min total, mainly for directions. But I'm curious though, I had requested another battery from HTC because the one that came with the phone was losing charge too quickly(10% in hour). So far the new battery was working alot better, but now its the same. I keep hearing people say they get day and half of battery life with regular use and have 3G on. Yet my battery won't pass a day(by night its dead). I only have certain things like news and weather running and refreshing every 3hours to 6hours. I don't have twitter, facebook running or nothing like that. The screen is on auto and it happens wether 3G or EDGE is on. Only 2 hours more with EDGE. Am I doing something wrong? I feel like a complete ediat with two batteries.
I followed all advise, even turn it off during charging. Letting it die completely, tried 4 times this week. Its a regular thing letting it die completely since by the time I'm home I don't charge right way. Mainly because I would be expecting calls. My only option seems to be root unless you can shed some light. I can get a day or more if I leave the brightness on low, no internet or EDGE or no browsing and email syncing, don't fool around with my phone, with only a total of 20min calls during the day. Seems ridiculous to do that since others do ALOT than me and get better battey life. I feel like buy 2 more batteries now..its driving me crazy.
ram130 said:
Exactly my point. What the hell could be causing it. Today I did a master reset once more, mainly angry with how things where running. Its fast again and so far I have not tried reproducing the situation as yet. I only use GPS for 5min total, mainly for directions. But I'm curious though, I had requested another battery from HTC because the one that came with the phone was losing charge too quickly(10% in hour). So far the new battery was working alot better, but now its the same. I keep hearing people say they get day and half of battery life with regular use and have 3G on. Yet my battery won't pass a day(by night its dead). I only have certain things like news and weather running and refreshing every 3hours to 6hours. I don't have twitter, facebook running or nothing like that. The screen is on auto and it happens wether 3G or EDGE is on. Only 2 hours more with EDGE. Am I doing something wrong? I feel like a complete ediat with two batteries.
I followed all advise, even turn it off during charging. Letting it die completely, tried 4 times this week. Its a regular thing letting it die completely since by the time I'm home I don't charge right way. Mainly because I would be expecting calls. My only option seems to be root unless you can shed some light. I can get a day or more if I leave the brightness on low, no internet or EDGE or no browsing and email syncing, don't fool around with my phone, with only a total of 20min calls during the day. Seems ridiculous to do that since others do ALOT than me and get better battey life. I feel like buy 2 more batteries now..its driving me crazy.
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Click to collapse
Well sucks. Sorry man.
So you did a hard reset, restoring everything to how it was out of the box, and it still sucks. This might be a longshot but do you happen to be in an area where you typically don't get a full signal? ... and could you see what happens if you go to Settings > About phone > Battery use? It might reveal clues though if you did a hard reset and it didn't help, that suggests some kind of hardware problem I hate to say. Download a battery monitor app and see what kind of temperature you get when using the phone normally. If it's not that high but the thing drains fast, then maybe it's the battery, secondary to what could initially have been a software problem that worked the battery so exhaustingly that it's now behaving like this without the software problem.
That's right though, what people are saying, at least for most of us; I am getting so much better life than I used to on my WinMo phone, free at last. I used to have a second charger, one at my desk, the other by my bed. Not necessary anymore. I bought a spare battery but I haven't had to use it yet. Only used it to run tests for this project.
Any chance you're still under warranty? Don't lose hope just yet man, we might be able to get out of this. Check that battery use thing.
d0ugie said:
Well sucks. Sorry man.
So you did a hard reset, restoring everything to how it was out of the box, and it still sucks. This might be a longshot but do you happen to be in an area where you typically don't get a full signal? ... and could you see what happens if you go to Settings > About phone > Battery use? It might reveal clues though if you did a hard reset and it didn't help, that suggests some kind of hardware problem I hate to say. Download a battery monitor app and see what kind of temperature you get when using the phone normally. If it's not that high but the thing drains fast, then maybe it's the battery, secondary to what could initially have been a software problem that worked the battery so exhaustingly that it's now behaving like this without the software problem.
That's right though, what people are saying, at least for most of us; I am getting so much better life than I used to on my WinMo phone, free at last. I used to have a second charger, one at my desk, the other by my bed. Not necessary anymore. I bought a spare battery but I haven't had to use it yet. Only used it to run tests for this project.
Any chance you're still under warranty? Don't lose hope just yet man, we might be able to get out of this. Check that battery use thing.
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Click to collapse
Well so far its been 1hr 32min since I turned it on. I made 5min call and sen a few texts. I'm 94% now and this is what battery use is showing:
Voice calls 39%
Display 29%
Cell standby 7%
Android system 6%
Phone idle 6%
wifi 4%
Gallery 3% (WEIRD, have not went in there)
Android OS 3%
Google 2%
Current temp: 86.9*
Voltage: 4.0.84v
I took some pictures of it. Please note, to take pics I had to plug in via usb, using the SDK.
Lets have some fun!
I found a brand new Seidio 3200mAh battery from when I had a Motorola Q, and since I have no use for the Q or Verizon, the battery is just screaming "Open Me Up!"
View attachment 299144
Heres whats inside: 3 unmarked cells that are 32x48mm.
View attachment 299145
Compare that with the aprox 52x42mm N1 battery, we can do some math:
Code:
32x48 x
------ = ----- x=940mAh/cell * 3cells = 2820mAh total
52x44 1400
Of course this is just an approximation. The cells should be 1066mAh each, and they very well could be. I'm happy to see 3 cells in there
The new Seidio N1 battery is 52x44mm 9.5mm thick vs 4.75mm thick for the stock battery.
Simple math here, I bet theres two 1400mAh cells in it Although, they do sell a 1600mAh battery, so If thats true, then this battery could have two 1600mAh cells in it.
I weighed each cell in grams:
Code:
N1 1400mAh 30g
MQ 3200mAh 56g
N1 3200mAh 58g
N1 2400mAh 51g
Edit: Added Cameron Sino 2400.
Accounting for packaging, It sure looks like the two 3200mAh batteries are really 2800mAh.
Lets assume thought that Seidio has higher capacity/gram batteries. This will be proven when it gets tested by d0ugie.
ram130 said:
Well so far its been 1hr 32min since I turned it on. I made 5min call and sen a few texts. I'm 94% now and this is what battery use is showing:
Voice calls 39%
Display 29%
Cell standby 7%
Android system 6%
Phone idle 6%
wifi 4%
Gallery 3% (WEIRD, have not went in there)
Android OS 3%
Google 2%
Current temp: 86.9*
Voltage: 4.0.84v
I took some pictures of it. Please note, to take pics I had to plug in via usb, using the SDK.
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Click to collapse
I'd contact tech support because Doug is probably right. You have to have either a hardware or software problem that is causing your phone to drain your battery (like GPS is always on, even though it shows it is off).
ram130 said:
Well so far its been 1hr 32min since I turned it on. I made 5min call and sen a few texts. I'm 94% now and this is what battery use is showing:
Voice calls 39%
Display 29%
Cell standby 7%
Android system 6%
Phone idle 6%
wifi 4%
Gallery 3% (WEIRD, have not went in there)
Android OS 3%
Google 2%
Current temp: 86.9*
Voltage: 4.0.84v
I took some pictures of it. Please note, to take pics I had to plug in via usb, using the SDK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is Gallery is activated every time you look up contacts and used for the background?
I think you have your phone searching for signal all time. Go into the wireless settings and click the Only use 2g networks. Only turn it on manually when you want to use 3g.
Tell us how your battery is after that. I suspect you spend some time in areas where the phone is boosting power to get a good signal and its causing battery loss. (BTW, you only get a few hours with the screen on)
Maybe you could try using the phone during a typical day, then posting your battery results after 8+ hours of use... that should give us a better idea of where your drain is coming from, but if it is still inconclusive I would still say you should contact tech support.
I spent less than $30 over at Amazon and got two 1900mAh batteries and a charger for them. The batteries say that they are for the Sensation but work perfectly for the MT4GS. I take lots of photos with my phone(30-40 daily),, send a 150 or more messages a day, surf, compose emails and have about an hour of total talk time per day. 2 Anker batteries takes me through the day without needing an outlet.
I can fully recommend these for our phone. I am in no way affiliated with Anker and did not know the name before I purchased the product.
UPDATE: These batteries are NOT A WIN! After a month and a half of intense usage, I am finding (with two separate batteries) that these may not get enough power to our phones and results in an error for the camera flash when no real error exists (except with the manufacture of this battery perhaps).
I am checking out new batteries. Will report back asap. I am recommending folks avoid Anker for now though. I'm still investigating this situation.
FYI: The exact error is "unable to use flash due to cold weather".
UPDATE: After a few days of trying to reproduce the flash error, I've had zero problems and lots of fun with my phone so I think we can chalk it up at most to a defective battery and not a systemic issue. I've been using the battery since with no problems. Enjoy your phones!
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using XDA Premium App
http://www.amazon.com/Anker-1900mAh..._23?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1313683743&sr=1-23
That's the link to the one I just ordered, it shipped yesterday, should be here in another two days. I'll definitely review after I get it.
Anker batteries in the 1900 capacity have been recommended by several here so far, and I haven't heard anything negative about them except for:
One user reports that the fit is almost too snug in the battery case. Any words on this?
Other then that - they sound like a solid win, enough so that I bought one too.
I actually purchased the set that comes with two batteries as I bought my MT4GS on Craigslist and couldn't verify the integrity of the battery it came with. The batteries for the Sensation DO fit snug but it doesn't cause any problems. I spent 30 minutes looking at that aspect. Putting them in, taking them out.... The batteries last a good while (1900mAh) and the charger seems to work well after the initial charges which are a bit longer than normal (but not much longer).
One thing to look out for is that the charging prongs on the charger have a design I have not seen before. Since it is a universal charger from Anker they slide along a rail as so that they can be used to charge various HTC batteries which may have the charging port at various different points along the top of the battery. So like the G2 or the HD2 battery could be charged in the charger as well (I've done it) because you can move the charging prongs from left to right along this rail that they slide on. So you have to make sure that you have them lined up for the + and - port on the MT4GS battery so that you're getting a proper charge and not just sitting there wasting your time.
It's a small thing and not a problem. In fact, it might be a bonus for those who have other HTC devices that it can also charge.
Congrats on your purchase. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Chinese 3 battery combo with charger
I have been buying the spare batteries from Hong Kong/China with the slow ass battery charger for my past few devices. They are 10.95 delivered. The MT4GS and the Sensation are IDENTICAL. I spent 1 dollar more for the MT4GS and everything was exactly the same and there was no reference to MT4GS on either of the packages that arrived at the same time.
I can't complain. I always have my laptop bag with all of my techno gear spare 2A DC and AC chargers.
I can't not be connected?
Blue6IX said:
Anker batteries in the 1900 capacity have been recommended by several here so far, and I haven't heard anything negative about them except for:
One user reports that the fit is almost too snug in the battery case. Any words on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's definitely a tight fit, but it's not too bad -- it's not hard to pull out when you want to change the SIM or microSD card, for instance. It is tight enough that it doesn't fall out by itself very readily, though -- a couple days ago when I was experimenting with the carrier unlock and swapping SIM cards, I forgot to put the back of the phone* back on when I was done, and I carried the phone around for several hours without having the battery fall out or come loose. I even dropped the phone about 2.5 feet from my desk surface onto the non-carpeted floor and the battery didn't pop out.
So the fit is definitely snug -- much snugger than I'm used to in a phone battery, in fact -- and you have to press down to get the top to slide into place properly, but in my opinion it's a good thing, not a bad thing.
*That is, the "battery" cover, although it covers a lot more than just the battery, unlock my G2's battery cover, which I wish they had made the mT4GS's battery cover more like, but now I'm a bit off topic...
Good to know.
Mine came in today, and i'm watching the charge light turn purplish now as it goes from red to blue, so it should be real soon that it's done charging for the first time.
I think i'm going to restore my first solid CWM backup after rooting on my old battery, then wipe the battery stats file, power down, swap batteries, and power up to run it down. Hopefully this will get me a good calibration right off the bat.
I can't wait to start using it - this holding off until it's charged all the way the first time is killing me lol.
I'll report back in a few days how it works after the first 4-5 discharge cycles the package says it'll take to get my full capacity out of it.
Do you have to use the charger that comes with the battery to charge the battery or can you charge it as normal inside the phone? I would like to get a longer lasting battery but I certainly do not want to have to remove it from my phone every time I want to charge it.
No, it charges just fine inside the phone. The external charger is just in case you need to charge it outside the phone for some reason, like if you have two batteries and you want to charge both up for a long trip or something.
Awesome! Just picked up two MT4G Slides the other day and already I can see the battery life is going to be a potential issue. Coming from a Bold 9700 I knew I was going to run through the battery much faster, but I wasn't quite expecting this fast.
Okay, after my second day with the Anker 1900 battery, I am extremely impressed.
It's like a night and day difference. Honestly, my biggest concern was the heat issue. I noticed that my stock battery got pretty warm, and while not enough to burn me, was enough to impact the lifespan of the device and battery.
I had a theory that spreading the same amount of load over a greater range of discharge would produce less heat, and that has proven out to be true. Maybe the Anker battery is just made better, but more likely my theory was correct.
The Anker battery doesn't get anywhere near as warm with general use of the device as the stock battery did. Solid win there.
The amount of time I get with the battery before having to charge is already significantly increased, and I haven't fully broken it in yet. I'm no longer having to plan out where my next charge location is going to be and trying to ration my device usage to make sure I get to it. Now I can just go about my business without worrying about running out of juice.
Bonus points because now my stock battery is available as a backup, just in case - making the win that much sweeter.
Thanks to everyone who suggested this battery, it was definitely a great buy, and the price is unbeatable.
u think I can buy sume of those battery from amazon.com? I'm Italian, but I can't find shipping restriction section...
Good find. I might pick up one of these. Would really have liked the charger to be USB powered, though (or at least have a long cord) so I could set this on my desk next to my phone.
Evo 3d Battery
Has anyone tried the Evo 3d battery? It's rated at 1730mah and reportedly works just fine in the sensation.
ylam310 said:
Has anyone tried the Evo 3d battery? It's rated at 1730mah and reportedly works just fine in the sensation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if you'll find much traction for this - the anker battery has a higher capacity rating and lots of endorsement from people (myself included) who think it is a superior replacement for the stock battery.
I'd be curious, just to know, but I would recommend the anker 1900 battery for the sensation above anything else.
I wonder why you would want to know this?
Contacted Laptopmate (US Distributor of Anker) via Amazon's customer service. Turns out they have an Ebay store and an Amazon store.
Ebay store is MUCH cheaper. Found batteries and a charger for $15 less.
One thing this company does on both sites is "overlist" they will have the same product for $8.99, and $9.99 for example. I found the first eBay mt4gs battery was 11% off and listed at $14.99 with charger, I kept exploring and found it later for $11.99 - same item.
You also need to watch they have some other non-Anker batteries with varying capacity sizes that might be a bit less. YMMV.
Now just sitting back and waiting for them to arrive.
Will be picking this up for me and my friend (who has the sensation). Good find!
Just ordered two today! Can't wait...as I take lots of pictures and videos so it'll be refreshing to have fully charged batteries ready to go, on the gooooooo.....
Just so people know, it is a little bit bigger. I have a problem squeezing my body glove case on (but it does go on, barely). I'm just waiting for another case with more clearance so it fits.
Sent from my MyTouch 4G Slide
That bad? Jeez...
I need a case, otherwise this phone will be abused too much. It is an expensive piece of equipment.
On a side note, I've been trying my damned hardest to drain this thing for 6 hours, and I'm only at 50%. Highest brightness game playing and browsing, and 4G has been on the whole time. Plus, I took enough pictures of my gf to get her irritated.
Sent from my MyTouch 4G Slide
Hi!
Long ago, I owned a Benq E72 that my wife washed out. I tried to dry it up and it worked for a while. Then it died...but I never threw it out I just had the feeling that it was the battery.
You see,the phone or accesories are not sold where I live nor I have a way to purchase online, so I tried to hack every single battery that laid on my hands.
Last night I got a generic mp4 battery to power up the phone, but it turns out I cannot charge it .
If the "SERVICE" pin on the battery is not making contact, I get an "invalid battery" message after about 30 sec of charge and it stops. Otherwise the error reads "battery temperature too low,aborting"
As you can imagine I can not spend anytime checking the unit so I am asking you if you know how can I either force the unit to ignore the battery status or fake whatever temp the unit needs on the battery.
Thanks in advance!
If you still have the old battery, try to get that charged with a charger that is not caring about the temperature sensor (simple universal 2-pin LiIon charger). It may just be that the E72 is too sensible.
If that does not work, then cut it apart and replace the circuitry of the original one with that of a replacement battery. Chemically there is hardly a difference and only the protection unit and access to the temperature sensor is different for each battery. More advanced (or bigger) batteries may even have digital circuits built in to identify the battery (like in a laptop), but for mobile phones I guess that things are quite simple.
Be warned: Messing with circuit protection may get the battery on fire or explode, so only do that if you know how to supervise the first full charge.
Hi tobbie! Thank you so much for the reply.
I still have the original battery but I am not sure if it will hold a charge.
When the phone got washed, I spent an hour tearing the unit apart and drying it up but forgot about the battery. Then I realized my mistake.
I dried it up and it worked for a couple of hours. Then the phone started to go off on its own.
It got to the point where if you hit the power button, the SMS and power LEDS start blinking non stop, like it tries to go on but can't.
I will do some more research on your tips, they are quite helpful!
Thanks again
You should really be sure that no whatsoever residues are left in phone after the washing (and drying) process. I would take apart the phone completely and clean all parts of it from e.g. left over detergent.
It is much more probable that the phone has a damage than the battery. Circuitry in the battery is quite robust compared to the complex electronic in the mobile phone.
My battery died almost a year ago, since that I'm using something practical but not very appropriate
I used a Samsung AB553446BU (3.7v 1000mAh battery) and a pair of thin wires. Following the polarity of the pins on the phone, I put the Samsung battery and secured it with a piece of paper. As I said before, it's not appropriate but it really does its job!. If you can not solve your problem, try to do something similar if you get a battery that is compatible with the BenQ E72, the battery I'm using has given me no problems I can even charge it from the phone without having to use a universal charger. I'm not having "Invalid battery" messages or "High/Low temperature" warnings.
But as tobbbie said, "It's much more probable that the phone has a damage than the battery".
Oh wow! tobbie AND nickleby helping me in the same thread, what an honor!
I did exactly what you did nickleby! But mine is not that fancy, more like thin copper wire taped to the battery
The phone seems to be OK, I left it overnight and it did not go out (when the old battery dried up and worked, it will stay on for no more than 4-6 hs).
I am 100% sure the phone and battery are dried and clean, the "incident" happened at least 3 months ago.
I am pretty sure I can get your battery model for a few bucks right where I live.
Although I currently own an android tablet, I really miss having my WM smartphone
One more time, thank you guys for all the help!!
Getting the Samsung battery prooved to be impossible.
I was not able to find a 1000mah samsung compatible battery in the whole city.
I did however found 960mah batteries that were compatible with the same models.
Originals were almost as expensive as a basic phone, so I opted for a Chinese knockoff which I just managed to install.
The original charger won't charge it, neither will some other chinese USB chargers, but a USB port is doing the job just fine.
I am so happy to have my WM6 phone back
I was using an LG kp110 which I accidenally fried in a pool, and had to use a Siemens A31 for more than a month!
Thank you guys!
I have a battery scenario that I'd like some input on, and hopefully I'm coming at this from an angle that is not entirely repetitive / redundant / already addressed ad nauseum.
My girlfriend and I lucked out, and our phones (mine a Sensation and hers an EVO 3D) use the same cells. We're not big on cable-charging our phones, and tend to just charge & swap in fresh batteries instead. We've bought countless "$2.50 ebay specials", and as you might expect, we've never been blown away by them. So, after reading up on this forum, I decided to do the label-removal-check, and indeed, a lot of our batteries are 1000mAh lipo packs inside a package that claims 1800mAh etc.
Here's where my question becomes NOT just another "choose the best battery" thread.
We're heading out next month for travels that may leave us without the ability to charge batteries/phones for weeks. We've got a few other external power solutions going on, but at the lowest level, I'd like to have a sizable stock of phone batteries (~10 or so) on hand. And while I'd love for those 10 cells to be Anker cells, our budget doesn't have space for that kind of expense. I'm grabbing an Anker for my day-to-day use back in reality, but for this trip, we need a handful of markedly less expensive cells.
What I'm looking for, are inexpensive cells, that don't completely suck.
I'd like a balance of cost and energy storage. Dollar per mAh, the $2.50 fake eBay cells are actually the best deal (when you consider a true capacity of 1000mAh for $2.50 versus 1900mAh for $15+). But I'm hoping that there's something that can reliably hit closer to the 1500mAh mark, without octupling the price. In my mind, $5 for 1500mAh would be more attractive than $2.50 for 1000mAh, or $15 for 1900mAh. Does anyone know of a cell / seller / brand / store that might be worth looking into?
Buy power banks they hold like 5000mah each which gives you 3-4 charges and then you can recharge the power bank or either for travelling get those cheap battery you bough before but make sure to get a ton of em youll run out of juice quickly..
Sent From My Sexy Sensation Running Aokp.
shahkam said:
Buy power banks they hold like 5000mah each which gives you 3-4 charges and then you can recharge the power bank or either for travelling get those cheap battery you bough before but make sure to get a ton of em youll run out of juice quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, that's an awesome suggestion. That's already one of the external solutions I have planned. We've got a number of 18650-powered power banks that will hold out in a pinch. Choosing a battery cell for the phones is still a task I'm interested in doing intelligently though.
So.... with that said, I've decided to undertake a "Sensation Battery Comparison Research Project" (SBCRP) hehehe It occurred to me that it would be nice to take the guesswork out of battery comparisons. "Got 7 hours with moderate usage" can be a tough qualitative statement to compare, especially when everyone's idea of light and heavy usage is different. It occurred to me that I actually have a capacity metering device designed for measuring cell discharge. I had never used it, because in its stock configuration it only works for 2S or greater lithium ion packs. The device requires an external power supply in order to be able to work with single lithium ion cells. So last night I grabbed the soldering iron, and finally added one. Now I'm good to go with testing single lithium ion cells
Long story short, it's essentially a recording voltage and amperage meter, that discharges a cell and keeps track of the Ah in the process. The load (pictured on the right) is a chasis-mount 10 Ohm resistor soldered to the output leads of the capacity metering device. That results in a relatively slow discharge of around 300 to 400mA. The resistor (test load) is submerged in water for cooling purposes (it gets a little warm to the touch if just left out in open air).
Photo of setup: http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1178644&stc=1&d=1341500289
TEST DATA:
I ran the first test last night. I'll keep chugging through the cells I have and adding them here. Or if people think this is useful data, I can create its own thread.
EDIT: Created its own thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=28334916#post28334916
To be honest its just not legit that a 2.50$ battery would have 1800mah i mean the stock ones cost more its just obvious troll there.
What you could do : its a little bit expansive but it worth it get an anker battery and 2 power banks along whit your gold battery's if you do light usage you should get trough 2 weeks no problem perhaps ..
Sent From My Sexy Sensation Running Aokp.
shahkam said:
To be honest its just not legit that a 2.50$ battery would have 1800mah i mean the stock ones cost more its just obvious troll there.
What you could do : its a little bit expansive but it worth it get an anker battery and 2 power banks along whit your gold battery's if you do light usage you should get trough 2 weeks no problem perhaps ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know. And we really shouldn't fault the cheapo batteries, it's not their fault These are just Lipo cells, and they cost what they cost. If you take a look at the energy density (and cost) of lipo cells used in hobby fields, then you'll quickly realize that $2.50 for a 1000mAh cell, of the size used in these packs, is actually a pretty remarkable value (even more remarkable when you consider the fact that these packs also have some circuitry in them).
I like your suggestion, and it echos much of what the plan was. But I'm still in the position of wanting to order some more cells. They're small and light and I'd still like to have 10 or so of them on hand to get us through 4 or 5 days without having to turn to the power bank.
Do you think other people would be interested in the kind of real-world discharge measurements I was doing above? Because if so, I'll put them in a new on-topic thread, and keep uploading photos/data after each battery I test. If not, I'll just keep the data here on paper.
Circling back to my original question, does anyone have a sense as to which cells might not be complete garbage? To make it simpler, I put together a collage of each (different) cell that came in under $10 shipped on eBay. I omitted a couple options that had watermarks on their photos (didn't want to give any sellers any undue publicity). But these seem like basically the selection of cells that are $3 to $10 shipped.
Honestly people wouldn't mind such an informative thread but I can assure you unless your not a battery fanatics it won't pick peoples interest I'm not trying to be mean here
But as I said you've got plenty of good information up there so why not make thread and perhaps it generates some more "thanks"
Sent From My Sexy Sensation Running Aokp.