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Bump Charge fully explained - we may have to deal with it

I just find it really strange HTC would only implement this on the Evo and Incredible. My wife has the MyTouch slide and it doesn't experience this behavior. MyTouch 4G doesn't need bump charging. G2 doesn't need it. Why do it for two phones then no others?
 
Has anyone who bumps been able to get their Inc to fully charge with the phone off without it being orange first? I'm asking because I just read something where if once it's bumped and light turns green you plug it back in and it'll be orange again. I've done this process on my Inc which was 93% before shutting off and I can't get it to say it's fully charged (green light on FIRST plug in). I've unplugged/plugged over 10 times and every time I plug in it's orange, sometimes only for a minute or two, then back to green. Is this normal?
 
I just charge my phone off, before I go to bed, takes a whole hour and a half tops, and that way I have full power and I can use it for an alarm (kill bill alarm clock, hell yea zedge app lol) and still have at least 95% battery in the morning. I have it set to 3g will turn off after a while. Saves a ton of battery. plus it kicks right back on when you come out of sleep and it'll check your email and sync weather right away. my battery lasts 2 days like this - stock battery.
 
Has anyone who bumps been able to get their Inc to fully charge with the phone off without it being orange first? I'm asking because I just read something where if once it's bumped and light turns green you plug it back in and it'll be orange again. I've done this process on my Inc which was 93% before shutting off and I can't get it to say it's fully charged (green light on FIRST plug in). I've unplugged/plugged over 10 times and every time I plug in it's orange, sometimes only for a minute or two, then back to green. Is this normal?

Read the last bullet point of post 2:

6. If you turn the phone off to use as a dumb terminal, the software is bypassed, and the battery will charge to full. However, LiIon does lose a residual charge over time (typically 1% per day). So, if you unplug the charger and plug it back in, yes, the light may change orange. Also, battery charge against a type of resistance, meaning the first 50% charges faster than the last 50% (hence why some devices report a charge time of 1 hour for 80%, 3 hours for full). So, that last 1% could take 5-10 minutes to turn green. Really, it's just one percent, so don't assume that a 10 minute bump means you lost 10% charge. You didn't (if the phone was off).

Basically, yes, it's mostly normal. If you've charged to green when you had the phone off, you don't need to bump unless you've let it sit off for 2-3 days at least. On average, at room temperature, a Lithium-Ion or Polymer battery loses 8% residual charge per month (far less than my 1% per day estimation).
 
Am currently trying this one. May take a couple days to get a soild review here. If this fails I've ordered my 2 chichitec batteries. lol
 
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I am on the road much of the time and use my phone for everything. I use a bt headset (I'm in CA where you have to), I use a bt A2DP to stream my music library via Subsonic into my car stereo, and I use Google Nav to get me to my appointments. Because the dinc only uses battery power and I am a heavy user my phone battery discharges faster than the power adapter can recharge it. It also makes the battery extremely hot.
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I feel your pain. I was on the road recently for a 1000 mile trip and used Radio Time / Nav basically the whole time. I had the VZW car charger and although the phone did get hot sometimes it did hold a charge. I think if I had to do that all the time I would buy another battery or 2 with an external charger and swap out when needed. It's a little bit of a pain but there is something about putting in a freshly bumped battery that feels good. :) Or.. you can take your old Eris and bump charge that (same battery) with the car charger instead of the external.
 
You mentioned that bump charging could remove 1% of battery life per time you bump charge.

Is this true? Should I stop bump charging?
 
I can't reproduce it right now, but I have had my phone run with the battery out and just on the usb cable. It happened multiple times when trying to attempt the old root method of removing and inserting the sd card while standing on your head and solving a puzzle with your feet. When it would hang on the triangle with the exclamation mark, I would pull the battery to reset the phone, yet sometimes it would keep ruining off the ac power.
 
Question #1 ---


a). so at what point or percentage of drain is it most efficient to begin charging the battery?

b) at what percentage of drain does charging do the least harm to the battery?



Question #2--

are the answers my two questions different? if so, how do we reconcile this?


Best thread in a while.

Thanks OP!!


RD
 
You mentioned that bump charging could remove 1% of battery life per time you bump charge.

Is this true? Should I stop bump charging?

I am wondering the same thing

+1, can Medion, or another guru please answer this for us? I have been bump charging for a while, and while I can't definitively say yes, I wouldn't be shocked to know this to be a fact.

Guys, I clearly misspoke on this and confused some people. Please quote the exact line in my post(s) that caused this confusion, so that I can fix my error and clarify this. Appreciate any help you guys give :)

Question #1 ---


a). so at what point or percentage of drain is it most efficient to begin charging the battery?

b) at what percentage of drain does charging do the least harm to the battery?



Question #2--

are the answers my two questions different? if so, how do we reconcile this?


Best thread in a while.

Thanks OP!!


RD


RD -

1A. The lower the charge on the battery, the faster the battery will charge. It's due to resistance.

1B. Anything between 20-80% does the least harm to the battery. HOWEVER, even at 100%, the battery isn't charged to 100%. The built in safety is saying "this is as far as I let you charge." So on a good battery, 0% = REAL 20%, and 100% = REAL 80%. So basically, if you're at half a battery or below and want to leach off a charger for awhile, you're ok. If you continually do full charge/discharge cycles, then that's not good. Sdrawkcab is a bit better versed in Li-Ion and Polymer batteries than I am, so I'd wait for him to give his opinion.

2. The best way to reconcile this is, IMO, to use two batteries with an external charger, and swap the batteries daily, even (especially) if not fully discharged. When doing this, NEVER charge the phone unless you have to. This means that the battery won't go through bump charge cycles (either automatically or manually). Doing this means you will in all likelihood have two good batteries for the length of the contract.
 
6. If you turn the phone off to use as a dumb terminal, the software is bypassed, and the battery will charge to full. However, LiIon does lose a residual charge over time (typically 1% per day). So, if you unplug the charger and plug it back in, yes, the light may change orange. Also, battery charge against a type of resistance, meaning the first 50% charges faster than the last 50% (hence why some devices report a charge time of 1 hour for 80%, 3 hours for full). So, that last 1% could take 5-10 minutes to turn green. Really, it's just one percent, so don't assume that a 10 minute bump means you lost 10% charge. You didn't (if the phone was off).

I think I just misread this. It seemed to say that due to bump charging, the battery lost a capacity of about 1% per day.

It looks like what you're saying is if you charge the battery to full and then unplug it and leave it on a table for 4 days, it will lose about 4% of its charge.

At least I wasn't the only one...
 
1% an hour i think is what he meant. It would have to drain 1% an hour minimum just to run. Could be wrong
 
So I bump charged my incredible. Let the battery run down till it shut off. Total time was probably 14 hrs.

In short I saw no benefit from bump charging.
 
I think I just misread this. It seemed to say that due to bump charging, the battery lost a capacity of about 1% per day.

It looks like what you're saying is if you charge the battery to full and then unplug it and leave it on a table for 4 days, it will lose about 4% of its charge.

At least I wasn't the only one...

1% an hour i think is what he meant. It would have to drain 1% an hour minimum just to run. Could be wrong

Nah, I either misspoke, or there is a misunderstanding. I'll try to clarify that statement some.

Basically, all batteries lose a residual charge. If you charge a battery to full, and let it sit unused, it will still drain SLOWLY. So if you let it sit a month, it might need a recharge.

Official specs put Lithium-Ion/Polymer at about 8% per MONTH. It's not a permanent loss, just a discharge. So if you charge to 100% and let it sit unused for a month, when you go to use it, you'll be at about 92% and may or may not want to recharge.
 
Just a FYI, chad0989 has released a kernel (12/10/2010-2 build #6) that has a bump fix. Some say it helps, some say it doesn't. I haven't tested fully yet so my judgement is still in the air.

xda-developers - View Single Post - [KERNEL] 2.6.32.26-incredikernel - 12/08/2010

Possible bump fix #2 - this time from ms79723/invisiblek. Same rules for testing apply to this kernel as the last one:

1) Put the phone on the charger before bed, leave it until you wake up so that it charges to 100% and then remains on the charger for the rest of the night. DO NOT BUMP CHARGE
2) When you disconnect it in the morning, use it normally, try your hardest not to change your usage pattern. Monitor how long it stays in the 90-100% range.
3) Report back. Does it drop faster or slower from 100% than it used to? Does it still drop from 100% to 94-95 and then into the 80s within a relatively short amount of time?
4) Also report your opinions on the new smartass settings.
 
I'll examine that kernel when I get back to the states. However, if all it does is continually recharge the battery (deleting the 96.80% thresholds from the stock kernel), then it's worse than a manual bump charge, as the battery is constantly discharging to 99% and then recharging to 100%. Over time, this is going to cause the battery's life to drastically shorten. This is why consumer electronic devices are designed to run off AC when plugged in, rather than the battery. It's also likely why HTC realized their FUBAR and stopped designing phones like this after the Evo/Incredible.
 
I'll examine that kernel when I get back to the states. However, if all it does is continually recharge the battery (deleting the 96.80% thresholds from the stock kernel), then it's worse than a manual bump charge, as the battery is constantly discharging to 99% and then recharging to 100%. Over time, this is going to cause the battery's life to drastically shorten. This is why consumer electronic devices are designed to run off AC when plugged in, rather than the battery. It's also likely why HTC realized their FUBAR and stopped designing phones like this after the Evo/Incredible.

In all honesty, I rather the battery life shorten than have to bump charge daily. I just don't have time for this non-sense. The cost of a battery is not even an issue anymore, they're cheap and easily obtained.

Still testing this kernel, but it'll probably be until the end of tomorrow before real work day results come in.

Edit - going back to non bump fix kernel, this new one has a battery leak confirmed by chad and on my Dinc.
 
i hardly ever bump charge. I take that back, i NEVER bump charge. I might charge with the phone off once and while but that is it. It nothing to obsess or worry about. I still get plenty of life out a battery charge. That extra 1-2 hours i would maybe get is not a big deal since i will have a charger somewhere if needed anyway and the phone will be hooked to it before it gets down to 20% probably.
 
i hardly ever bump charge. I take that back, i NEVER bump charge. I might charge with the phone off once and while but that is it. It nothing to obsess or worry about. I still get plenty of life out a battery charge. That extra 1-2 hours i would maybe get is not a big deal since i will have a charger somewhere if needed anyway and the phone will be hooked to it before it gets down to 20% probably.

+1 to that, In my experience the extra charge(usable time) gained by bump charging is next to nothing. As Medion stated when you bump charge even though it might sit on the charger for 20 mins you are only gaining about 5 or 6% battery, which equates to maybe 30 mins of use, and my phone never runs down low enough to where I would need that 30mins. Again, this is just my experience with bump charging. Some people obviously state that they get hours more use when they bump charge.
 
I never (well hardly ever) bump charge. I just swap out batteries in the morning with one that has been sitting in the external charger. If I didn't have the external I doubt I would bump often enough to matter.
As for battery drain sitting in a drawer, I have a battery that sat for well over a month and it didn't take any charge whatsoever when I went to use it. But it was a cool drawer, if that matters.
 
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