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Is it the Phone or it the battery????

R

rawness

Android Enthusiast
I'm having a problem with using my Droid in Nav mode with it pluggged into the car charger: After using it on some decent size trip (more than 30 minutes), the phone stops charging and it begins to drain my battery.

Now I know it's not the charger, because I recently took a 3 hour trip and on the way down there we used my brother's Droid and when we arrived his Droid was fully charged, but on the way back we used my Droid and about an hour or so into the trip, I noticed that my Droid was using batter power.

Does anyone have any idea if this would likely be a battery problem or a problem with my Droid?
 
Motorola phones are equipped with a smart charger (for lack of a better term) Once your battery is fully charged, it stops charging. If it kept charging, even after it was full, it would overcharge the battery causing the battery to lose it's 'memory' and soon you would have a phone battery that only stays charged for like a half hour. This is protection for you that they built in for you. (Ever wonder why the Moto RAZR got such a bad rep for having a crappy battery??? This protection wasn't built in..)

This is the only thing that I could think of to explain what's happening. I'm not saying there isn't anything wrong with your phone. Perhaps there is. If you want to go take it to a VZW store and see what they can come up with, I'm sure they'd help you out too :)
 
If this "smart charger" is so "smart", why doesn't it see that the battery's fully charged, and start taking power directly from the AC power, as opposed to the battery >.<
 
dren said:
Motorola phones are equipped with a smart charger (for lack of a better term) Once your battery is fully charged, it stops charging. If it kept charging, even after it was full, it would overcharge the battery causing the battery to lose it's 'memory' and soon you would have a phone battery that only stays charged for like a half hour. This is protection for you that they built in for you. (Ever wonder why the Moto RAZR got such a bad rep for having a crappy battery??? This protection wasn't built in..)

This is the only thing that I could think of to explain what's happening. I'm not saying there isn't anything wrong with your phone. Perhaps there is. If you want to go take it to a VZW store and see what they can come up with, I'm sure they'd help you out too :)
Click to expand...

So I'm guessing the really short cord they sent with is the smart charger? I hated how short it was so I found a motorola charger my dad had bought for his RAZR2 a year or 2 ago, and it works just fine. Is this a smart charger? When did they start making them?
 
kyleonfire said:
So I'm guessing the really short cord they sent with is the smart charger? I hated how short it was so I found a motorola charger my dad had bought for his RAZR2 a year or 2 ago, and it works just fine. Is this a smart charger? When did they start making them?
Click to expand...

Reread what he said. "Motorola phones are equipped with..."
This is something built into the phones, the charging cords don't make a difference.
 
dren said:
Motorola phones are equipped with a smart charger (for lack of a better term) Once your battery is fully charged, it stops charging. If it kept charging, even after it was full, it would overcharge the battery causing the battery to lose it's 'memory' and soon you would have a phone battery that only stays charged for like a half hour. This is protection for you that they built in for you. (Ever wonder why the Moto RAZR got such a bad rep for having a crappy battery??? This protection wasn't built in..)

This is the only thing that I could think of to explain what's happening. I'm not saying there isn't anything wrong with your phone. Perhaps there is. If you want to go take it to a VZW store and see what they can come up with, I'm sure they'd help you out too :)
Click to expand...

:confused:

Like I said, my brothers phone works just fine.

What I'm saying is that after it's been used for some time out starts to drain the battery so that if I don't take it out of nav mode it would completely drain the battery.

I should also add that after this happens the phone won't charge with the car charger until I either cycle power or do a battery pull.
 
Well for one thing, Lithium-Ion batteries are not supposed to create a memory.

I bought the verizon car charger and have noticed it also, but also I noticed that when it was doing that the light on the charger was off. My theory was that the charger was becoming lose while driving. When I notice that it does that I just tap the charger and the light on the charger comes back on and the phone starts charging again.

I would have to say that while the phone is docked and you are in navi mode you are stretching the cord out and it is unseating the charger from the outlet. Just my theory and experience from what I have seen. I personally wish that they would of put a hard cable on the charger instead of the coiled up cable.
 
^

Yea, I thought it may've been a loose charger at first, but mine won't charge with the car charger again until I've either cycled power or pulled the battery.
 
hmm... Well it's definitely weird. Perhaps you can take it into a VZW store and have them look at it??
 
The problem IS the smart charge circuit, but the problem ISN'T that your battery is too full. Under normal circumstances, once the battery is full, the phone should leave it charged and just draw power from the charger. Otherwise your battery would also drain when you had it plugged in at home.

The issue here is heat&#8212;the phone cuts off charging when the battery gets too hot so as to avoid damage. Do you have it in the car dock (or anywhere where it's in direct sunlight)? Try either moving it to somewhere with shade or aiming one of the fan vents at the phone. I had this problem too, but I solved it by directing the A/C at the phone.
 
Chakara said:
I agree Penguissimo, I shifted my AC to the defrosters and solved the issue on a recent road trip....

-Chak
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Oooh, defrosters is an even better idea! I'll have to try that next time...the vent only barely aims at the phone in my car, so it's a less than perfect solution. Can't wait to give that a go!
 
Penguissimo said:
The problem IS the smart charge circuit, but the problem ISN'T that your battery is too full. Under normal circumstances, once the battery is full, the phone should leave it charged and just draw power from the charger. Otherwise your battery would also drain when you had it plugged in at home.

The issue here is heat
Click to expand...
 
riffdex said:
Thanks a lot for the insight. I had no idea about this. This happened to me one time (cutting off the charging) and I had no idea why. It hasn't happened since so I didn't investigate.
Click to expand...

No problem! I just hope you didn't go out and buy a new charger before figuring it out (like I did) ;)
 
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