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[Q] Charging an Extended Battery Doesn't Reach 100%

mrhomiec

mrhomiec

Android Enthusiast
firstly, some background info...
CM10 stable
CWM Touch
Onite 2300 mAh battery [edit- been using this battery for about a month now]
Official charging dock
Official wall plug

for some reason, my phone will not charge this battery to 100% (or 99%) in the first go.

if i leave it plugged in overnight (7-8 hours). it'll reach a certain point, then display the green LED light for a "complete" charge.

but when i unplug it, it'll be anywhere from 80% - 89% charged. i would have to plug it back in to get the remaining part charged.

which makes me believe that my phone is charging up to the original 2100 mAh capacity.

i've tried different things like wiping the battery stats, and using the phone until it powered off, but nothing has fixed it.

does anyone have any recommendations to fix this?
 
This might work, it might not. Turn your phone off and change to 100%, remove from charge and remove the battery for a couple of minutes. Put your phone back together and reboot.
 
mrhomiec said:
firstly, some background info...
CM10 stable
CWM Touch
Onite 2300 mAh battery
Official charging dock
Official wall plug

for some reason, my phone will not charge this battery to 100% (or 99%) in the first go.

if i leave it plugged in overnight (7-8 hours). it'll reach a certain point, then display the green LED light for a "complete" charge.

but when i unplug it, it'll be anywhere from 80% - 89% charged. i would have to plug it back in to get the remaining part charged.

which makes me believe that my phone is charging up to the original 2100 mAh capacity.

i've tried different things like wiping the battery stats, and using the phone until it powered off, but nothing has fixed it.

does anyone have any recommendations to fix this?
Click to expand...

I have a similar situation w/the HYPERION 2200 mAh battery, but, slightly different :

It'll charge to 100% if I charge it w/the SGS III's OEM charger, no problem.

However, if I use my generic external charger, it only charges to 94% & I have to top it off my installing in the phone & use the OEM charger.

Mixed results w/my HIDIGI phone dock/extra battery charger. The battery will charge to 100% while installed in the phone & phone docked. However, in the extra battery pocket, it only charges to 94% & likewise I have to install the battery in the phone to top-off to 100%.

I had a conversation w/a CSR from HYPERION & long story short, they said that this 94%-100% range/variance was considered normally accepted standard.

The CSR was pleasant enough, but, I had to disagree w/this, as my MUGEN & GORILLA GADGETS extended batteries (4000+ mAh capacity each) charge to 100% of stated capacity whether they are charged while docked in the aftermarket dock or charged w/the aftermarket external battery charger.Same w/the OEM charger, 100%,no problem.

I don't have a solution for your issue, but, just wanted to share my experiences & let you know that you're not the only person out there w/this issue, just in case the manufacturer of your battery tries to discredit your issue w/some type of BS response.

Good luck & keep us posted on the outcome.
 
Don't pay attention to the percentages - track the actual use times. Why? Well, phones and batteries deliberately don't charge to 100% or overcapacity on purpose. When you're conditioning your battery, you're actually doing nothing to the battery other than supplying recharge electricity. What's actually being conditioning is the phone's OS. It has to learn "full" which is done best over multiple cycles. Also, there's no need to run a phone to shut-off. Low battery warning is good enough. When you unplug and plug to "top off" you're actually just telling the phone to go to the last level it things based on feedback from the battery. That's why it may only take seconds to turn green again.

The phone is "learning" the charging capacity and limits of the battery and it continues throughout the life of the battery even though the battery will actually be in a constant state of declining performance with every, single charge-discharge cycle.

Battery makers recommend charging beyond full for the first few cycles because it does not present too much of a fire or failure risk when the battery is new. Over time though, that practice isn't good and you should just unplug when it's full.

Bottomline is as you "condition" your phone with the battery, 99% on subsequent cycles can, in fact, be more "full" than the 100% reading. It's also just as likely that 1% isn't going to be a useful measure for you other than you know it.

It's not unlike how at the fuel tank you should ask the attend not to top off once your tank shuts off the pump. Why? Your tank's actually full., and that shutoff is a safety mechanism. Topping off is harmful to the pressurization mechnism built into the tank. The number 1 risk (though admittedly low) to fuel tank pressurization problems then comes from simply overfilling when not necessary.

By the way, the shutoffs built into the phone and external charges vary. So full in an external charger might be 94% while full in the phone might be 99/100%. Either way, the batteries well within operating levels. The reason phones tend to allow topping off is that they don't usually trickle charge to keep the phone at 100%. So when the phone stops charging, it basically just let's the phone use battery power. The recharge may not happen again until the first built-in OS command says "feed me." That could be at 40%, 30%, 20% or in most cases that I'm aware of simply when the phone reaches low battery status. That could take days or hours as your phone's basically operating as if it was mobile even though there's a charger plugged into it's port.
 
i know about the "learning" charge of the batteries. and another thing i forgot to originally note. i've been on this battery for about a month now, and it's been doing this the whole time.

i used to have an Hyperion 4400 mAh battery that never had this issue, just like KOLIO had mentioned. so it was just odd to me that this is still happening after so long.
 
[UPDATE]

so i tried the whole charging it while the phone was off method, and that didn't work.

when i powered it on this morning, it said the percentage was at 89%.

but the weird thing, about a half-hour later, when i was getting ready to hook it up to my car for music, it said the battery was at 92%.

all-in-all, i am still getting "extended" usage even though it's not reaching 99%/100%. but i won't know if that extra 10% could ever be helpful.
 
I'm going to try doing a full charge with the external charger before I put the new extended battery in the phone. From there I will do all charging in the phone. I doubt it makes a difference, but maybe the phone OS will "learn" the battery has an extended run time from the start. It's worth an experiment, and the GG extenders are cheap enough to just buy another one at some point any way.
 
[UPDATE]

so i tried what you suggested, and i charged the battery separately from the phone. i have one of those wall plugs that holds the battery in it.

and when i put it in my phone and booted up, it said 97%

next step- what will happen when i charge from my phone now?
 
[UPDATE]-SOLVED

after 2 charging times within the phone, it seems to be working correctly now. the first attempt gave me 97% and second attempt gave me 92%.

this doesn't seem like an ideal method, as not many people who buy extended batteries will buy the battery-only wall charger. the only reason i even have that is because my battery came with one for free...
 
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