Droid Turbo overheating while turbocharging?

[Eskimio]

i.imgur(dot)com/R6N9V0N(dot)jpg

My 32GB Droid Turbo (Ballistic) peaked at 141*F (~60.5*C) while turbocharging the other day while lying on my desk in 80*F ambient temperature. Previously I had seen it spike to about 125-130*F and it had worried me. Now that it has not only happened again, but it has increased in temperature, I am very worried that I may have a faulty unit. Is this normal? Or, should I take it in to be repaired/replaced?

Any and all advice is appreciated.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! High temps are always a potential problem with fast charging. Is the phone in a case? A case might make it harder to dissipate heat, which can lead to increased temps. Try charging without the case on.

 

[88horizon5speed]

I hear ya, mine gets to about 120 too and I don't like it. I charge in a windy window if I can or at least propped up. Never had the phone during a summer of course, maybe I'll try on too of ice cubes!...seriously lol. Heat is bad for electronics, especially the battery

I'm telling ya the next generation phones will be cooled in some way

 

[Eskimio]

Welcome to Android Central! High temps are always a potential problem with fast charging. Is the phone in a case? A case might make it harder to dissipate heat, which can lead to increased temps. Try charging without the case on.

No, no case. Just the ballistic rear cover.

I hear ya, mine gets to about 120 too and I don't like it. I charge in a windy window if I can or at least propped up. Never had the phone during a summer of course, maybe I'll try on too of ice cubes!...seriously lol. Heat is bad for electronics, especially the battery

I'm telling ya the next generation phones will be cooled in some way

Yea, mine regularly breaks 120*F when turbocharging. The only time it ever even tries to reach that kind of temperature is if I have a thousand background processes going while I'm either streaming HQ video or playing an HD video game.

 

[Rukbat]

First, the higher the ambient temperature, the higher the temperature of any electronics running in it.

Second, QualCom "turbo charge" is really a normal 1C charge. (A "normal" phone charge is around 0.3C.) A battery should't overheat at 1C (charging at the capacity of the battery - so a 2550mAh battery would be "turbo charging" at 2.55 Amps). The phone should be under warranty, so take advantage of it, before the battery goes into thermal runaway on a warm day, and you watch your phone turn into a puddle of molten plastic.

 

[anon(40376)]

Wow, 120 F will melt the phone? Guess I better stay out of Death Valley or even Phoenix.

 

[B. Diddy]

Just being at an ambient temperature of 120 F for a several minutes won't melt the phone in itself. But the problem is that if the phone can't radiate off the excess heat faster than it's being generated, then the temperature can keep rising, which starts to feed on itself, leading to the thermal runaway that Rukbat was referring to. So if you combine an unusually hot battery, continued heat generation (either by excess CPU usage or rapid charging), and the inability to radiate that heat off (due to high ambient temps or too much insulation from a case), then your risk goes up.

Check the manual--it will often advise against usage in high temperatures. The Droid Turbo manual recommends against operating the phone in temperatures above 140 F, but also recommends against charging in temps above 113 F (pg 62).

 

[I800C0LLECT]

This seems like paranoia. There are software failsafes that will throttle the phone. I would imagine that the battery will force stop a charge too. I've witnessed other phones do this so there's no reason to get scared. Leaving my g2 in the passenger seat catching direct sunlight while driving and charging would cause the battery to overheat and stop charging. It wasn't just really warm... My wife's Samsung and an old nexus and an HTC have done the same.

I think runaway batteries and other issues come into play as you approach 300 Fahrenheit... I'm sure there's a place to read up on that

 

[B. Diddy]

I wouldn't call it flat-out paranoia. There is some risk, so it doesn't hurt to take some precautions. Here's a good place to get some information: Lithium-ion Safety Concerns – Battery University

 

[I800C0LLECT]

I might have used the wrong word. I guess I just feel it's misplaced anxiety that could be Google searched. But overall, 140F isn't anything crazy for electronics