Battery charging voltage too high...problem?

[Smithandwesson]

I downloaded the GSam battery monitor and noticed that my cell voltage is at 4.338 @92f(ambient 70f) when on the charger. My understanding is that the cell voltage should never exceed 4.205v or else it can damage or stress the battery... Or worse. Is everyone else out there seeing a similar voltage? I tried using an iPhone charger with the factory Samsung usb and I'm seeing the same thing. Either the internal battery voltage sensor is off or this thing is getting overcharged.

 

[BillyMichael92]

I also have a charging voltage of 4.332v and it hasn't been a problem as far as I know. Where did u read about the correct voltage level?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Smithandwesson]

I also have a charging voltage of 4.332v and it hasn't been a problem as far as I know. Where did u read about the correct voltage level?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk 2

I've done my fair share of research on batteries in the past as I was always interested in getting the most out of my devices. Battery university has some good articles on lithium ion cells and how they should be treated. 4.2 seems to be a critical voltage with pretty much all lithium ion cells. It's the absolute upper limit of its recommended voltage range. Lithium ions don't like being deep discharged and they don't like being kept at high voltages(i.e. 4.2v and over). Manufactures push these batteries as close as they can to 4.2v to get as much juice out of them as possible even though it's harder on the battery. From what I have learned anything over 4.205v is pretty bad for the cell and can cause a decrease in performance over time and cause the cell to fail much quicker than normal. It has something to do with the chemistry, lithium ions are somewhat sensitive to voltages.

Unless Samsung is using some super lithium ion battery with a different chemistry which can support 4.3xx volts then our batteries are getting stressed pretty hard. I read that the HTC evo 3d had issues of overheating due to being charged at 4.3v and people's batteries were going bad. I called Samsung and they said that the battery's normal charging temp can be as high as 99f so at least my cell isn't showing any signs of overheating yet. It's possible the voltage sensor in the phone is off. Who knows. That's why I was wondering If everyone's else's battery voltages were the same as mine.

 

[jonathanadiputra]

did you fix over voltage problem on your s4 ?? i have a same problem too

 

[AitchKay]

Any further word on this?

 

[Goophy629]

I too just noticed this "issue"

as one of the previous posts said already, 4.2 or 4.25 is what I know the max for li-ion batteries for these years. When the galaxy s3 show 90% power, I take the battery out and measure it, already 4.215 volt...

So I suspect its max voltage is set to 4.3, which then would have a nominal 3.8v or so rather than the most seen 3.7v. and sure the battery's nominal voltage is 3.8 printed on the battery.

So, I think this isn't an issue but intended. am not a specialist in the field so not quite sure what chemical differences are causing this..

BTW, the galaxy s3's charging function is quite bad indeed... I've two here that don't charge while the phone is off(normal while on). one of them continually vibrate with black screen(about 1 vibrate every 5 seconds), the other one vibrate every 5s too with the gray empty battery symbol respectively. For same charging method(plug in the cable while the phone is off), my other good galaxy S3 would vibrate once, then the gray empty battery symbol with white circle inside, then a battery symbol with "green fluid" filling up inside representing the power percentage. Suspected faulty usb port.

=====
final word,
I have heard about galaxy s3 exploding while charging(yes, there are reports on the web already, just google if interested), and there are just so many posts talking about all kinds of charging problem that galaxy s3 has... I'd just charge the battery up to 85%~90% only every time to be safe lol~ if I have time, I might try charging the battery using external hobby charger so I can measure the capacity. If it needs to be about 4.3 or 4.35v to be 2100mah(confirming it's not being over-charged), maybe i could feel better then ~ extra info, looks like there are 4.3v and 4.35v 18650 batteries available too, so maybe we are just not keeping up with the new technologies

 

[Codeman862]

I tested the battery externally under load and I confirmed the sensor is right. The thing I don't get is that when you charge an l-ion battery to 4.3 volts it lasts 1/3 the time as a battery charged to 4.2, and according to the battery meter this only makes a 4% difference. Really samsung? Dropping 2/3 the lifespan to get 15min more out of the battery?

 

[bbbfalcs]

Having come from the HTC One I am a little sensitive to cell charger specs..

The charger that comes with the S4 had a 2.0amp output rating which worried me so I have never used it.

I charge overnight mostly.. I have stuck with chargers that have < 1.0amp output.


Does this even matter? Should I be looking at the voltage instead of the amperage?

TIA

 

[clevin]

Does this even matter? Should I be looking at the voltage instead of the amperage?

TIA

Both, slow charge is better, low voltage is also better

@T-Mobile GN3

 

[Adamsberg]

... Should I be looking at the voltage instead of the amperage?

Yes ... but what are your worries about amperage?

 

[Adamsberg]

I tested the battery externally under load and I confirmed the sensor is right. The thing I don't get is that when you charge an l-ion battery to 4.3 volts it lasts 1/3 the time as a battery charged to 4.2, and according to the battery meter this only makes a 4% difference. Really samsung? Dropping 2/3 the lifespan to get 15min more out of the battery?

I did a little search ... there are Li-based batteries with overvoltage protecting (OVP) of 4.35V
Maybe Battery University should update ... but even if these batteries are safe, have they the same count of discharge cycles over their lifetime as batteries with an OVP of 4.2V?

 

[JudH]

Yes ... but what are your worries about amperage?

Don't worry about too much amperage available at the wall adapter. The actual charger hardware is in the phone and it will only pull the amps it needs. You could use a 200 amp power supply and you'd see no difference on the battery side of the internal charging circuit.

 

[scribbler101]

Hi. Is this thread still going?

I have a Feiteng I9300 (that's a capital letter "i" not a "1" or a lower case "L" - awful typefaces) which is a Samsung look alike dual sim 4.7" phone. Had 4/5 months. Very good but what used to be occasional "overcharging" notices - EVEN WHEN NOT CHARGING - have become so common that I am probably about to return it for refund (as Amazon can't replace) because it can't be far off failing totally unless I use an external charger(?)

This is it
4.7'' capacitive 3G SmartPhone Android 4.0 1GHz Dual: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

It uses a EB-L125LLU battery which is marked as 3.7v. But my meter - afaik reliable - shows my two batteries one just above 4.0 one just below.

Does anyone understand what causes the problem, or how charging works? I understand basic electronics and analogue battery charging concepts of a charging voltage above the cell voltage but don't know if these apply to these devices which may do magical digital stuff! IIUC a standard USB socket provides 5v at up to 1 or 2 amps, but what do chargers do.

Anyone know if you can ger meters for USB power sockets? Too fiddly for multimeters!


Only other problem with my phone is that the 512MB RAM gets full and since I installed an SD Card it does not seem to use the internal 2GB ROM at all. Most apps work with mainly the SD card and just a small amount of RAM but some like Yahoo! Mail and Google Hangouts do not seem able to use the ROM. I don't use or want eg Google Hangouts but seem unable to delete it. Are these known issues? And are there solutions?

Thanks in advance for any help or pointers

 

[The_Librarian2]

BTW, the galaxy s3's charging function is quite bad indeed... I've two here that don't charge while the phone is off(normal while on). one of them continually vibrate with black screen(about 1 vibrate every 5 seconds), the other one vibrate every 5s too with the gray empty battery symbol respectively. For same charging method(plug in the cable while the phone is off), my other good galaxy S3 would vibrate once, then the gray empty battery symbol with white circle inside, then a battery symbol with "green fluid" filling up inside representing the power percentage. Suspected faulty usb port.

Apologies for thread necro, but my S3 mini recently developed this issue. Very irritating and worrisome.

As per the rest of your post, I will stick to the 80~90% charged rule and see if that will make a difference.

Samsung lost a customer. My next phone will definitely not be a samsung again.

 

[extraclass]

Quit worrying about the battery. The charging circuit is built into the phone and regulates the charging rate, voltage limit and prevents overcharging and over temperature. If the battery gets too low the phone will cut off to protect it from over discharge. If you use the wrong charger it will be charged slower than the factory charger but you will probably not realize the difference. If you try to charge with a USB port it will take twice as long as normal. The phone knows the difference!

The battery is supposed to be good for about 500 recharges which is about 18 months. Get a spare off Ebay for about $10 and quit worrying!

 

[sebastianmph3]

Yes I have it also, I downloaded "DU battery pro" and when I have my phone charging and fully charged it show red on the voltage and I freaked out at first but it didn't do anything to the phone yet

 

[warpi]

Hello,

I recently purchased a Sony Z5 compact with a built in battery which I really would like to last for a long time. Based on that the information posted on battery university is correct, I think a good trade off is to stop charging at 4.0 V which is about 72%. Problem is on how to manage to do so.

Best way I have found out so far is to use a very slow charger in combination with an android application which does increase power consumption more and more depending on the charge percentage.

Using llama, you can make a script which increases display brightness depending on battery level and by this, dasticly reduce battery charging current after 72%. This shall according to battery university result in 5 times longer lifetime of the battery and much more consistant capacity through out lifetime [2].

Any improvement ideas or comments?

[1] How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

[2] Total charge
Charge level 4.3 V => [150 – 250] * 114% = 228 cycles * capacity = total charge
Charge level 4 V => 1,200 – 2,000 * 72% = 1152 cycles * capacity = total charge
1152/228 = 5

 

[warpi]

It seems to be working, but a nicer solution would be to stress the cpu accordingly so that the charge current charge level is kept to 0 mA when battery voltage is above 4 V. This way the LCD LED would not be aged.

Does anyone know on how to build a android application (or if there is a scripting tool like llama) which monitors battery voltage, battery current and is able to stress cpu with different amount of loads?

 

[warpi]

Now I found out that tehttp://mperature is not good for the batteries [1], so to make heat of all the excess energy in the cpu would not be a good idea either.

So now there are three solutions left
1. Find a charger which does charge sufficiently little in order to never go beyond 72% (4V) (testing right now with USB charging cable powered with 5V, 300mA)
2. Connect the charger to a wifi power switch and together with a automation program could switch off the charger when reaching 75%
3. Find a way inside android to activate "charge paused" function. I have seen that there exist a fenomina like this on Samsung phones and I suppose there is a way to control this via software?

[1] Charging Batteries at High and Low Temperatures – Battery University

 

[extraclass]

These batteries can be very dangerous. Be careful playing with charging them with different voltages and currents, they can explode or at least catch fire. I use them for radio control models and charge them in a metal box. I have had one catch fire and a tour of YouTube will show you several aircraft models that burned because the battery was charged inside the plane.
Proceed with caution!