Battery conditioned, now getting over 30 hours.

[skyrocketeer]

I was slightly concerned about my battery when I first received my Skyrocket as it seemed to barely make it through my day for the first few days...(~around 10% left after about 14-15 hours)...which was a little behind what I was getting with my iphone 4s. I decided to condition the battery and wow what a difference! I have it charging now but got over 30 hours with pretty heavy usage since yesterday morning at 7:00 a.m.

Here is how I did it: (ymmv) I first ran the battery down to about 1%...this was pretty easy as fast as it was running down. Then I trickle charged it using the stock charging cable hooked up usb to my laptop overnight. The usb charger works much slower than the wall wort unit and therefore the battery stays cooler while charging and charges more fully.(at least that's my understanding)

After doing this just one time the battery was much better. I am using battery circle to report usage along with the stock status app.(the battery circle gets stuck sometimes and needs a soft reboot to gather itself). I just started another recharge cycle after over 30 hours of pretty solid usage. Quite a few phone calls, a lot of web browsing(wifi with some 4g while out and about), email checking a number of accounts numerous times, and even several races on NFS. I have screen shots of battery usage status if I can figure out how to get them on here.

Also at about 25% late last night I installed juice defender. The only thing I really have done other than that was took my mail accounts off push and just check them manually. I also keep screen off automatic and set it fairly low(25% unless I'm out and about then a little higher). I have gps enabled.

I'm now really satisfied with battery life on the skyrocket, as long as it stays like this. If you have doubts about this units battery life, then you might want to try this for yourself.

 

[nnotions]

thanks i will try this as my battery last about 4 hours.

 

[skyrocketeer]

Good luck man! I forgot to mention, I also shut power off during the trickle charge...not just in standby.

 

[PewterL31]

Hmm will try this

Sent from my Samsung Skyrocket

 

[anthony2558]

What's your screen on time between charges ?

Tapatalk via Razr Maxx

 

[skyrocketeer]

Unfortunately, the thing is still trickle charging and I didn't get that on the last cycle, but will this cycle. That said, for me regardless of the spec in question,(I'm curious too, but forgot to log it), the thing lasted twice as long as it was with what for me is pretty much normal usage. As this phone is less than a week old, I would imagine usage will go down, as right now I am fiddling with the thing constantly...you know how that goes. This thing has been charging usb for almost 4 hours already and still quite a bit to go...at least 25%.

 

[skyrocketeer]

Ok, just a status update...I'm 19 hours in from charge, with over 3 hours of screen-on time...30 minutes of phone call time... and a lot of browsing, a few quadrant runs and speedtest runs just for the hell of it and a lot of fiddling again...I'm at 35% left...any thoughts? I'm using the juice defender(free version) just on the "balanced profile"...

 

[cory2081]

I'm now at 33.5 hours with 8% left!! I've made some calls, checked email, text, facebook, maps, and done some web surfing. Not too darn bad, I'm happy! I'm not currently using any 3rd party battery optimizing app, just making sure to only use GPS and Wifi when I need to. I guess it took about 4 charges on the phone to "break in" the battery b/c I was really worried the first couple of days. No worries now, battery life is great!

 

[skyrocketeer]

Sweet! The batteries break-in really well!

 

[gary_baxter]

Modern batteries do not benefit from "conditioning". If anything, you just shortened the life of your battery. Juice defender is probably what is helping you. Read here How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

 

[cory2081]

Modern batteries do not benefit from "conditioning". If anything, you just shortened the life of your battery. Juice defender is probably what is helping you. Read here How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

Yeah, this much I know from racing R/C cars. I've done nothing but use the standard charger with my phone and the battery lasts alot longer now than it did after the first couple charges. I've done nothing different with the phone at all and am not using any 3rd party battery app. So, one can only come to the conclusion that the battery does have somewhat of a "break in" or "conditioning" period.

 

[skyrocketeer]

Yes, indeed it is not so much that the battery is getting conditioned as such...it is the device re-calibrating how to REPORT the battery status. This is a well known phenomena, and without question has an effect on battery life.

 

[skyrocketeer]

Going to 1% will by no means hurt your battery in any way by the way. Apple recommends all iphone users run their batteries to Zero at least once a month...same kind of battery I believe.

 

[skyrocketeer]

That said once calibrated it is not advisable to deep discharge in my mind, no matter what apple says!

 

[kbd517]

Based on what evidence, experience, or thought process?

 

[skyrocketeer]

If you are asking me that question...I assume you are...as someone who sells numerous $1000 dollar wireless remotes which use lithium ion(high-end audio/video dealler for 20 years)...it has been my experience that running the batteries dead consistently considerably shortens the life cycle of the battery....leaving them on the charger all the time is also a bad thing. That's my experience....ymmv.

 

[patrick533]

Electronic Engineer for over 28 years. Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries do NOT have a memory so-to-speak, but they also like to be used(letting them self drain over and over is not good). Most of the newer ones usually have a controller chip along with a temperature sensor built in, most batteries of this category are protected from being 100% discharged(and overcharged too). The micro-controller usually controls the minimum and maximum voltage the battery will operate at(even though this is not the maximum for the cell, most manufacturers don't charge or discharge the cells 100% either way, even though your device says 0%-100%, this is for your understanding, the cell will last much longer if not pushed 100% EITHER WAY). These newer battery chemistry's do not carry a full charge until they have been through a few charge/discharge cycles and the micro-controller has calibrated itself. In the old days when NICAD and NIMH was the norm, a 100% discharge cycle from time-to-time was required to keep the batteries from having a memory. Now days with smart batteries, a full discharge helps keep the battery calibrated and the built in micro controller tells the device to shutoff long before the battery reaches 100% discharge and killing the battery, I would not recommend discharging the batteries all the way daily, most manufacturers recommend allowing the device to auto shut off monthly. In the older lithium technologies, engineers did not have the small chip to include into the battery assembly, so if you left the battery on the charger too long or discharged the battery 100%, you ruined the battery. There is still stuff floating around out there that does NOT have the protection circuitry built in for the lithium batteries, these batteries are usually in cheap devices or manufactured by 3rd party manufacturers. Some times those cheapo batteries on Flea Bay are NOT such a good deal, they omit the battery controller, which also is considered a safety device built into the battery. Lithium batteries that are overcharged, charged too fast or allowed to overheat just a little make a great bang(hopefully not in your pocket). The biggest killer of the Lithium batteries these days is heat, it used to be overcharging and discharging. It's been a good conversation, but I have seen some people still following old rules(batteries with no controller built in, Panasonic was a major violator of this rule a decade ago). I have not designed in a while but I have always wondered why they did not just put the circuitry into the phone, besides for maybe a slight problem of the controller maybe not knowing the charge state of a swapped out battery. I tried replacing NIMH cells with Lithium Ion cells a few years back in a device, boy did I get an education that was not cheap. My first mistake was charging the cells too fast, killed them all before I even got them in the device. Hope this helps! Cheers!