Battery Capacity IndicationSupport

  1. BigLizzie

    BigLizzie Member

    Can anyone point me to an article about how Samsung does its battery indication? I have searched Google but found nothing helpful.

    The specific question is that I have bought a high capacity aftermarket battery, and the results are fantastic, but the battery comes with an instruction to run it right down several times.

    Last night (after two days of solid use!) it got down to 23%, so I put the screen to maximum, switched on the torch, and ran several intensive apps (like satnav). I got it down to 1% after a considerable time (maybe 3 hours) but it then stuck at 1% for another 2 hours. Presumably it was calibrating itself. I eventually gave up, put it on charge and went to bed.

    So have I now knackered the chances of ever having an accurate battery indication, or is the situation recoverable?

    Also what happens if I now put the ordinary battery (which I keep in my pocket as an emergency backup) back in?

    As I say, no need for a full answer if you can point me to an article.

    Thank you!

  2. Rukbat

    Rukbat Well-Known Member

    It's not the indication they were talking about, and it's not running it down to 0% - which you can't do with a LiIon battery - charging one that's completely dead could result in a fire or explosion [just ask Sony], so they disconnect from the terminals before they go completely dead. Permanently. You need a lab to reconnect the battery at that point.

    You first charge the battery until the phone tells you it's fully charged. Then you use it normally - whatever is normally for you - wothout charging it until the phone tells you to connect the charger. You do that for 3 cycles - charge it 3 times, use it until you're told to recharge it 3 times.

    What this does is condition the battery. If it's a new battery, made just a few weeks before you got it, there's no reason to condition it (but conditioning it won't hurt). But the longer it was sitting on the shelf between the time it was made and the time you got it, the more important it is to condition it. You get two advantages. First, the time between charges will be longer with a conditioned battery. Second, the total lifetime of a conditioned battery is longer. (Getting a battery with 25% chargr and using it until it's close to 0 probably cuts 20% off its lifespan.) I have an old flip phone - made around 2003 - with the 2 batteries I originally got with it (I always get a spare). It's almost 11 years later, and they still hold a charge almost as long as they did right after conditioning.

    Of course, with battery prices what they are today (we used to pay $90 for a 780mA battery), it's not that terrible if you kill one.

    Some people in the industry (I used to be one of them) will argue that LiIon batteries no longer have to be conditioned. Since it's not a big deal to do it, and it can't hurt (and I don't have a lab and a few techs to experiment and get a definitive answer), I still condition all my batteries. (In fact, when I got my Note 3s, I asked them to leave the batteries out and set the phones up using the charger. Then I conditioned the batteries on all the phones. And I still get great time between charges. I can go almost 4 days with very light usage.)
    BigLizzie likes this.

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