Question...

[eidian]

My phone was originally a regular RAZR and I converted it over to a MAXX a couple of weeks ago with one of those kits.

How did the phone know to change the model to say RAZR MAXX?

View attachment 63166

Converted my RAZR to the Maxx. My phone is actually useful now.

 

[Shadez]

Is it a new phone?

 

[FoxKat]

My phone was originally a regular RAZR and I converted it over to a MAXX a couple of weeks ago with one of those kits.

How did the phone know to change the model to say RAZR MAXX?

View attachment 63166

Converted my RAZR to the Maxx. My phone is actually useful now.

That's a great question. If I had to guess, I'd say that the ROM has two configurations to support the two battery sizes and changes the name according to the detected mAh capacity of the battery.

Edit; Since the charging circuitry is an intelligent charger, it actually watches the charging and discharging rates as well as the minimum and maximum capacities so it would detect that the battery holds c. 3,300 mAh upon the first full charge. I would recommend if you haven't done it yet, to do a meter training.

1) Power the phone completely off (press Power and hold, choose "Power off" at the menu.
2) Plug into the stock wall adapter and stock charging cable and allow to boot into "Charge Only" mode (a large battery icon and percentage indicator).
3) Allow the phone to charge fully, to 100% (up to 5.5 hours for a full charge from full depleted). To check charge progress, tap the Volume up or down briefly and wait about 3 - 5 seconds.
4) Once fully charged, disconnect from the charger and power the phone up normally.
5) Use your phone normally throughout the day until the phone signals for you to plug it into the charger (10% or less). Don't ever let the phone batter deplete to 0% and auto-power down if at all possible.
6) Once you reach the Pop-up message to charge the battery, repeat steps 1 through 5.

You're done. This allows the meter and battery's actual capacity to be in proper sync.

This makes sense since the two phones actually run the same kernel and ROM.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[YellowJacket]

I think FoxKat hit the nail on the head.

David

 

[eidian]

FoxKat, just by chance I happened to do what you described as far as the draining and recharging of the new battery when I first converted the phone (I have a battery calibration app and decided to calibrate per the app's instructions which paralleled yours). But I didn't repeat the process.

I was figuring that it must be based on voltage but I've been wrong before. When I first converted the phone the new battery was only at 50% and I didn't notice the model number saying "Maxx" (maybe the voltage was in range of the OG RAZR battery).

I decided to discharge the battery today but with stats like the ones in the screen captures below, I don't think that I have the patience to wait for the battery to drain...

View attachment 63197



View attachment 63198

Converted my RAZR to the Maxx. My phone is actually useful now.

 

[Dalvik_Cache]

I would be curious to see if it actually modified the build.prop... It almost had to?

 

[FoxKat]

FoxKat, just by chance I happened to do what you described as far as the draining and recharging of the new battery when I first converted the phone (I have a battery calibration app and decided to calibrate per the app's instructions which paralleled yours). But I didn't repeat the process.

I was figuring that it must be based on voltage but I've been wrong before. When I first converted the phone the new battery was only at 50% and I didn't notice the model number saying "Maxx" (maybe the voltage was in range of the OG RAZR battery).

I decided to discharge the battery today but with stats like the ones in the screen captures below, I don't think that I have the patience to wait for the battery to drain...

View attachment 63197



View attachment 63198

Converted my RAZR to the Maxx. My phone is actually useful now.

LOL! I have to agree with you that the MAXX (whether converted or stock from factory), has a real nice power cycle. I often don't get below 40% before putting it on charge at night when getting ready for bed. There have been quite a number of nights where I forgot to charge it and it still made it through the next day without dying.

Your initial inkling that the phone didn't detect the battery's capacity and so may not have determined it was supposed to read MAXX is perhaps a bit off-base. Both the RAZR and RAZR MAXX batteries top out at a 100% charge when their voltage reaches about 4.3 Volts, so there is no apparent difference between the two batteries - a RAZR and a RAZR MAXX battery at any given time in the charge cycle. Since the only difference between the RAZR MAXX and the RAZR are the larger capacity battery (and by capacity I mean mAh, not voltage), and the different back cover (and different color Motorola badge on front), the only way the phone can "know" it's carrying the larger battery is to first have "watched" it go from 100% capacity to a near depleted capacity of 10%.

A full charge is determined by the battery reaching a peak voltage level of approximately 4.3 Volts (some say 4.2, others 4.4), while also showing about 3% of charger capacity as a current draw, or about 24 mAh. On the charge cycle, once it sees those two levels, it sets a 100% charge flag in the phone. Then it tracks usage and current draw, as well as voltage levels over the course of the discharge cycle. It will "know" when it his passed about 1,700 mAh consumed, and still carrying a relatively high voltage of maybe 3.5 Volts, that it is now sporting a 3,300 mAh RAZR MAXX battery rather than the 1,780 mAh battery of the RAZR, and will adjust its entire profile and charging process to meet the demands of the higher capacity battery. This is why it's ALWAYS recommended to FULLY CHARGE a new phone, whether it has 40% - 50% charge already or not. As said before, that partial charge is there to protect the battery from going into "protection mode" while sitting in the warehouses, not so that you can use it straight out of the box.

 

[eidian]

Gotcha, so I was guessing that the capacity being shown when I first installed the new battery was within the range of an original RAZR battery.

I was still at 59% by the time I went to bed so I just charged the phone because I knew that I wouldn't have access to an outlet on Saturday.

Thanks for the tutorials!

Converted my RAZR to the Maxx. My phone is actually useful now.

 

[jkaod]

.

How did the phone know to change the model to say RAZR MAXX?

That's why they call them "smartphones".