Seidio 2600mAh extended battery

[preinvent]

Remember battery left is trying to learn your habits and the capability of the battery over time.... adding a charge now and then "even though that may be nor "normal" practice" disturbs the calibrating and it will be forced to wait till next time to get that sample.
Unless Matt corrects me.. thats my understanding....

What he said Battery Left can figure out how your battery performs by patching different charge levels together, but the quickest way by far is to charge fully (leave it on the charger for several hours after it says fully charged, until the mV level gets to around 4200mV) then let it run down completely flat until your phone turns off. This is very important as when your phone boots up again, that's when the app logs the 0% level.

Having run the Seidio battery for a few days now I'm seeing the biggest problem with inaccurate readings is that the battery reports 100% after charging even though it's actually much much less. If you take the phone off charge before it gets properly full all subsequent readings are wrong which really messes up the estimations.

I've got a few ideas to try out which may give more accurate readings. Watch this space...

 

[preinvent]

BTW, shortly before it went dead, Battery Left gave a Time Remaining time of 4408648:19. Does that happen when the voltage is too low?

I've seen this a few times now. Somehow a (very!) bad reading gets entered into the data which really messes things up. Unfortunately once this bad reading is in there's no way of getting rid of it without doing a recalibrate, or waiting for that reading to fall out of the calibration data (which could take weeks).

Regrettably, looks like you'll need to recalibrate,. Sorry, will try and fix this when I figure out why it's happening.

Matt

 

[windstrings]

If you take the phone off charge before it gets properly full all subsequent readings are wrong which really messes up the estimations.

I've got a few ideas to try out which may give more accurate readings. Watch this space...

That I didn't know.... it must assume when to take the charger of that its full... I wonder if you could get it to track MV readings instead to monitor where the battery is really at.... in real life we all do crazy things and forget and have minor emergencies causing us to need to take the phone off the charger.

I understand that once an honest calibration is done, this is no big deal, except that introducing erroneous info into the ongoing equation is never a good thing as we can't continue to fully drain our batteries as that is not practical and forces us to be vulnerable to running out certain times when we have no charger... but seems that would also help the Seidio issue too.

I now have the HTC incredible and have been watching mv readings..... they appear to be the same so far reflecting that most likely its a characteristic of this type of battery regardless of the size being extended or not.

Anything that will help track global characteristics among all phones is a good thing making the app perfect for all as one thing we all have in common is the type of chemical makeup all our batteries are as far as how they follow mv readings.

If thats not true and some phones use different types of batteries I'm not aware of then that wouldn't work...

In that case you could always make two versions... one for lithium/polymer based cells and one for the other "if there is any".

I was under the impression at present that all modern phones are pretty much using the same technology of battery.

 

[aaf709]

The Seidio Multi-Charger arrived today and I'm a bit disappointed. While I can stick a battery to the outside and charge it, the USB connection is pretty useless. I plugged it into the Seidio multimedia dock and stuck the Droid onto it. It goes into the home mode, but the battery icon does not show charging like when plugged into the OEM charger. There's a green light in the back so it's getting power, but nothing seems to be charging.

While I can have the multimedia dock plugged into the OEM charger and have the multi-charger for the spare battery, I had hoped to do this with one plug, not two.

Oh, I have an idea for Battery Left. Maybe have a button in the Settings to select OEM battery and Extended battery, if there's a need for different algorithms.

 

[BPB]

The Seidio Multi-Charger arrived today and I'm a bit disappointed. While I can stick a battery to the outside and charge it, the USB connection is pretty useless. I plugged it into the Seidio multimedia dock and stuck the Droid onto it. It goes into the home mode, but the battery icon does not show charging like when plugged into the OEM charger. There's a green light in the back so it's getting power, but nothing seems to be charging.

While I can have the multimedia dock plugged into the OEM charger and have the multi-charger for the spare battery, I had hoped to do this with one plug, not two.

Oh, I have an idea for Battery Left. Maybe have a button in the Settings to select OEM battery and Extended battery, if there's a need for different algorithms.

I've got the multi-charger and I've had great results with it; both sticking a battery to it and with the USB port.

As for Battery Left, I think they do require different algorithms for the stock battery and the extended battery.
If it's the mV that really matters, then battery left should be able to accurately show the drain on mV regardless of what battery is in the phone right? So if i take my extended battery out at the end of the day and stick it on the multi charger overnight (I always get a higher starting mV reading when I put it back in) and it use the stock battery overnight in the meantime, battery left should still accurately measure the mV. So as long as i know that 4200 is full capacity and 3300 is just about to go dead i can still get an accurate idea of how much time i've got left even if swapping the standard and extended batteries throws off battery left's time remaining estimate. Does that make sense?

 

[windstrings]

Matt, at the present is it ok to charge the phone from dead for an hour or so until you have time to get home and charge it properly?
And what if your charge times are hit and miss for several hours until you finally have time to do a formal charge uninteruppted?

The problem I'm having calibrating battery left is that in order to run the phone completely dead, The period it actually dies is often at work. I"m very mobile at work with no office... I've even had to go temporarily put it in my car and lock my car up in accessory mode to charge my phone long enough to use it the rest of the day.

Then when I head home "about an hour drive" I put it on my car charger to keep it from going dead or even give it a head start on the real charge it will get later that day when I finally go to bed and don't need my phone continually.

Do you have any suggestions as to a better way of doing it so I'm not left stranded?

The calibration process takes several days to complete yet life goes on during that period so adhering to schedules of uninterrupted discharge and then "the hardest part" uninterrupted charge is often difficult.

Is the uninterrupted "charge" part not so critical?

 

[DF Smod]

Do you have any suggestions as to a better way of doing it so I'm not left stranded?

I get my 2800 extended battery on Monday, and my plan is to disable my led's via led's hack, charge it every night, all night which I do anyways and just rest assured that my battery will make it through the day no matter what the meter says and no matter what I do with my phone. I guess I have come to believe that a full day of juice is better than an accurate battery reading

 

[windstrings]

The issue with being stranded if the first few days of trying to calibrate battery left properly....

All else fails... set battery left so the MV reading "voltage in the menu" shows on the widget.

No fears of going dead till you get below 3500... Mine usually gave up the ghost at 3350.

You would have to go crazy to kill it in one day... so if you want.. you don't even need to monitor it like you say..... I just like being able to "at a glance" know how many hours I have left till dead.

That the cool thing about battery left once you get it calibrated.

 

[aaf709]

I've got the multi-charger and I've had great results with it; both sticking a battery to it and with the USB port.

One question...when you have the Droid plugged into the multi-charger via the USB port, does the icon show charging (lightning bolt)? Mine doesn't. This is plugged into the Seidio multimedia dock, which does show a power light. Also, I'm using the OEM USB cable.

I charged the extended battery from dead on the multi-charger (not via USB) for 16 hours and when I installed the battery and turned the the Droid on it showed 4167 mV (and 7 hours remaining; yes, I'm re-calibrating). I thought it would be higher as this was the 4th full charge.

 

[BPB]

One question...when you have the Droid plugged into the multi-charger via the USB port, does the icon show charging (lightning bolt)? Mine doesn't. This is plugged into the Seidio multimedia dock, which does show a power light. Also, I'm using the OEM USB cable.

I charged the extended battery from dead on the multi-charger (not via USB) for 16 hours and when I installed the battery and turned the the Droid on it showed 4167 mV (and 7 hours remaining; yes, I'm re-calibrating). I thought it would be higher as this was the 4th full charge.

I do see the charging icon when plugged in. But, a few differences: I'm using the usb cable that came with the Seidio multi-charger (I just like it because it's longer and more convenient if I'm still using the phone when I'm charging it) although I believe I see the charging icon either way (OEM cable or Seidio cable). I don't have a multimedia dock, so perhaps that's what's causing a discrepancy.

As for charging the battery on the multi-charger directly, I usually see 4200 mV when I install it back in the phone. I might see 4187 mV when I just use the USB charge. I'm undecided on the fully draining and recharging for the battery itself; while 4167 seems just a tad low, I wouldn't say it's totally out of line. As far as hours left, my usage is so heavy that I just go by the mV - on average Battery Left says I've got 13 to 15 hours total and that's actually a good estimate based on my usage.

 

[bhall238]

For some reason this battery does charge to "full" in just a few hours then starts charging again heavy. I saw this with battery left. The battery color was green and said 100%, but mV was 3875. I checked it again a few minutes later and the battery icon was red said 5% and mV was still climbing it was at 3901. This agreed with what battery graph was showing. If people are taking it off the charger because it says 100% but it has only been a few hours then their experiences with the extended battery will not be good ones.

 

[windstrings]

I don't get the impression it charges and then kicks into overdrive and charges heavy, I think the charge indicator on the phone is triggered to show full at a mv reading thats not really fully charged but maybe "acceptable"... by leaving it on the charger, you simply see the voltage continue to rise till it stops with the overprotection circuit thats on most any lithium ion based charger or inside the battery itself to prevent explosions.
A reason non protected cells are only used by experts like Radio control freaks who want to squeeze every bit of life out of the battery and so charge it to the upper limits of dangerous.

With todays overprotection circuits there is no danger in leaving the battery on charge all the time for that matter... but the charge indicator on the phone is a poor indicator of a full charge.

 

[???]

my battery works great now that i have the charger and don't have to worry about getting a full charge. but just to tell how much of a high end user i am, i was able to kill both my stock battery and extended battery in one day of use. my boss is out of town, so free day at work. killed the stock battery in about 5 hours in(with less heavy use than the extended too, since it was early and i had some work to do), and the last i looked at the extended usage it had been 9 hours since i swapped it in and then looked at the screen time, it was at 60% usage with a on time of 7:30ish mins, and thats not on dim. it was in the low 3600mv by then and died shortly after that about 1am.


mostly watching nfl network and some ustream video's.

good stuff, the battery is a life saver for people like me that want to use the phone for all its worth. i do wish they have a full back sized one like the other baby droid has.

anyways, good luck to the battery left guy. this might be a tuff egg to crack.

 

[windstrings]

Looks like Seidio is already on the ball for anyone contemplating going to the HTC incredible...

The extended slim is shipping now and its 1750mah... and whats really cool is the extended will be 3500mah.. wholly molly! and it add only - 3-4mm to your device
Seidio - Your Single Source for Premium Smartphone Accessories

 

[DF Smod]

3500mah

Wow that is some seroius power...how is the Incredible anyways, compared to your Droid?

Sent from my Droid thru Time and Space