Does Pandora Charge In 'sleep' Mode?

[goldenegg]

I just got my Pandora and had something a little strange happen this morning.

Last night, I plugged in my Pandora before I went to sleep. The battery was at 97% at the time. I put the Pandora in sleep mode while charging.

This morning, I started the Pandora and it said 97% for the battery. A few minutes later, it dropped to 78%. There haven't been any large drops since. This got me to wonder if you can use sleep mode while charging the Pandora.

Any idea what could have caused this?

 

[chris_c]

I´ve noticed that just because the battery gauge claims 100% it ain´t necessarily so...

It can say 100% but drop quickly when taken off charge and used. I usually leave it a while, even though it says 100%

but overnight from 97% should have charged it!!!

in low power mode you can get over 24hrs so it sounds like you Pandora wasn´t charging at all

maybe the mains adapter cable came adrift from the charger? did you check the charge led on the pandora - has it charged since ?

oh and you absolutely CAN charge in low power mode.

 

[torpor]

It takes a few minutes for the battery level sampling to work properly, and usually needs a bit of load, too ..

 

[WizardStan]

Yes, you can charge in sleep mode. The charge circuit has an automatic cut off when it detects the battery is full: it is supposed to do this as it prevents the battery from exploding. It then, by default, discharges down to about 80% before starting the charge back up. This is something I'm currently tweaking in software and hope to push into Hot Fix 6.
As others have said, it takes a minute for the gauge to correctly adjust, so if you put it to sleep at 97%, it probably still remembered that 97% and just took a minute to update at which point it jumped to 78%.

 

[goldenegg]

Yes, you can charge in sleep mode. The charge circuit has an automatic cut off when it detects the battery is full: it is supposed to do this as it prevents the battery from exploding. It then, by default, discharges down to about 80% before starting the charge back up. This is something I'm currently tweaking in software and hope to push into Hot Fix 6.
As others have said, it takes a minute for the gauge to correctly adjust, so if you put it to sleep at 97%, it probably still remembered that 97% and just took a minute to update at which point it jumped to 78%.

Thanks! That definitely explains it. I must have caught it at the low end of the discharge.

Any chance of your tweaks making it in to the upcoming HF5?

 

[WizardStan]

Thanks! That definitely explains it. I must have caught it at the low end of the discharge.

Any chance of your tweaks making it in to the upcoming HF5?

Probably not, but some of them are easy enough to do from a command line, I can just make a script for them for those that are interested.

 

[cbox]

I keep my Pandora plugged in overnight and put it in sleep mode and it always wakes up fully charged, so I'm pretty sure it's charging in sleep.

 

[OilySalmon]

I keep my Pandora plugged in overnight and put it in sleep mode and it always wakes up fully charged...

Yeah, same here. Ever since I got mine, I've never seen it reading below 100% after charging overnight. I really doubt it's just chance, since my sleep pattern is about as erratic as you could get (sleep disorder coupled with a dog that likes to run from one end of my room to the other at four in the morning to wake me up makes for a crappy morning and I usually pass out soon after I beat my dog to death let my dog outside).

Is there an explanation for this? The seemingly-always 100% after charging overnight thing, I mean, not the dogs' behaviour. I'm guessing that since it's battery-related the answer might not be so good. Overcharging possibly? I get a little overly-concerned about these sorts of things, you see.

 

[goldenegg]

I'm completely unable to have my Pandora reading 100% when I wake up in the morning. What I've been doing is I plug it in when I'm home, disconnect it when I see it get to 100%, then shut down for the night.

 

[chris_r]

Yes, you can charge in sleep mode. The charge circuit has an automatic cut off when it detects the battery is full: it is supposed to do this as it prevents the battery from exploding. It then, by default, discharges down to about 80% before starting the charge back up. This is something I'm currently tweaking in software and hope to push into Hot Fix 6.
As others have said, it takes a minute for the gauge to correctly adjust, so if you put it to sleep at 97%, it probably still remembered that 97% and just took a minute to update at which point it jumped to 78%.

That definitely doesn't sound like the right way to do it. Is there no method of trickle charging the battery to hold it near 100%? If not then a pulsed trickle may be the way to go, pulsing the fast charge current on for about 2 seconds of every minute.

 

[OilySalmon]

That definitely doesn't sound like the right way to do it. Is there no method of trickle charging the battery to hold it near 100%? If not then a pulsed trickle may be the way to go, pulsing the fast charge current on for about 2 seconds of every minute.

Read Here. In short, trickle charging a LiPo is a very bad idea. It apparently ruins the battery and could cause puffing from overcharging (I think). It's just the way these batteries behave, it seems.

 

[WizardStan]

That definitely doesn't sound like the right way to do it. Is there no method of trickle charging the battery to hold it near 100%? If not then a pulsed trickle may be the way to go, pulsing the fast charge current on for about 2 seconds of every minute.

Read Here. In short, trickle charging a LiPo is a very bad idea. It apparently ruins the battery and could cause puffing from overcharging (I think). It's just the way these batteries behave, it seems.

Yeah, I thought holding it at 100% should be fine because that's how li-ion do it, but I talked to someone from my university about batteries and he said keeping a lipo at 100% charge was very bad.

 

[chris_r]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot that Pandora uses a LiPo. I've just been working on NiMH algorithms so much recently that it's been stuck in my head!