Ed, Craigix, Mweston - Anyone

[EvilDragon]

update:

i took my battery out overnight and when i put it back into my pandora it wouldnt turn on. i plugged in the charger and nothing.
i unplugged and replugged the charger 10 or so times and finally it booted up.

it's now sitting with the charger plugged in and i watched the charge go from 0 to 1%.
the red charger light is not solid though, it is flashing. what does this mean? i'm guessing it means criticially low charge or something? edit: it stopped flashing at about 6%.

Flashing means it's below 6%, yes.

looks like my battery may be duff?

Let it charge until it reaches 100%. If it doesn't do that or anything else goes wrong, THEN your battery could be duff

 

[WizardStan]

looks like my battery may be duff?

It completely discharged without being plugged in? A significant amount, can you say? Like you know absolutely unequivocally no way you could possibly be mistaken that it wasn't already almost dead?
Sounds like the battery isn't good. I don't know exactly how this applies to LiPo, but when I built a pack of liion batteries in university out of cells, one bad cell could drain the entire pack flat overnight. It was unbelievably tedious soldering 200 cells together, and then checking them one by one every hour to ensure that no battery was causing a problem.

edit: and in defense of OPT, a busted cell doesn't prevent the battery from operating normally. It charges, holds, runs, all appears good. You generally can't notice there's a problem until several hours of non-use and find the battery pack is dead or dying.

 

[urjaman]

I don't know exactly how this applies to LiPo, but when I built a pack of liion batteries in university out of cells, one bad cell could drain the entire pack flat overnight. It was unbelievably tedious soldering 200 cells together, and then checking them one by one every hour to ensure that no battery was causing a problem.

According to voltage the Pandora battery should a single cell design, but I really have nothing to prove it, so it could have several cells in parallel (but why?). Anyways, I think that its possible for the battery to have some sort of damage so that it self-discharges way too fast.

 

[MWeston]

i took my battery out overnight and when i put it back into my pandora it wouldnt turn on. i plugged in the charger and nothing.
i unplugged and replugged the charger 10 or so times and finally it booted up.

The battery was so discharged that it was too low to turn the system on. Leaving it plugged in and plugging it in and out 10 times just cumulatively added up to enough charge time to exceed the 3.2V threshold the PMIC needs to leave the pre-charge state.

it's now sitting with the charger plugged in and i watched the charge go from 0 to 1%.

This confirms it here which is nice. Being at 0% means you are just out of the pre-charge area.

looks like my battery may be duff?

Let's find out. In some experiments with other projects, I have learned one way to recognize a dead/dying battery. I assume this is accurate as cells shouldn't do this normally. Please try this procedure if you don't mind:
- Charge battery to 100% if you can get it there. Record that maximum percentage you were able to get to if not 100 but get there if possible.
- Shut down and remove battery. If you have a voltmeter, measure the battery's voltage and record it to tell me. The voltage is across the two outer pads on the battery pack as labeled.
- Leave the battery sit at standard room temperature (20-25C, not too humid an environment, etc.) for a 24 hour period. Stick it in the battery box or something so that it is safe and out of the way.
- Run your unit on AC only if that works for your board (being experimental and a 'test' feature as I've mentioned before, it still doesn't work on absolutely all boards for some reason). This way you can still enjoy playing around for that day rather than being Pandora-less unless you are too busy anyway.
- At the end of the 24 hour period, measure the battery voltage with the voltmeter if you have one. Let me know the new voltage. If you don't have a voltmeter, you will have to stick it back in and boot up. Let me know the new percentage. A few percent would be tolerable as cell voltage relaxes after charging completes. Tens of percentage drop would indicate the cell is toast and you should contact OP sales for a new one. A 48 hour period would be even better because it will likely keep dropping and I forget how long I set my intervals when testing some batteries I turned into balloons but it was in the 24-48 hour range. I think one day should give us the data we need.

Are you still on your first battery? I don't think you have a replacement already right?

Thanks.

 

[Monk]

So to test how full a battery really is, the %-Gauge is the value you need to check.

I thought the battery meter was supposed to be better than that? some really good accurate meter that does more than just measrue the current drain - something better than GP/GPH or Intel use...?

The battery meter should always be accurate to about a minute. This isn't some shitty old GP2X tech.

The battery life is accurate, and I think people with MK0 machines will confirm that. That is an area we are really hot on. It is where ARM kicks intel in the balls.

 

[EvilDragon]

So to test how full a battery really is, the %-Gauge is the value you need to check.

I thought the battery meter was supposed to be better than that? some really good accurate meter that does more than just measrue the current drain - something better than GP/GPH or Intel use...?

The battery meter should always be accurate to about a minute. This isn't some shitty old GP2X tech.

The battery life is accurate, and I think people with MK0 machines will confirm that. That is an area we are really hot on. It is where ARM kicks intel in the balls.

Errrmmm - please, Monk, explain how this can work.

The battery meter is accurate. Let the Pandora sit and do nothing and you can see that it is indeed accurate to the minute.

Now, imagine you have approx. 10 hours of battery time left (always calculated with the actual state).
How should the Pandora know what you want to do?

Using PSX needs more juice than using Abiword. Switching WiFi on and browse the web needs more juice than just using the desktop.
Changing the brightness of the screen does change the power usage of the battery. Even the WiFi signal quality changes the power!

There is NO DEVICE worldwide that can tell you the exact time left (unless it's a device that always uses the exact same power).
Mobile Phones can be in standby for a week but drain in a couple of hours when you do phone calls - or even faster, when using WiFi.

So how the heck can a battery be more accurate? The system picks up what you're currently doing and updates the time left.

The only thing to make a proper accurate battery meter was to ALWAYS run the system with full load, full brightness and WiFi on.
Battery life will probably go down to 6 hours but always be accurate.
Most stupid thing to do though.

 

[Monk]

So how the heck can a battery be more accurate? The system picks up what you're currently doing and updates the time left.

The only thing to make a proper accurate battery meter was to ALWAYS run the system with full load, full brightness and WiFi on.

You really do try to twist around every thing I say to prove the world I am a vindictive liar, don't you? Which is not pleasant.

I didn't know how your battery meter was going to be better than both Intel-based battery meters and GPH battery tech, but I assumed from Craig's enthusiastic outburst/s on-forum that it did a bit more than simply picking up what you're currently doing RIGHT NOW and estimating from that. That is certainly a form of accuracy, assuming it's good at it, but it's not really more useful than the most conservative estimate of running everything at full power, is it?

How to be MORE ACCURATE? Well, if the battery meter kept a log of user behaviour - if it profiled battery usage behaviour, as some meters supposedly do, then that would be more "usefully" accurate wouldn't it? I must admit that I assumed the meter did that, or something else "clever", when Craig was reporting how great the battery meter was. Otherwise I'm a bit flummoxed about how the battery meter was such a big deal. Hence my confusion. Hence the question.

I'm sorry you feel that in having questions caused by misunderstandings or inconsistencies that I am out to call you a liar.

 

[paddy]

It is not acurate to the minute both my pandora units battery time meters were jumping all over the place when all i done was browse the web (fact) my new unit once fully charged was 100% and when rebooted it said 12 hours ,this went down to 6 hours before the battery was at 90% then it jumps backup to 9 hours ,it does this all day long ,do you want a video showing it ?

And Ed please give me credit and take what i say for real ,no i am not messing around with overclocking and running multiple apps while this gauge is all over the place ,web browser 500mhz ,i say this as you have a tendency to go into all the really obvious things that would make the gauge possibly do this.


And i am not complaining btw ,i don't care about the gauge ,the battery still lasts out many hours and it's a fine battery ,just saying that the gauge well for both my units at least are not atal acurate ,not a major problem is it as long as you DO get that battery life and i am saying you do.

 

[mali]

^ Paddy, it works as intended. It extrapolates battery life based on the momentary power consumption

 

[paddy]

^ Paddy, it works as intended. It extrapolates battery life based on the momentary power consumption

hehe +1


Actuly now that i think about it i would like to know if anyone else has the same problem with the battery gauge going al over the place ? mabe it IS just my unit and the older unit (could be) if so i want to return my unit becase i get 12+hours on a full charge but while charging the gauge says 0000 ,then i need to reboot and it gives me a reading ,but that reading goes all over the place and for instance when it drops to say 6hours and i am at 90% battery life ,that gauge never really goes back to a reasonable state of reading ,thinking about it mabe my older unit didn't really do this quite as badly and also i am not very sure my old unit stated 0000 when charging ,i would like to return as i do not think i am getting 12 hours more like 7 hours, man i am going to test this after a full charge ,i will leave it on low brightness at 500mhz on the desktop with nothing else loaded ,i will time it till when the pandora shuts down by its self and i will monitor the gauge.

mabe i don't need to return the unit ,mabe just the battery or mabe i don't need to return anything ,lets see.

EM OK ,so after a re'read of Ed's explanation of the battery gauge we can see that the time left on the gauge can go up and down quite a bit seeing as in a desktop enviroment things can change quite a bit ! overclocking/underclocking back to 500mhz ,running several software apps that kind of thing ,so mabe my battery is normal then ,but what a fucking stupid gauge it is !"! so i would need to use n64 till my battery runs out then clock the time and think ohh ok i get xxx out of my battery with n64 ,then how about media player ,ok i will do as many movies till the battery goes and then i can gauge how much movie time i get ,then there is brightness and volume to take into acount and then the general user preference on overclocking in general use on the desktop ,i do 880mhz all day long ,all day long !! cha cha ,you know i love to sing.

I say the gauge is stupid but actuly we need something like this for such a device and it's main use is so we can have an on the spot gauge of how much juice is left along with a percentage.

I am still charging up ,so what would the best test be to check battery life ,500mhz lowest brightness level and nothing running and aim for 12 hours ? that means i can't use my pandora for 12 hours what about same settings only 880mhz or 800mhz as most/all people can get 800mhz ?

 

[EvilDragon]

Yeah, the remaining time is 0 if you charge - as with a charger attached, the remaining time would be neverending

 

[mali]

I say the gauge is stupid but actuly we need something like this for such a device and it's main use is so we can have an on the spot gauge of how much juice is left along with a percentage.

I am still charging up ,so what would the best test be to check battery life ,500mhz lowest brightness level and nothing running and aim for 12 hours ? that means i can't use my pandora for 12 hours what about same settings only 880mhz or 800mhz as most/all people can get 800mhz ?

I just saw your edit. Actually such a gauge is standard in every handheld/laptop. There is some additional third-party software available for x86 laptops, like Battery Bar for example, which adds a history to the battery readings to adopt to the typical usage scenario of the user.

To get your battery life, just charge the unit to 100% and use it normally till it shuts itself off. If your usage doesn't vary that much, you should have a quite accurate impression of what to expect.

If you have a very variable usage, just ignore the hour reading and only look at the percentage. You'll intuitively learn what to expect from a certain percentage left in the battery.

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

I say the gauge is stupid but actuly we need something like this for such a device and it's main use is so we can have an on the spot gauge of how much juice is left along with a percentage.

I am still charging up ,so what would the best test be to check battery life ,500mhz lowest brightness level and nothing running and aim for 12 hours ? that means i can't use my pandora for 12 hours what about same settings only 880mhz or 800mhz as most/all people can get 800mhz ?

I just saw your edit. Actually such a gauge is standard in every handheld/laptop. There is some additional third-party software available for x86 laptops, like Battery Bar for example, which adds a history to the battery readings to adopt to the typical usage scenario of the user.

To get your battery life, just charge the unit to 100% and use it normally till it shuts itself off. If your usage doesn't vary that much, you should have a quite accurate impression of what to expect.

If you have a very variable usage, just ignore the hour reading and only look at the percentage. You'll intuitively learn what to expect from a certain percentage left in the battery.

Quoted for truth B)

 

[tsh]

I am still charging up ,so what would the best test be to check battery life ,500mhz lowest brightness level and nothing running and aim for 12 hours ? that means i can't use my pandora for 12 hours what about same settings only 880mhz or 800mhz as most/all people can get 800mhz ?

No, it's really quite simple. Turn it off, put it back in the box, and leave it for 2 days. Turn it on again, and add 48 hours to what the battery meter says.

 

[htl2001]

Yeah, the remaining time is 0 if you charge - as with a charger attached, the remaining time would be neverending

Is there a way to make it display estimated time to a full charge?

Also, does it do this if its on USB power but is drawing more than the USB provides, or does it just give an estimate at like 30 hours?

 

[tsh]

Since we're talking about charging, my unit doesn't seem to charge from a dumb USB mains charger (but does from a computer USB). Is this as designed?

 

[mali]

There was a discussion about it. Notaz mentioned that it starts charging via USB only above a certain percentage.

edit: I misread your post. I suspect your charger is broken, then.

 

[WizardStan]

Since we're talking about charging, my unit doesn't seem to charge from a dumb USB mains charger (but does from a computer USB). Is this as designed?

Some USB chargers are "keyed". that's probably the wrong term. I'm drawing from a flawed 3 year old memory here, but some USB mains chargers will only actually activate if one of the pins is pulled to ground. The device is supposed to be responsible for recognizing that it's plugged into such a wall charger and pull the pin to ground to start the flow. It's to prevent random devices like a camera from plugging into one of these and getting blown out with a 1a blast or something.
The Pandora probably does not do this. You can force your charger to be always on by cutting open the wire and connecting two of the pins (I don't know which two, sorry) but then you risk killing things plugged into it that shouldn't be. Or find a less intelligent dumb charger

 

[Polossatik]

Do you use the same USB cable? I know it sounds silly but I had the same issue with an other device , changing the USB cable solved it.
Not sure if it was coincidence ...

Edit ninja'd of course and that would explain why some cable worked and other did not.

 

[tsh]

Do you use the same USB cable?

No - not yet, I did mean to check with different cable and different charger before posting, but I thought this thread needed hijacking...

Edit - that was a charger with hard-wired mini-usb. Using my HTC charger and an A-miniB lead, it charges fine. Which is nice - even if its not as fast as the supplied charger.