Issue with my battery, keeps reading 1%

[Korlithiel]

Heyas, so after removing my Pandora's battery it always reads 1% and gains charge with time (not plugged in). It has me a bit worried and I've been unable to find an answer to this problem (if it's a battery seating problem I can't figure it out after many, many attempts throughout today).


Anyways, it seems to work fine. Just, it came reading 1% when I first turned it on and so I charge it and ran it for awhile and for some reason felt the need to pull the battery and now this issue has persisted.


Thanks for your time, and any help provided.


Edited in:


After charging for a period, turning it off and getting ready to reflash it seems to be working. I'll be certain in the morning to ignore this until there is a real issue if it manages to read 100% by then.

 

[Eridger]

If its not a seating problem it's probably, or hopefully, software.


Have you tried a reflash? I'm not recommending it, since I don't have a Pandora just yet and don't know its inner workings. Wait until someone else weighs in.


It's just a thought, though.

 

[Korlithiel]

I'll admit, I'm considering reflashing but I believe that the latest updates did just that.


May as well note a couple more things, I'm going to leave it on the charger tonight while I sleep (should be full in the morning) which I hope doesn't cause any issues.


The other thing is that one corner of the unit was extremely loose when I first got it and I've since loosened all the screws and tightened them again to try and get it to tighten up a bit and while it can't see to get perfect the gap from the looseness is pretty small now.

 

[Korlithiel]

Latest issue, it now just reads 100% charge. Fairly irritating, I think I'm going to run the battery out and then recharge to see if that helps.

 

[Link]

Have fun for the next 10 hours

 

[007jaws]

Latest issue, it now just reads 100% charge. Fairly irritating, I think I'm going to run the battery out and then recharge to see if that helps.

Hi simple fix is to remove the battery completed and re-insert afetr 5 minutes and then plug in charger and just let it charge. If not working an option could be to buy a new battery currently one for sale on ebay uk for £30 or you can order one from the store


hope it works out for you bye 007jaws

 

[MWeston]

Hot fix flashers and even full customer flashing kits don't reflash the fuel gauge chip or that's how it used to be. You might need ED to send you some recent files that will do that and see if that part just needs to be updated for some reason.

 

[Korlithiel]

I can only hope, because I would really like to know the battery life. Reading 100% all the time makes things difficult, and due to my last wait of 4 months for an RMA I really can't see sending my Pandora back in unless I absolutely have to (ie the battery dies).

 

[mosschops]

I can only hope, because I would really like to know the battery life. Reading 100% all the time makes things difficult, and due to my last wait of 4 months for an RMA I really can't see sending my Pandora back in unless I absolutely have to (ie the battery dies).

4 months for an RMA?


it might differ for different hardware faults but i was quoted 10-20 days a week ago today

 

[fr4n]

Hot fix flashers and even full customer flashing kits don't reflash the fuel gauge chip or that's how it used to be.

Sorry for the OT, but Is it possible to reflash the nubs without removing them?

 

[slaeshjag]

Hot fix flashers and even full customer flashing kits don't reflash the fuel gauge chip or that's how it used to be.

Sorry for the OT, but Is it possible to reflash the nubs without removing them?

The firmware for the nubs is stored on their µC's, which are separate chips soldered directly to the pandora PCB. Might be possible to ICP them, but that's not something most would be able to do.

 

[mvickers03]

I can only hope, because I would really like to know the battery life. Reading 100% all the time makes things difficult, and due to my last wait of 4 months for an RMA I really can't see sending my Pandora back in unless I absolutely have to (ie the battery dies).

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't need to send your full Pandora back if the battery died.

when I first turned it on and so I charge it and ran it for awhile and for some reason felt the need to pull the battery

It says in the manual do not remove the battery while switched on, it could easily cause a short, probably why the battery discharges.

 

[Korlithiel]

Mosschops, thanks to the poor timing of when I shipped mine in (right before the great nub fiasco) and slow shipping I waiting just over 4 months, likely about a month from shipping times alone.


mvickers03, I wasn't clear enough. I turned it off and pulled the battery and since then have been having issues, so have since pulled the battery while it was on to see if I could reposition it and have some noticeable difference.


Not having a battery is the same as no Pandora for me, I can't use it as desired without being able to bring it with me. So, while there is a difference in terms of what's actually happening, functionally speaking there isn't any since I still can't (effectively) use my Pandora without a battery.


Anyways, for now I'm just learning to live with it. Seems as just an mp3 player the battery life is over 14 hours, which will last me long enough to wait out a few more preorders thanks to wanting to have the device with me when I head off to college in a bit and by the time I have a solid break I can then go ahead and mail it back in then (if necessary) or potentially afford a replacement battery (when parts are easily available, as well as I have the funds to spare).

 

[Korlithiel]

MWeston, any chance you could talk to Ed about this or ask him to check out the thread? I would really appreciate it, because I really would like to have an idea of my current charge level. The system being in my pocket throughout the day, without knowing if the battery is functioning correctly, does worry me a bit after those issues with laptop batteries a few years ago catching fire (and fake PSP batteries exploding and such).

 

[Korlithiel]

I think it's time I sent in another email to find out if I can get any help that way. Man am I getting tired of waiting for a unit without these little issues, but I've got to admit it's hard to want to consider having to ship in even just the battery (effectively disabling the unit in the meantime) since my waits for RMA's just seem to increase (4 months last time...).

 

[mvickers03]

I think it's time I sent in another email to find out if I can get any help that way. Man am I getting tired of waiting for a unit without these little issues, but I've got to admit it's hard to want to consider having to ship in even just the battery (effectively disabling the unit in the meantime) since my waits for RMA's just seem to increase (4 months last time...).

Just fire them an E-mail, they are really helpful and would not surprise me if they just sent you a battery if yours is duff

 

[grosbill]

Hello,


It seems that I have the exact same problem so I suppose this is the good place to post.


By the way Korlithiel did you find a solution to this problem ?


More precisely here it what I observe :


- Whatever the power supply is connected of not the battery is thinking it is charging (see below).


- If I remove and re-place the battery it start at 1% and slowly got up (something like 1% every 10min or so) to some value (eventualy 100%) then the value reported eventually goes down.


- The values I have are globally inaccurate (For example the battery appeared to be empty while reporting about 30%)


- The battery always behaved this way (I have it and the pandy for 2 days now (except for this problem the pandora ***ing rocks !! by the way))


Before thinking about sending back the battery and/or the pandora to RMA I'd like to confirm it can't be software related.


Some additional traces for the experts out here :

With the power supply disconnected

==================================


$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/bq27500-0/status

Charging                           <-- This is what seems the most problematic to me

$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/twl4030_bci_battery/online

0

$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/twl4030_bci_battery/status

Discharging


With the power supply connected

===============================


$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/bq27500-0/status

Charging

$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/twl4030_bci_battery/online

2

$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/twl4030_bci_battery/status

Charging

More generally the information reported by twl4030_bci_battery seems pretty legit while those reported by bq27500-0 seems at least inaccurate.

 

[grosbill]

With some more investigation, things are getting even weirder :


Without the battery :


/sys/class/power_supply/bq27500-0/ give me :

capacity : 3

current_now : 223000

present : 1

status : Charging

temp : 3014

cat: /sys/class/power_supply/bq27500-0/time_to_empty_avg: No data available

time_to_empty_avg :

cat: /sys/class/power_supply/bq27500-0/time_to_empty_now: No data available

time_to_empty_now :

time_to_full_now : 61080

type : Battery

uevent :

voltage_now : 1078000

and /sys/class/power_supply/twl4030_bci_battery give

capacity : 90

charge_current : 360

current_now : 667

online : 0

status : Discharging

temp : -2

type : Battery

uevent : POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=twl4030_bci_battery POWER_SUPPLY_TYPE=Battery POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=0 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=4004 POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=667 POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=90 POWER_SUPPLY_TEMP=-2

voltage_now : 4004

Which if I understand correctly mean that bq27500-0 believe that a battery is currently charging and twl4030_bci_battery that there is no power source and a battery is discharging. Disturbing isn't it ?

 

[WizardStan]

twl only has two statuses: charging and discharging. The other values are only updated on interrupt which only occurs when there is a battery, so I wouldn't be concerned about those values.


I don't know how the bq handles the situation though, but it does seem to be odd.

 

[grosbill]

Leaving the pandora powered on without a battery for a few dozens minute, the behavior is the same as "usual" the battery start at 1% and slowly charge itself as if not being physically connected doesn't make a difference .


More seriously, It seems a safe bet to consider twl being fine (even if it may be a little perturbed by the behaviors of its friend).