New user - charging issue


P

Pandora Newbie

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Hi,

I've just bought a second-hand 1GHz Pandora, and I love it! I'm having a small problem charging it up, though. I leave it overnight to charge, but when I come to it in the morning, I find it stopped charging at some point in the night.

A quick restart fixes the problem and the Pandora charges the rest of the way up, but this isn't ideal... I don't always have extra time to charge the Pandora in the morning.

This happens whether I leave the Pandora on, or in low power mode. I'm running SuperZaxxon 1.61 and the battery is at 90% health according to System Info. I can't see anything wrong with the charger.

I have a spare battery I will try tomorrow, and I will try charging from a different power socket (or from USB), but until then, does anyone have any other ideas as to what might be causing this behaviour?

Pandora Newbie
 
Well, in the past I had that problem where it would charge to 100%, at 3 am but then once full, it starts discharging, and never got the 100%. Did you update to the latest firmware? It reduces the power consumption even more in standby.

Do you use the barrel charger (with or without the psp adapter) or do you charge by mini usb?
 
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I wonder if this is anything to do with the battery saver algorithm.  My unit will charge to 100% but then stop charging until the battery percentage gets down to 80%, where it will start charging again.  I believe it works like that so you can leave your Pandora plugged in as long as you like, and it won't cook the battery.

You can test that by unplugging and re-plugging in the charger.  That kicks the algorithm and gets it charging again - it shouldn't need a reboot if that's all it is.  If that doesn't work then it looks like something is up to me, but I don't know what at this juncture.
 
My unit will charge to 100% but then stop charging until the battery percentage gets down to 80%, where it will start charging again.
That was how the old charge method was supposed to work when it was entirely hardware controlled, before we figured out how dangerous relying on the hardware was. If you're on the latest updates it should only fall to 95%, unless there's a problem that we're not aware of. If an update doesn't fix this you may want to post a bug report because that ain't right.
 
My battery never charged never anymore than 80%, sometimes only 65%. using the mains charger.

Since I started using mini usb I now get 100% each charge so I would recommend usb every time
 
Up until about a week ago I had no problems, but now my mains charger doesn't work at all.

Not certain if it's the charger or the port which has failed, but does nada.

I have to use the USB now to juice up
 
Coincidentally, the cable I was using (a USB to PSP charge cable) broke recently such that it would only charge when the cable was bent certain ways, and it was easy for it to start charging when you plugged it in but stop as soon as you set it down. I've now replaced it with a new Y-cable which goes from USB-A to PSP charger and mini-B USB such that I can charge it either using the charger port or the mini-A/B port. It pumps in a little more current when plugged into my dumb 2A mains->USB plug through the charger port than through the mini-USB port, but it's not a significant amount, and it should still charge well enough in a few hours.

FWIW my original charger never broke. I managed to lose it first, so I've been using cheap third party USB adaptors ever since.
 
Using USB to PSP cables is a call for issues. Only a small number of USB adapters is capable to deliver 2 A which Pandora may rightfully claim from the mains, and depending on how your USB adapter is made it can blow up, drop the charge or just limit the current.

My suggestion for non-standard chargers would be to put the unit in sleep mode right after the charge starts, and wake it up after you disconnect the charger.

I have some scripts sitting in the soon-to-be-pnd folder which carefully pick charging current for each source (or alternatively put it to overdirve for extra-fast charging). But as far as my experience goes, there's always a root cause for bad charging which is not curable by scripts. Like a cable which is broken under the insulation or a connector which is badly soldered or broken off the circuit board, or faulty capacitor inside the USB adapter.
 
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The issue you describe is with the mains->USB adaptor, not the cable. The cable can also be used with a PC USB output, although I guess that could also overcurrent if the pandora drops the load too low - but I would be more surprised if a computer blew up from overcurrent than if a cheap third party mains->USB adaptor did.

FWIW, my mains->USB plug is a Garmin part that came with a fairly pricey sports watch a few years back. It's rated to 2A out, and it hasn't blown up yet. Most cheaply made switched mode PSUs would just drop voltage if the output current exceeded the maximum charge input, and nothing should blow up, though with the variety of adaptors out there from all sorts of places, it's hard to be confident nobody's built something so badly that it might let out the magic smoke if you over-drive it.

I don't see what putting the Pandora to low-power mode would do. Input current over the voltage should be the same, although the amount of current consumed by the Pandora will drop. I don't see how it affects the mains adaptor at all.
 
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I don't see what putting the Pandora to low-power mode would do. Input current over the voltage should be the same, although the amount of current consumed by the Pandora will drop. I don't see how it affects the mains adaptor at all.
That. Drawing less current from the adapter makes life easier for it.
 
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Hmm? In my tests, the current coming from the adaptor has been constant, pretty much. But you take away the current consumed by the Pandora to end up with the amount going into the battery. So the lower the current consumed, the quicker it charges, but the voltage and current in stay the same in my experience.
 
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