Overnight charging?

[timothee]

Hi there,


I charge my pandora every night, in sleep mode (pandora has to be turned on to charge).


I've noticed that in the morning, the charging LED has turned off, and the sleep mode has started to drain some of the power. That means by the time I disconnect the pandora from the charging socket, on my way to work, I'm already down to 88-92%. Is anyone else experiencing this? Is it by design?


Is there any way to automatically switch off the pandora once the charge reaches 100%?


Thanks,


Tim.

 

[gruso]

It's by design. When the battery hits 100%, if the AC is still connected, it will discharge to around 80% and then charge again. There are some improvements in the works that could make it into future firmware:

 

[timothee]

It's by design. When the battery hits 100%, if the AC is still connected, it will discharge to around 80% and then charge again. There are some improvements in the works that could make it into future firmware:

Thanks for the references Gruso!

 

[renegadechic]

i only noticed this the other night and i am definitely a fan of this. always felt like i was damaging the battery leaving it charging overnight before!

 

[Neelix]

It's by design. When the battery hits 100%, if the AC is still connected, it will discharge to around 80% and then charge again. There are some improvements in the works that could make it into future firmware:

I didn't think that functionality had made it into the default firmware yet. I'm fairly sure mine doesn't do it and I'm on HF5.


What I did come across with my original charger is that after a while the pandora would stop charging. I also noted that when it went out the LED on the power supply would fade.


I soon discovered that a bit of movement on the figure 8 connector would bring it back to full strength for varying amounts of time. this suggested to me a weak solder joint and for a while I considered either sending it back as RMA or opening it up and poking around for the problem.


I picked up a generic 5v power supply at my local electronics store, and sure enough that charged the pandora steadily again.


More recently, and being that I had an alternate charger (albeit with a much shorter cable) so had less reason to care if I could get it working again I decided to open it up. Sure enough there was a very obvious gap between one of the legs of the figure 8 connector and the solder surrounding it. A bit of soldering and my original power supply now works like new again.


Please note that unless you know exactly what you are doing I strongly recommend that you don't try to fix it (or any any other power supply) yourself.

 

[WizardStan]

I didn't think that functionality had made it into the default firmware yet. I'm fairly sure mine doesn't do it and I'm on HF5.

It's there, it's been there since the very beginning, no one bothered to calibrate it properly though, or see about additional features. Some batteries reach end of charge like they should, others just sit there getting pumped with more energy until they burst (after a few months). The tweaks I did seem to make all batteries reach end of charge as they should.

Please note that unless you know exactly what you are doing I strongly recommend that you don't try to fix it (or any any other power supply) yourself.

Good advice, but timothee is definitely experiencing the unenhanced end-of-charge.

 

[Prometheus]

others just sit there getting pumped with more energy until they burst (after a few months). The tweaks I did seem to make all batteries reach end of charge as they should.

Mine is one of the ones that doesn't stop once it hits 100% (indeed, two of my previous three units were the same, and the other one would stop before getting to 100% if it was in a warm location), but I'm not really all that worried about it because I never leave gadgets charging unsupervised anyway (if they're charging, I'm usually using them, or in the vicinity of them, and am able to check on them whilst they do so). I am looking forward to your tweaks making it into Hotfix 6, though - even less worrying (if you can really apply that term to charging gadgetry) is always a good thing.

 

[trix]

Hmm, curious. On my unit, I leave it charging overnight and take it to school with me during the day. Every time I wake up, every single time, the battery is at a full 100%. Never 99 or 98 or anything but 100%. The LED charging light is always on, and the bottom of the unit is mildly warm.


Does this mean the charger is potentially shortening my battery life? I am on HF5, and I have noticed the battery capacity seems a bit lower then when I originally obtained the device about a month and a half ago. Now, I have done no conclusive testing, so I may be mistaken, but I used to get home from school with my battery at about 60% with heavy use throughout the day. These days I am using it less at school then before, but I often get home and find the battery level at around 40%.


Could there be a problem with my charging routine?


- trix

 

[the_marshal]

Hmm, curious. On my unit, I leave it charging overnight and take it to school with me during the day. Every time I wake up, every single time, the battery is at a full 100%. Never 99 or 98 or anything but 100%. The LED charging light is always on, and the bottom of the unit is mildly warm.


Does this mean the charger is potentially shortening my battery life? I am on HF5, and I have noticed the battery capacity seems a bit lower then when I originally obtained the device about a month and a half ago. Now, I have done no conclusive testing, so I may be mistaken, but I used to get home from school with my battery at about 60% with heavy use throughout the day. These days I am using it less at school then before, but I often get home and find the battery level at around 40%.


Could there be a problem with my charging routine?


- trix

It's definitely not good to have the device charging (red light on) once it reached 100%. It should stop charging however that does not happen for a number of battery (including mine). In the next hotfix the charging software will probably be tweaked.


In the meanwhile I suggest you check this topic which was made by a nice Pandora owner which seem to have good info on charging Lipo battery and wrote a script to change the thread hold at which the battery should stop charging. Not that the script need to be run every time you boot you Pandora and that's it's beta ! You can then post your experience on the forum.





Also I've heard someone wrote a script to shutdown the Pandora automatically once it reached full charge. This might be of interest too.

 

[Link]

I wouldn't charge overnight.