Will No Longer Boot With Battery In...

[SomeGuy99]

I have no idea why, but it no longer boots from battery. The only way I can get it to boot is to take out the battery and plug in the charger.

I can put the battery in while in charger mode, then pull out the charger and it is running from the battery...

I know Mweston said not to do this, but I had no options left. It was for like 1 mintute, and a restarted is straight away.

I've reflashed the firmware again but it hasn't solved anything.

<_<

 

[craigix]

Are you sure the battery contacts are lined up with the Pandora ones? It's possible to close the back sometimes and have them misaligned.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Are you sure the battery contacts are lined up with the Pandora ones? It's possible to close the back sometimes and have them misaligned.

Yes, because when I hot-swapped the battery in and removed the charger (briefly) it was still turned on.

It seems to have fixed now, but I'm not sure how.

I loaded the Pandora up with only the charger, then I put the battery in, then I chose 'restart' from the logout menu. Once it booted up again I chose 'shut down'... I tried loads of stuff in the last few hours, but this seems to have done something - the switch actually powers the machine on now.

I'm not sure if the machine is actually in charger mode or not. Does a shut down actually switch the machine off of do I need to do a hard reset?

 

[SomeGuy99]

Ok the machine was sitting there, quite happily on... but since writing the above post it's switched off.

The power switch doesn't respond.

It had plenty of power left too, unless the battery monitor was lying.

 

[SomeGuy99]

The battery monitor was lying (or has gone crazy).

Before all this happened, it claimed there was 4 hours or so left.

 

[nikkopt]

So the problem was that the battery was depleted?

 

[Murff]

The battery monitor was lying (or has gone crazy).

Before all this happened, it claimed there was 4 hours or so left.

Ooooh, that sounds pretty much like what happened to me....

 

[wdt]

If you really want to know where the battery is at.
Do you have a DVM & know how to use it?
If this is a "normal" lipo (LiCoO), a common chemistry
Never exceed V = 4.2 (protection circuitry should enforce this for good reason)
Normal full V = ~ 4.15
1/2 charge V = 3.82-3.85
Empty V = 3.6
If V < 3.3 protection circuitry commonly "kills" the battery
This can be (manually) bypassed, the results are usually futile
This type of bat is happiest at not more than 80% charge (has longest life)
Long term storage 40% charge in fridge (spare bat)
Keep cool
Much info at RC groups (electric model AC)

dave

 

[SomeGuy99]

If you really want to know where the battery is at.
Do you have a DVM & know how to use it?
If this is a "normal" lipo (LiCoO), a common chemistry
Never exceed V = 4.2 (protection circuitry should enforce this for good reason)
Normal full V = ~ 4.15
1/2 charge V = 3.82-3.85
Empty V = 3.6
If V < 3.3 protection circuitry commonly "kills" the battery
This can be (manually) bypassed, the results are usually futile
This type of bat is happiest at not more than 80% charge (has longest life)
Long term storage 40% charge in fridge (spare bat)
Keep cool
Much info at RC groups (electric model AC)

dave

Thanks for the info, but what's a DVM?

 

[paulguy]

digital volt meter

 

[SomeGuy99]

digital volt meter

Ah, thanks. I haven't done much electronics since school

 

[EvilDragon]

If the battery meter is lying, then most of the time the battery has either been put in or removed while the AC was connected or it wasn't properly put in (the three contacts need to make contact at the same time).
Happened to me twice while working with my prototype - remove AC, reinsert battery properly, recharge and everything should be fine.
Until you remove and reinsert the battery wrong for the next time