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Phone battery maintenance
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John B:

--- Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2024, 10:04:36 pm ---As noted before: such gadgets already exist  ;D

--- End quote ---

Do you have a link to a particular device?

I'm still tempted to make my own. All I'd need is a simple buck converter like the TPS54231D (3.5V min input voltage, high side MOSFET for low dropout) and everything else I have on the shelves.

nctnico:
These are the two I know about:
https://chargie.org/
https://www.liionpower.nl/
John B:
I did some experimentation with simple resistances in series with the 5V line (no data lines connected), and it seems that the phone goes into discrete charging modes/levels. Ie 100mA, 300mA and then 500mA, rather than a variable input current based on input voltage drop.

It seemed to work when I tried charging the phone on the bench PSU in CC mode, but I didn't scope the line to see if there were 2 control loops fighting against one another. I'm out of my depth with the USB standard to know if CC charging is a safe way to do so.

So in conclusion, the $1 donor cable and 1c resistor is currently the winner in battery charging management.
IanB:

--- Quote from: John B on March 01, 2024, 11:36:31 pm ---What are the best habits for charging your phone in this day and age?
--- End quote ---

Hard to say, since it would take many experiments to produce hard data vs. anecdotal evidence.

That said, I use the slowest charger available, and charge as infrequently as possible (only charging when the low battery warning appears below 20%). This minimizes the number of charge cycles, and it minimizes the heating of the battery during charging. When I do charge, I let it reach 100% most of the time.

After 33 months, my battery health monitor is reporting 98% of nominal capacity (which is sad, I was hoping it would still be 100%). I guess batteries don't last forever.
SiliconWizard:
"Normal" mobile phone usage makes it rather unlikely to have its battery on an almost full charge for most of its operating time (while this is not uncommon for laptops). Keeping Li-on batteries on full charge for extended periods of time does reduce their lifetime. The actual SOC above which it's detrimental really isn't a fixed value, all depends on the battery itself and other factors. You can find studies with anything from maybe 60% to 80%.
And yes, high charging currents (which allow "fast" charging) are also detrimental. So your best bet overall is usually to charge your phone without the fastest charging mode and not leave it on charger all the time as soon as you're staying somewhere with it. Leaving it on charger will not destroy it nor "overcharge" it at all, it's just that the longest it remains over say 80% overall and the shorter its lifetime will be. A few hours per day is not too bad (so, "overnight"), but if you put it on charge, as I mentioned, most of the time and only leave it on battery alone for just a couple hours a days when you're not near a mains plug, that's clearly not ideal.

Don't expect your phone battery to last (by that I mean: capacity still above 50% of nominal) for more than about 3-4 years even with a lot of "care" anyway. Those batteries are rated for a few hundreds cycles and that's it. The average is around 500 cycles for 80% residual capacity (which is less than 2 years if you do a full charge every day, which is not uncommon for recent phones and medium users). Beyond that, it depends a lot on the battery, but it will degrade at a faster rate.

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