How-To: calibrate your battery

[RinTinTigger]

Originally Posted by GandJim

I'm a perfect dummy concerning all these things and must say I'm a little bit scared to do this. Isn't there a risk of losing some information? Time and date is the first thing that comes to my mind, but maybe also some other more technical data I haven't a clue of what they mean?

I have another phone which I put aside for months (if not years). When I tried to recharge it again to lend it to a visiting friend, it just doesn't work anymore. I changed the battery, but the phone stays dead (or more precisely the screen stays dead). No idea what the problem is. Maybe it's nothing relating to the battery and didn't bother to find out, as it's a cheap phone, but would be devastated if it happens to my Nexus.

Jim

Its no problem to do this with your Nexus, it wont let you lose any data or anything, at least the frist step called "Calibration"

[SliceBurgSlim]

Ive heard that draining li-ion batteries down to zero can be bad for the battery over time...

[RinTinTigger]

Originally Posted by SliceBurgSlim

Ive heard that draining li-ion batteries down to zero can be bad for the battery over time...

Lithium Ion batterys are NOT damaged by fully unload!
But its in your hands, you dont have to follow my directions.

Ive been using this howto now since i have the nexus one and been using it for 6 months on my milestone!

no problems so far =)

[SliceBurgSlim]

Read the section on discharging here

[Guide] Everything you wanted to know about Li-Ion batteries but were afraid to ask! - xda-developers

Still think it does not harm your battery over time?

[SliceBurgSlim]

Seems to me that this method of yours is good for the phone...bad for the battery IMO

[mattanonymous]

The only thing this does is calibrates the battery charge sensing hardware/software.

In general allowing a Li-ion battery to go below half a full charge is not good for the life of the battery.

I'd rather look at 50% as my new 'empty'. In addition to not needlessly damaging the battery, it also greatly reduces my concern for pinpoint accuracy when it comes to metering the charge.

[CPMajai]

Originally Posted by SliceBurgSlim

Seems to me that this method of yours is good for the phone...bad for the battery IMO

I agree. That's why I only did this method once. My battery meter seems to be more accurate now.

Doing some research (and by that i mean google) and you all will see that a complete depletion of Li-ion cells actually harm the capacitance of the cells. They roughly have about 250-300 charge cycles. So as long as you don't go through the entire deplete-recharge (100% to 0% to 100%) cycle, you're actually prolonging the battery life in the long run.

[jimbobalu]

Is the calibration data stored in the battery or N1? I have 3 batteries and if it is stored in the N1 then this will not help me unless it remembers each batteries calibration data.

Thanks

[Dalamar]

I know that Li-ion batteries generally shouldn't be run down if one can help it (and leaving them depleted state for an extended time can ruin them), but this procedure made a noticeable difference for my Nexus One, at least as far as giving a better indication of true charge remaining.

I'll admit, I didn't follow the recommended charging procedure when I first got my N1. I was too excited and so popped the battery in right away and booted it up before the initial charging.

Anyway, yesterday I ran the phone down completely playing long YouTube videos until it shut itself off. I turned it back on and ran it again until it did another auto-shutdown. Then I restarted in the boot loader until that conked out. By then it was well and truly out of juice and wouldn't start up at all.

After that I charged it overnight (a good 12 hours). Today I've noticed considerably better battery life. Now, I realize this is probably just a result of the software calibration having been thrown off initially when I didn't follow instructions and not an actual increase in available power, but it's nice to have a more accurate reading of true capacity remaining nonetheless.

It's not something I'd probably do often, because of the wear full cycling incurs on Li-ion cells, but it did seem to make a difference.

[N1David]

I did this and notice no change in my battery life. Even still, the green light comes on when charging and it is not fully charged according to both the battery indicator on the screen lock and this app I have installed "Battery Status Pro". More so, the battery display on the lock screen reads 100% but I still have the charging indicator in the battery on my task bar.