On charging a depleted battery

[Whitey 8]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:44 PM, EskeRahn said:

Are you sure your new device it is not a Pro1X. They look much the same, but the chipset is different, so the code is incompatible.
Look here for various available downloads for the two models.

 

Thanks @EskeRahn, you are completely correct, I bought a Pro1X and didn't realise the difference. Doh!

I got caught up with some other projects and came back to this recently. The phone hadn't been charged in a few months and I definitely broke the partitions by treating it as a Pro1. When plugging in the phone via USB-C the red light flashes on and off, but I can't get any other response via button combination or after leaving it charging for a few hours.

Any suggestions for me to reset this device and start again? I'm concerned leaving it uncharged for a few months may have caused some battery problems, or possibly it's failing to start up at all because of what I did to the partition table.

I'm building a Windows VM at the moment so I can follow the "Stock Android 11" instructions here: https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3207-various-roms-available-to-the-pro1pro1x-available-for-download-links/

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

[Justin 23]

I don't know about battery or partitions. But the below link might save you the effort of building a VM.

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3850-pro1-x-flashing-stock-android-with-qdl-for-those-with-linux/

[EskeRahn 5,464]

5 hours ago, Whitey said:

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

I think you are on the right path, and will need to go through EDL-mode.

If the phone were turned off, the battery of a phone usually last for at the least a year if fully charged, without depleting it self.

But if it was in a state where it turned it self off, and then was left for months, it might well be problematic. I do not know if there are any tricks to charge the battery in that state without opening the phone and charging the battery directly, by a circuitry bypassing the charging-logic (do not give the battery 5V directly).

Many phones by default comes with a silly mode active where supplying power lets the phone attempt to boot. That was true for the Pro1, and assume it also goes for Pro1X.
This mode is crazy as a phone with a flat battery usually can not be charged!! As the boot power needed is larger than what the phone requests the charger to deliver... If the mode at the least checked the battery level before attempting to boot, it might make sense, but it does not, and is thus somewhere between stupid and crazy!!

For anyone else still having their device working  I STRONGLY recommend to issue a fastboot command from a PC to fix this, by allowing it to charge while OFF, See e.g. Here

)
 

[Whitey 8]

1 hour ago, EskeRahn said:

But if it was in a state where it turned it self off, and then was left for months, it might well be problematic. I do not know if there are any tricks to charge the battery in that state without opening the phone and charging the battery directly, by a circuitry bypassing the charging-logic (do not give the battery 5V directly).

Thanks. I haven't looked at the battery inside, but I do have a IMAX B6 charger, so I'm assuming once I open it up I'll be able to charge it. Teardowns look like it's a 4.4v charging limit with 3200mah capacity, so that should be simple enough to trickle up to a good state.
 

1 hour ago, EskeRahn said:

Many phones by default comes with a silly mode active where supplying power lets the phone attempt to boot. That was true for the Pro1, and assume it also goes for Pro1X.
This mode is crazy as a phone with a flat battery usually can not be charged!! As the boot power needed is larger than what the phone requests the charger to deliver... If the mode at the least checked the battery level before attempting to boot, it might make sense, but it does not, and is thus somewhere between stupid and crazy!!

For anyone else still having their device working  I STRONGLY recommend to issue a fastboot command from a PC to fix this, by allowing it to charge while OFF, See e.g. Here
 

How infuriating! Thank you, that's a good tip. I'll follow it once I've got things running . I'll see how I go with EDL!

 

3 hours ago, Justin said:

I don't know about battery or partitions. But the below link might save you the effort of building a VM.

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3850-pro1-x-flashing-stock-android-with-qdl-for-those-with-linux/

Thank you, this guide looks great and heaps simpler than installing a bunch of Windows MSIs and making everything work! I'll see how I go and report back.

[Whitey 8]

Well I was able to get the phone disassembled and get down to the battery! Haven't done that in a few years, good fun!


However removing the battery (which felt superglued in!) I see a connector I don't recognise!



Does anyone know this connector? I assume the top (top 2?) connectors are positive and bottom (bottom 2?) are negative from the naming convention. However this thing is really tiny, like 1/4 the size of my pinkie fingernail tiny (apparently my iPhones zoom and focus is quite good!). I'm not confident I could hook this up without an adapter, which I suspect I _may_ be able to get if I can find out the correct name for this connector type.

EDIT: Sorry, just realised compression made the battery marking illegible. Hopefully the below is helpful to someone else if not me in the future!

 

 

 

EDIT 2:

Well, browsing around to try and find battery info and I found this:

> On another note, as we are also investigating the battery protection issue, we would like to carefully remind you to always ensure there is some level of charge in your Pro1-X - even if you don’t use it. At times, the battery can likely go into a sleep state that would require a jolt to activate again. During this time, your phone will not boot and will not charge. If you’ve encountered this, please get in touch with us at info@fxtec.com.

Looks like I'm impacted. I'll flick them an email and work out the next steps I guess!

Edited April 9, 2023 by Whitey

[EskeRahn 5,464]

@Whitey, having it disassembled, can you see if there are any circuitry between the plug and the cable?
(this is interesting to know for the DIY suggestions over here)

(I think I better move these comments to a battery thread, as it really in no way is a sailfish specific thing) done...

(This thread is split out from here)

[dt.white 62]

17 hours ago, Whitey said:

EDIT: Sorry, just realised compression made the battery marking illegible. Hopefully the below is helpful to someone else if not me in the future!

Thanks for this, would you be able to confirm the following info (compression is still making some parts a struggle to read)?:

Battery cell model: 5036108PLN or 50361O8PLN

Shenzhen Kehuaxin Electronic Co. Ltd

17 hours ago, Whitey said:

Does anyone know this connector?

If you take a look at the DIY battery thread that's been linked, there's discussion about the connector there but that's based on images - would be handy to have your input!

[Whitey 8]

16 hours ago, dt.white said:

Thanks for this, would you be able to confirm the following info (compression is still making some parts a struggle to read)?:

Battery cell model: 5036108PLN or 50361O8PLN

Shenzhen Kehuaxin Electronic Co. Ltd

 

Sorry, I thought I could be clever and recrop the old photo . Here's a new one:

 

Confirming company is Shenzhen Kehuaxin Electronic Co Ltd (I couldn't find their batteries online) and model is 5036108PLN (pretty sure those are 0s). Guessing the "KHX" is an abbreviation of the battery company and the battery is about 1 year old.

16 hours ago, dt.white said:

If you take a look at the DIY battery thread that's been linked, there's discussion about the connector there but that's based on images - would be handy to have your input!

Thanks, I'll check it out!

[claude0001 1,343]

So ... I recharged my Pro1-X battery using a laboratory power supply after it had depleted completely, probably due to the "battery protection bug" mentioned by f(x)tec in their updates.

It turned out that the most difficult part in this is getting to the battery. The Pro1-X is not nearly as "serviceable" as I expected. Separating the different parts of the body is not as easy as the instructional videos suggest. Also, the battery itself is glued into the phone, which makes its removal a scaring endeavour. Note that removing the battery from the phone is not strictly necessary for re-charging it. In principle, disconnecting from the phone circuitry would be enough. But for me, having the battery detached simplified connecting the external charger. You decide.

The charging itself is actually not very difficult, provided you have the necessary equipment and at least some basic electrotechnical skills. Still, here comes the obligatory disclaimer: Mistreating a Li battery can set it on fire and/or release toxic gases, be sure you know what you are doing at all times.

The Pro1-X's battery has a more-or-less standard connector featuring two power lines and two sensing wires. For external charging, make sure to connect to the (outer) power lines.

The laboratory powersupply I had at hand was a bit oversized for the purpose (32 V x 5 A), so I included two multimeters in the charging circuit as shown in the pictures. Using them, I could monitor the charging current and voltage with greater precision than the PSU's built-in gauges would allow. Especially for the voltage, we are interested in the 1-mV scale.

As written above, my battery started with a charge of "0.00 V". I started by slowly raising the charging voltage in voltage controlled mode, taking care that the current never rose beyond 1 A. This way, I quickly reached the 3.7-V operating plateau of the battery. From there, I set the power supply to charge at 840 mA in current-controlled mode for 1.8 h. I figured this should be a quite safe value, as the fast-charger operates at much higher current. Given the battery capacity of 3.2 Ah, I estimated to reach an approximate charge level of 50%, as the Pro1-X would later confirm.

During the current-controlled ramp, the charging voltage never exceeded 4.1 V. The battery did not noticeably warm up in the process. At the end of the procedure, the battery voltage (measured with the charging PSU switched off) was approx. 3.9 V.

In the end, my Pro1-X booted normally with the re-inserted battery.

Edited May 26, 2023 by claude0001
Further clarified some things. Added saftey warning.

[Name_not_avail 64]

God I hope I never have to do this job.

If the LOS devs re-establish the ability of the 1x to charge offline, then hopefully I never will.

[claude0001 1,343]

On 4/26/2023 at 12:23 AM, Name_not_avail said:

If the LOS devs re-establish the ability of the 1x to charge offline, then hopefully I never will.

As @Sean McCreary clarified in the LOS 20 thread, off-mode-charging cannot actually protect you from the battery-depletion-bug.

The Pro1X's (and likely any other Android devices's) charging is controlled by the OS in all cases.  Seemingly, this means that some minimal amount of battery-charge is always required to boot the OS to the level where power-supply can be actively handed-over to a USB-connected PSU - irrespective of whether only the "charging screen" is loaded, or the full Android/Lineage GUI. Do not ask me why things are designed this insane way. It just seems to be the reality ...

Edited May 1, 2023 by claude0001

[david 929]

I just saw this topic.  For anyone who doesn't have the lab equipment, here is how I charged my Pro1 battery outside of the phone.

 

@claude0001 - Any chance you can provide clear photos of the battery connector and the motherboard connector it plugs into?  The connector on the Pro1 is the same as a Xiaomi MI 6.  We don't yet know whether the Pro1X has the same connector.  I can't tell from the photos in this topic.

*nervously checks his Pro1X battery percentage*

[claude0001 1,343]

On 6/4/2023 at 4:47 AM, david said:

 

@claude0001 - Any chance you can provide clear photos of the battery connector and the motherboard connector it plugs into?

I haven't made a better picture than the uploaded one. However, @Whitey have a pretty nice one in their post above:

 

[david 929]

4 hours ago, claude0001 said:

I haven't made a better picture than the uploaded one. However, @Whitey have a pretty nice one in their post above:

Thanks @claude0001!  Even though I read this thread, I somehow missed that photo!

Here is what @Whitey posted.

Here is the charging board I used for my Pro1 battery, with the Xiaomi MI 6 connector.  I *think* the Pro1X connector may be the same as an OPPO R17.

 

Here a close-up of both the motherboard end and battery end of  the OPPO R17 connector:

It looks similar to what @Whitey shows in his photo.  Without being able to compare the actual sizes, we can't be sure.  My educated guess says it is probably a match though.

[david 929]

On 6/5/2023 at 12:44 PM, david said:

It looks similar to what @Whitey shows in his photo.  Without being able to compare the actual sizes, we can't be sure.  My educated guess says it is probably a match though.

I took another look at this.  They both have the same arrangement of Dash-Dot-Dot-Dash, for the connector contacts, on the battery cable end, but the dashes seem longer for the OPPO R17 than what is shown in @Whitey's photo.  It may still work, but I'm wondering if there is another, similar connector, with the dashes being shorter.  If anyone wants to send me a Pro1X battery, I'd be happy to figure it out.

[david 929]

Some other candidates:

VIVO B-N8

XlAOMl BM4E M1805E10A, Poco F1 Armoured Edition Globa, Poco F1 Armoured Edition Globa, Pocophone Poco F1:

 

Infinix Smart, X5010:

 

9 Pro, M2003J6B1I, M2003J6B2G, 9 Pro Max:

 

David

[claude0001 1,343]

13 hours ago, david said:

Infinix Smart, X5010:

The polarity on that one seems to be inverted with respect to the Pro1-X's ribbon cable (compare the labels P+/P- with those from @Whitey's picture).

Everyone, be sure to always connect your charger in the right way ("+ to +, - to -"). Otherwise bad things may happen.

[david 929]

5 hours ago, claude0001 said:

The polarity on that one seems to be inverted with respect to the Pro1-X's ribbon cable (compare the labels P+/P- with those from @Whitey's picture).

Everyone, be sure to always connect your charger in the right way ("+ to +, - to -"). Otherwise bad things may happen.

That's possible.  Hard to know if the curve of the cable is the same or opposite, based on that one photo.

[Foop 5]

I mothballed my Pro1x but am traveling internationally tomorrow, so I wanted to bring an unlocked phone.

Pro1x red LED will light for about a second, then turn off.

USB ammeter shows 0.1-0.2 amp draw while the LED is on, then back to zero. No screen activity.

Is there a way to force it to take a charge, besides opening the phone up, and hooking the battery directly to my bench-top supply?

[Foop 5]

Never mind... I should have searched before posting...

 

Shit.

[claude0001 1,343]

Battery depletion bug.

Send your phone to Fxtec (good luck with that) or fast forward to here:

 

[david 929]

I posted this in another thread, but it is relevant here too.  The Pro1X connector is compatible with the Huawei P9 phone's battery.