Will this damage the battery?

[Sly]

I sent in my TF101 to be serviced over a month ago due to a broken latch, and it's apparently on a shelf somewhere waiting for parts to arrive.

The thing is, that dock is pretty notorious for steadily discharging at about 2% an hour with the tablet plugged in. After that, the tablet itself starts to drain.

The dock disengages when it's down to 3%, but is it possible that the battery will still continue to drain even without the primary load? Maybe the natural discharge, or the battery circuitry itself?

It's been over 30 days and it's still waiting for parts. What are the odds of the batteries of either unit getting destroyed?

 

[Pawz2142]

Any battery will discharge over time. How much time depends on how healthy the battery is and what type of battery it is. There is no good answer for your question.

 

[Sly]

I mean is 30 days long enough for a battery to get damaged? Like an idle cellphone, a tablet doesn't actually turn off completely and would likely be drained in under a week.

Its been repeatedly mentioned that completely discharging your battery would damage it. Would leaving it at zero charge for a month be long enough to do that.

 

[Pawz2142]

I mean is 30 days long enough for a battery to get damaged? Like an idle cellphone, a tablet doesn't actually turn off completely and would likely be drained in under a week.

Its been repeatedly mentioned that completely discharging your battery would damage it. Would leaving it at zero charge for a month be long enough to do that.

A healthy battery with zero charge left for a month will degrade faster than normal but will still be working if only after a month.

 

[Sly]

Is there some sort of battery diagnostics tool for android? I've tried a couple of general diagnostics/monitoring tools so far but they don't give out battery info.

 

[Pawz2142]

Is there some sort of battery diagnostics tool for android? I've tried a couple of general diagnostics/monitoring tools so far but they don't give out battery info.

Androids have a piece of software that keeps track of the battery and will be offset sometimes when you flash to a new rom but doesn't generally need to be corrected.

 

[Sly]

Yeah, a charge cycle would recalibrate the battery meters, but i just need to know how much capacity the battery may have lost so i can send it back to the service center right away rather than leave it running for a whole day.

At the moment, i've been trying the utilities on my android phone and all it says under battery is "Good". Not how much charge it can still hold.

The broken latch on the dock meant that the keyboard (and the battery), has been rarely used. I've plugged it in a few times for five months just to check on the battery and keep it from zeroing. With the latch jammed, i risk snapping off the hooks that hold the tablet in place each time i dock, so i rarely do that. So prior to me sending it in, the dock has only been in use for two months, and on idle for five. I'd assume that the battery is still good considering it hasn't gone through a lot of charge cycles. But all that effort may have been for nothing if they had let the batteries zero for a month.

 

[Pawz2142]

Yeah, a charge cycle would recalibrate the battery meters, but i just need to know how much capacity the battery may have lost so i can send it back to the service center right away rather than leave it running for a whole day.

At the moment, i've been trying the utilities on my android phone and all it says under battery is "Good". Not how much charge it can still hold.

The broken latch on the dock meant that the keyboard (and the battery), has been rarely used. I've plugged it in a few times for five months just to check on the battery and keep it from zeroing. With the latch jammed, i risk snapping off the hooks that hold the tablet in place each time i dock, so i rarely do that. So prior to me sending it in, the dock has only been in use for two months, and on idle for five. I'd assume that the battery is still good considering it hasn't gone through a lot of charge cycles. But all that effort may have been for nothing if they had let the batteries zero for a month.

Well if the battery was turned off near empty and stays around for a month it will definitely be empty by the time you get it but i don't think it will damage it enough to worry about. Android does not have a good utility that shows real capacity percentage that i know of.

My Xoom has sat around for 3 months and lost maybe a 10% charge

 

[Sly]

Thanks. That helps ease off some of the worry. Hopefully, battery protection kicked in and shut off the dock completely.

 

[Sly]

I've just gotten the tablet back and that's what the battery widget is showing. I've run the tablet until it shutdown dozens of times but I've never actually gotten it down to zero. It's apparently been like that for a full month. I'm won't be able to do further tests until I get home but I hope the dock battery's still ok.

 

[Sly]

Update. I'm sending this same post to their service center.

Just to document how i went about it:

When i got the unit, while their receptionist was still doing the paperwork, i tethered it to my phone so i can access the market and download the battery widget. As i feared the batteries were completely drained. I've drained the dock many times until it shut down, but i have never seen it go all the way down to 0%. And it was like this for a whole month. I showed this to them and they said for me to try to charge it when i got home. I only left it on long enough to take a screenshot.

When i got home, i tried charging the tablet. It took a bit longer than normal, but it did recharge.

Next i attached the dock and tried charging it. 30 minutes later i noticed that the battery is still at 0%. On the recommendation of a forum member, i removed the tablet and left the dock charging overnight. It was still at 0%.

I thought the widget might just be bugged, so i unplugged the dock from the charger and put in the tablet. If there was a nights worth of charge in the battery, it should recharge the tablet. The tablet had a 55% charge when i started. But 30 minutes later, the tablet's power actually went down to 54%. The dock has no charge.

Maybe there was a problem with the wall charger and it wasn't outputting any power? I attached the combined tablet and dock to the wall charger. If the tablet charges, it means there's power going through the dock. I left it plugged in for 10 minutes.

The tablets power went up from 54% to 60%, the dock stayed at 0%.





When i handed over the unit, it was fully charged. But it seems that the tablet was on the shelf for so long that they let the charge run down. From experience, the dock loses power at about 2% an hour, so that would mean the dock had disconnected within 2 days. It should have some charge left before it disconnected, but the docks own circuitry drained the batteries completely. The dock had spent the full month at 0% and destroyed its battery.

This case started at December last year. It is now going on month #7. Isn't there some kind of replacement policy if it's been shown that the unit is unrepairable? (They have opened it up four times now, it think that constitutes unrepairable) And it's not just the dock. The service center repeatedly told me that the dock and tablet come together, that's why i had to leave the tablet (and it's battery drained dangerously low too btw) along with the dock even tho the problem was just the dock.



And to answer my original question:

Yes, a month is enough to destroy a battery.

 

[enieves137]

Let's make this clear on battery damage. There is a possibility if you discharge a battery to many times it can cause the polarity to reverse internally. With any NiCad or Lithium battery needs to be completely drained at least a few times to maintain battery charge over time, it extends the life.
So if your laptop or tablet with a common Lith-bat, let it discharge in the unit over time, depends on how healthy it is that's okay.

Now a bad DC brick/adapter will damage the battery and your electronics. I have seen more DC volt source from some rectifier circuit go bad more times than a battery.

 

[MegaBeet]

Let's make this clear on battery damage. There is a possibility if you discharge a battery to many times it can cause the polarity to reverse internally. With any NiCad or Lithium battery needs to be completely drained at least a few times to maintain battery charge over time, it extends the life.
So if your laptop or tablet with a common Lith-bat, let it discharge in the unit over time, depends on how healthy it is that's okay.

Now a bad DC brick/adapter will damage the battery and your electronics. I have seen more DC volt source from some rectifier circuit go bad more times than a battery.

I agree with you.

 

[Sly]

Is there an explanation for what happened above? That's two devices running off the same power adapter, so it can't be that. And the one that will no longer charge is the one that went down to 0%.

I had the impression that draining the battery is more of an exercise. Drain it to 0% and then recharge it back up immediately after. Are there other examples of a battery drained to absolute zero for a month that still works?