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An update on the Farphone's battery

far.computer

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

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I've gone through a dozen or so LiPo-utilizing portable devices at my property in the Mojave desert. All it takes is a single season for many of these batteries to swell up to such an extent the enclosures split open. Ostensibly they contain charge controllers and temperature sensors, yet they're unable to prevent this outcome when the ambient temperature exceeds 110F day after day while the device stays on in a hot…

Excellent advice. Did you swap any of the cells with a different chemistry?

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

#12
post #5
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

For how long?

I have a fire tablet I hucked into my wall to use as a home assistant console. It's been in there for 5 years now, always plugged in.

> I have a fire tablet I hucked into my wall to use as a home assistant console.

OK, but "fire" is right there, in the name.

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

#13
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fwiw I’ve used 24/7/365 plugged in phones as AP’s in multiple locations for a decade or so now, never had an issue. Past few years I use the battery threshold to set them to 70% charge and they don’t move from this for months at a time.

What roasts the lifetime of my laptop batteries is compiling with gentoo, but again never an issue with catastrophic failure and I have 20+ years of experience with that as well.

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

#14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gone through a dozen or so LiPo-utilizing portable devices at my property in the Mojave desert. All it takes is a single season for many of these batteries to swell up to such an extent the enclosures split open. Ostensibly they contain charge controllers and temperature sensors, yet they're unable to prevent this outcome when the ambient temperature exceeds 110F day after day while the device stays on in a hot…

Excellent advice. Did you swap any of the cells with a different chemistry?

Not really, there was a brief excursion in kludging a ZTE MiFi device to use a DIY NiMh pack of AA cells when it refused to stop self-destructing its OEM LiPo batteries every summer. (I use a MiFi hotspot for a cheap security camera network)

It worked as a stop-gap but I've since replaced it with a GL.Inet X300b ruggedized hotspot without any batteries.

There's no UPS for now... if I went the route of wanting uninterrupted power at the property I'd probably put a battery bank underground outside to power the entire building. It's not worth risking anything rechargeable inside the place given how hot it can get, and how long I sometimes go without visiting.

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

#15
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The fact that they can doesn't mean they will. On older devices the controller might make some assumptions that holds true with a new battery, but very much doesn't with an old and worn one. My Macs have all been sensible about it, but I've seen Windows machines with batteries that just died from being plugged in all the time not even 10 years ago. Even if that specific instance was just a bad battery and not due to…

There’s basically zero risk for these cell phone batteries outside of freak accidents, speaking as someone who who’s been building packs since pouch cell Lipos first started coming out for model airplanes back in 2008/2009.. That’s because in a single cell configuration, there’s no way for the charge controller to run up an imbalance and overcharge one of the cells.

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

#18
post #2

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Three times I've been lazy and set up an old phone or tablet as an always-plugged-in stationary device without excising the battery, and that has produced two spicy pillows and one completely dead battery (phone wouldn't even boot when plugged in, until I replaced the battery). Granted, these were all 5-10 years ago, but I do not trust the batteries and their controllers in these devices.

Nowadays if I want to leave a device plugged in I crack it open, remove the battery cell, solder on a power supply and capacitor, and then do the nonsense with rooted Android to keep it from shutting itself down.

Re: An update on the Farphone's battery

#20
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent advice. Did you swap any of the cells with a different chemistry?

Not really, there was a brief excursion in kludging a ZTE MiFi device to use a DIY NiMh pack of AA cells when it refused to stop self-destructing its OEM LiPo batteries every summer. (I use a MiFi hotspot for a cheap security camera network) It worked as a stop-gap but I've since replaced it with a GL.Inet X300b ruggedized hotspot without any batteries. There's no UPS for now... if I went the route of wanting uninter…

Cheers, Thanks for the info.
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