I Solved Samsungs Swelling Battery Problem! (Batteryless Phone)
video description
I've powered an old Galaxy S3 (still got a removable battery and it DID puff up) without the battery by shorting the battery thermistor terminal to the ground (otherwise it wouldn't charge ) and hooking up a big enough electrolytic capacitor (later changing it to a bunch of small ones in parallel to fit in the battery compartment) to the battery terminals, and then hooking the USB charger as usual. I've even hooked up an LED with a dropping resistor to visually see that the phone is trying to charge the battery. The phone keep happily staying in CV mode, charging my newly made battery, thinking its at 100% charge and powering itself over USB connector and running till this very day.
This said, S3 didn't power AT ALL without my little trick, yours seem to enter the bootloader, and THEN powers down when simply powered without the battery at all, so its most likely possible to circumvent by software means alone. In any case, i'd totally try to just solder a capacitor to battery protection board instead of actually powering it through there, hoping my old S3 trick would work, lol.
Date: 2022-10-30
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Comments and reviews: 14
chris
i have a metal detector an old minelab sd2100 and its supposed to run off this giant 6v led acid battery that you carry around on a sling, but it interferes with the signal because its not connected to the detector its moving in its feild when your searching and you have to hold it really far away from you in order to stop the interference and its annoying as hell, so i took a cooked 18v dewalt cordless drill i had that no longer worked, gutted its internals, used the battery connection point and made a simple little voltage reducer circut with a variable thingo i cant remember the exact name for it, put all that into the drill handle housing and strapped it to the detector, so now i can use my little 2ah batteries one last all day, and because its fixed into place within the detectors magnetic feild it no longer causes interference, it looks a little janky but i swear its the best mod ever! I decided against the resistor method to drop the voltage because i needed to go from 18 to 6 it would have been far too power hungry. This project reminds me of that, i love powering things in more conveniant ways, i also converted my lazer level from 4 aa batterys to run from a usb power bank its a little less voltage than the 4 aa's but it works fine just a little duller than fully charged previously but otherwise its far more conveniant and less expencive
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i have a metal detector an old minelab sd2100 and its supposed to run off this giant 6v led acid battery that you carry around on a sling, but it interferes with the signal because its not connected to the detector its moving in its feild when your searching and you have to hold it really far away from you in order to stop the interference and its annoying as hell, so i took a cooked 18v dewalt cordless drill i had that no longer worked, gutted its internals, used the battery connection point and made a simple little voltage reducer circut with a variable thingo i cant remember the exact name for it, put all that into the drill handle housing and strapped it to the detector, so now i can use my little 2ah batteries one last all day, and because its fixed into place within the detectors magnetic feild it no longer causes interference, it looks a little janky but i swear its the best mod ever! I decided against the resistor method to drop the voltage because i needed to go from 18 to 6 it would have been far too power hungry. This project reminds me of that, i love powering things in more conveniant ways, i also converted my lazer level from 4 aa batterys to run from a usb power bank its a little less voltage than the 4 aa's but it works fine just a little duller than fully charged previously but otherwise its far more conveniant and less expencive
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RoterFruchtZwerg
Giving an old Smartphone/Tablet a 2nd life is awesome. However, I'd suggest less destructive approaches:
1) Try using a Supercapacitor instead of a battery. That should usually work - I've already tried it on an old Samsung tablet. You may even get it in a proper form factor
2) More complex, but also doable: Modify the Android Kernel drivers. I've had the same issues with a Samsung Tablet where I modified the charging logic to only charge up to 3. 8V. This caused the battery gauge to get confused and sometimes report low battery levels and the Tablet shut down. I've modified the battery gauge driver to report a percentage relative to the battery voltage instead - that worked fine. It might even be possible to modify it in such a way that it boots without battery.
Huge problem here is, that this is specific for every device: /
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Giving an old Smartphone/Tablet a 2nd life is awesome. However, I'd suggest less destructive approaches:
1) Try using a Supercapacitor instead of a battery. That should usually work - I've already tried it on an old Samsung tablet. You may even get it in a proper form factor
2) More complex, but also doable: Modify the Android Kernel drivers. I've had the same issues with a Samsung Tablet where I modified the charging logic to only charge up to 3. 8V. This caused the battery gauge to get confused and sometimes report low battery levels and the Tablet shut down. I've modified the battery gauge driver to report a percentage relative to the battery voltage instead - that worked fine. It might even be possible to modify it in such a way that it boots without battery.
Huge problem here is, that this is specific for every device: /
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Majsterkowanie
It reminds me of my modification I did in a Samsung tablet. It had a very weird connector that I haven't seen before, and I didn't want to buy an adapter. So I designed a 3. 7V battery charger board powered via USB, created a hole for the USB port in a tablet's housing, and somehow fitted everything inside. Charging works, but the battery level keeps dropping, so every time I have to wait till the tablet shuts down due to the low batery, complete the charging process and power it up, so it can realize that the battery is actually full. Just for fun I'm gonna short the current shunt and see if the battery level will freeze
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It reminds me of my modification I did in a Samsung tablet. It had a very weird connector that I haven't seen before, and I didn't want to buy an adapter. So I designed a 3. 7V battery charger board powered via USB, created a hole for the USB port in a tablet's housing, and somehow fitted everything inside. Charging works, but the battery level keeps dropping, so every time I have to wait till the tablet shuts down due to the low batery, complete the charging process and power it up, so it can realize that the battery is actually full. Just for fun I'm gonna short the current shunt and see if the battery level will freeze
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Craft
that was not actually a solution.
And the dripping of percentage is I think so will only be in samsung according to my experience in a Samsung phone if battery is of it's final days the phone will turn off before the percentage bar touches zero because when battery is fully charged the phone measures voltage which will be good even in useless battery and starts it's battery dropping countdown while on other side battery actually dies before countdown of phone reaches zero as it is of zero life.
I think this doesn't happen in other brands
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that was not actually a solution.
And the dripping of percentage is I think so will only be in samsung according to my experience in a Samsung phone if battery is of it's final days the phone will turn off before the percentage bar touches zero because when battery is fully charged the phone measures voltage which will be good even in useless battery and starts it's battery dropping countdown while on other side battery actually dies before countdown of phone reaches zero as it is of zero life.
I think this doesn't happen in other brands
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BNelsey
I got around this problem by replacing my old phone's battery with an external lithium super capacitor (750F)
Gives around 10 minutes of time away from the wall, but that's not a real problem since it's meant to be used connected to any usb charger
Charging the super capacitor also has to be done externally (a simple type C usb buck converter set to output at 3. 8v, not 4. 2v, which added some bulk so it doesn't really feel great in the hand, I didn't need to connect the usb charging port for my phone model so I got lucky there
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I got around this problem by replacing my old phone's battery with an external lithium super capacitor (750F)
Gives around 10 minutes of time away from the wall, but that's not a real problem since it's meant to be used connected to any usb charger
Charging the super capacitor also has to be done externally (a simple type C usb buck converter set to output at 3. 8v, not 4. 2v, which added some bulk so it doesn't really feel great in the hand, I didn't need to connect the usb charging port for my phone model so I got lucky there
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Architector120
Well i've made the same trickery to my old Xiaomi phone. but in a more professional way without ugly cutting on the side of the phone.
Basically, I made a small PCB with 16 SMD supercapacitors and hookup them to the original phone BMS with a slight modification of the BMS to make it charge the capacitors when the voltage across them is below 3V. That's it! Phone cover close nicely without ugly cuttings. The phone can run for 15-45 seconds on a supercapacitor battery, depending on the CPU load.
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Well i've made the same trickery to my old Xiaomi phone. but in a more professional way without ugly cutting on the side of the phone.
Basically, I made a small PCB with 16 SMD supercapacitors and hookup them to the original phone BMS with a slight modification of the BMS to make it charge the capacitors when the voltage across them is below 3V. That's it! Phone cover close nicely without ugly cuttings. The phone can run for 15-45 seconds on a supercapacitor battery, depending on the CPU load.
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Miron
It still scratches my head. How can the battery % go down when the voltage is still at 4, 2V? What if you have replaced your faulty battery with a new one? Would it use its full potential? This principle is a bit similar to the ink cartridge printers where the microcontroller also simulates the amount of ink left. What if it was faulty and the cartridge still have a plenty of ink inside? My J3 2016 dies on 20% of the battery. Sometimes jumps from 30% to just 1%.
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It still scratches my head. How can the battery % go down when the voltage is still at 4, 2V? What if you have replaced your faulty battery with a new one? Would it use its full potential? This principle is a bit similar to the ink cartridge printers where the microcontroller also simulates the amount of ink left. What if it was faulty and the cartridge still have a plenty of ink inside? My J3 2016 dies on 20% of the battery. Sometimes jumps from 30% to just 1%.
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Anthony
Another solution to the battery percentage dropping is to root the phone and just change the properties to disable the battery discharging.
If going through type c route then you should be able to jump the wires from inside the phone to the battery circuit board so you don't have to cut a whole in the phone and also be able to unplug it making it look normal.
But that's just my thoughts let me know if I am overlooking something!
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Another solution to the battery percentage dropping is to root the phone and just change the properties to disable the battery discharging.
If going through type c route then you should be able to jump the wires from inside the phone to the battery circuit board so you don't have to cut a whole in the phone and also be able to unplug it making it look normal.
But that's just my thoughts let me know if I am overlooking something!
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Seref
Could it be that the ICs on the battery is doing the trickery you've mentioned? I think the phone just reads the battery charge via I2C from the chips that are placed near the protection ics on top of the battery, and those are responsible for the slowly counting down to 0%.
So maybe just adding voltage, without the other chips helps with it staying at 100%, because the phone can't read the charge properly.
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Could it be that the ICs on the battery is doing the trickery you've mentioned? I think the phone just reads the battery charge via I2C from the chips that are placed near the protection ics on top of the battery, and those are responsible for the slowly counting down to 0%.
So maybe just adding voltage, without the other chips helps with it staying at 100%, because the phone can't read the charge properly.
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capriracer351
The battery swelled up and popped the back off of my S8 about a year and a half ago. I took a chance and replaced it with a Chi-Com replacement from Amazon. Still works perfectly at this point in time. Cost was about 25 plus shipping. Should probably replace the phone with a new one, but I like to get as much life as I can out of my devices. Especially a device as expensive as a smart phone.
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The battery swelled up and popped the back off of my S8 about a year and a half ago. I took a chance and replaced it with a Chi-Com replacement from Amazon. Still works perfectly at this point in time. Cost was about 25 plus shipping. Should probably replace the phone with a new one, but I like to get as much life as I can out of my devices. Especially a device as expensive as a smart phone.
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Haseeb
Yeah That's great. i did this same project about an year ago with samsung note 5 to integrate the device with a OBD2 powered vehicle bus can. i did use this device in my car as dashcam, gps tracker, rear camera monitor and all obd2 related value as well sensor values. I watched all yours videos since the first semester of my engineering back to 2016. you are always an inspiration for me.
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Yeah That's great. i did this same project about an year ago with samsung note 5 to integrate the device with a OBD2 powered vehicle bus can. i did use this device in my car as dashcam, gps tracker, rear camera monitor and all obd2 related value as well sensor values. I watched all yours videos since the first semester of my engineering back to 2016. you are always an inspiration for me.
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kinsi55
I guess most the people that encounter this issue store their phones at 100% charge - Batteries arent meant to be stored at 100% charge for extended periods, instead 10-20% is a better pick for that. My old original S6 battery that easily went through 2000-3000 charge cycles, which I then removed / swapped at 10% charge is still sitting around without issues.
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I guess most the people that encounter this issue store their phones at 100% charge - Batteries arent meant to be stored at 100% charge for extended periods, instead 10-20% is a better pick for that. My old original S6 battery that easily went through 2000-3000 charge cycles, which I then removed / swapped at 10% charge is still sitting around without issues.
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Ristomatti
Oh no, just a couple of weeks too late! I just got my S9 and S6 batteries replaced due to swelling. The S6 I use mainly as a Home Assistant dashboard. I have it mounted next to my monitor and control it via mouse/keyboard using DeskDock app I've been using for many years. I highly recommend trying it out. It works kind of like using a second monitor.
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Oh no, just a couple of weeks too late! I just got my S9 and S6 batteries replaced due to swelling. The S6 I use mainly as a Home Assistant dashboard. I have it mounted next to my monitor and control it via mouse/keyboard using DeskDock app I've been using for many years. I highly recommend trying it out. It works kind of like using a second monitor.
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Anric
Samsung flagship phones have the DeX feature starting from the Galaxy S8 series. Do you know if this setup will work with an additional Type C hub with USB ports and HDMI? Can the phone/power supply handle it?
Also 9: 17, Fast charging can be toggled off within settings. In theory, the phone will be limited to 5V charging.
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Samsung flagship phones have the DeX feature starting from the Galaxy S8 series. Do you know if this setup will work with an additional Type C hub with USB ports and HDMI? Can the phone/power supply handle it?
Also 9: 17, Fast charging can be toggled off within settings. In theory, the phone will be limited to 5V charging.
reply
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