vB Easy Archive - Charging the Pearl

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Charging the Pearl
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Posted by: Dial Tone Loc

I just bought the Pearl today. Awesome phone.

The battery was low when I got it so I used it until it had to shut down because of low battery.

I hooked up the charger and plugged it in....but when the phone was off and charging it was blinking in green. Does that matter?

On the initial charge is there anything special you have to do? Can the phone be even on when charging?

How do I know when its FULLY CHARGED? will there be a different color flashing? Right now its charging but I believe its in standby mode/off.

Posted by: Dial Tone Loc

And how long should the initial charge be? Any longer than any other charge?

Posted by: OJ330i

You can use the phone while charging. When you charge, next to the battery icon there will be a little plugged shaped thing. When the phone is done charging the plug icon will go away and it will just be a battery indicating fully charged.

Posted by: gibbs

If the phone is off, then a blinking green means it's charging. A solid green means it's fully charged and you're ready to rock and roll.

Like any battery on any device, I always charge my batteries overnight initally, and every month or so, I drain the device fully and do a full charge. It's a lith-ion battery, so you can charge it whenever you want, however much you want.

Posted by: rivvah

To get the most out of your battery life, you want to trickle-charge it past what it thinks is charged; basically leave it plugged in for an hour or more after it thinks it's fully charged to trickle in at 100mA what it can.

Step 1: charge it full + 1hr.

Step 2: drain the battery as far as possible (on a new battery I try to drain it all the way to auto-shutoff, but that's not a real option for a lot of folks)

Step 3: repeat #1

Now, these three steps are *not* conditioning! A lithium ion battery does not need conditioned like a nickel or lead battery; what they're doing is resetting the internal mechanics (could be a digital IC chip, who knows -- I've never taken one apart) that estimate the battery charging for you - meaning, the battery bars on screen of your device. This first full charge/discharge cycle is priming the electronics to properly calibrate to your battery. Think of it like adjusting a bathroom scale before you step on to get your real weight -- you put a known weight on the scale and adjust it's dial to match the weight perfectly.

The Pearl - and it's stand-alone wallcharger -- are "smart" devices. Initially the Pearl will report that it draws 100mA from a power source (aka a trickle charge), but if it detects brains on the other side of the charge (internal electronics on the charger, or the software driver on Windows) it will renegotiate to a 500mA draw, which is why your Pearl charges so darn fast. Then, when it hits about 98% full (a guess, I don't know the exact percentage) it will switch back down into 100mA mode and draw the remaining power on a trickle. An aside: my IBM Thinkpad here has the same sort of capability in it's Windows driver, the laptop even prompts you to change it's charging methods to best suite your use (i.e. do you leave it plugged in all the time or use it portable a lot).

Most importantly the device will *stop* drawing a charge when the battery is at capacity, which is what makes it safe to just leave the device plugged in -- in theory it will cause no damage to the battery life since there are smart components trying to stop overcharging it (and thereby reducing it's effectiveness, aka "reducing corrosion").

Some nerd info:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm