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Any advice on mobile phone battery replacement?

toolsntat

toolsntat

Nordic Pine
Joined
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Location
Leicestershire
Name
Andy
I have a quite good (I believe) Huawei VIE L29 that I found great to use and as usual the battery gave up the ghost about 2 years ago.
My replacement, but nowhere as good, phone is now reaching the same point.
I have seen an "official" postal Huawei battery replacement service advertised and for the money and warranty provided fancy getting it done.

Battery Replacement Service | HUAWEI Support UK

consumer.huawei.com consumer.huawei.com
What do you reckon, anyone used em ?
Cheers, Andy
 
There are lots of good local phone people, there's one near me called The Phone Whisperer and the things he can't repair aren't worth repairing. Worth checking if you have any local ones? Or worst case I know the guy who own our place and can vouch for his quality so I could ask him if he could do it and you could post to me to take in for you?
 
Thanks for this Mark, I'll look into this a bit deeper and if I get stuck I might take you up on your very kind offer.
Cheers, Andy
 
[below refers to rechargeable Lithium cels and batteries. Non-rechargable Lithium cells are chemically different, and don't carry the same risks (as far as I know!)]

AndyP said:
Am I right in thinking that the wrong type of charger can quickly diminish battery life?
Click to expand...

Yes, and this can cause (or at least trigger) battery fires

Modern rechargeable Lithium cells don't need oxygen from the air to burn, so you cannot put them out by using conventional firefighting methods nor extinguishers (they will burn under water, for example). Energy stored in the cells adds to the danger, although "flat" batteries can also catch fire.

The biggest single trigger is physical damage to the battery, such as bending or puncturing it*, however electrical mismanagement can also cause fires. Using adapters between battery systems is risky, as the battery protection circuitry is sometimes in the pack (e.g. Ryobi, and this is good), but sometimes in the tool itself.

Furthermore, the risk of fire doesn't diminish much as the battery ages (wears out). Also, the combustion products (smoke, etc,. given off) are highly toxic. In electric car fatalities involving the battery pack catching fire, the victim(s) usually die from toxic fumes (i.e. actual poisoning) before the fire reaches them. In a car, the combustion products will kill in <25 seconds.

Because of this there is really no such thing as a "small" Lithium battery fire.

I recommend the "StacheD" channel on YouTube for up-to-date information on how firefighting services are addressing these issues. The presenter, Pat, is both a seasoned firefighting professional and an expert in automotive battery design (his past career). He is a campaigner for better firefighter training and equipment, and for tougher laws in the USA, particularly concerning the need for Hazard labelling on vehicles transporting Lithium cells or batteries. Presently they are not required to carry any safety labelling at all.

Sorry to sound alarmist, but what I have learned has caused me to be extremely cautious in handling, storing and charging my Lithium-battery kit, and particularly my cordless tools.

E.

*This is why airliines now say (in the pre-flight safety briefing) that, if you drop a mobile phone down the side of the seat, you should call a flight attendant to help, and not use the seat's reclining mechanism to try to get better access - crushed phones catch fire.
 
Last edited:
AndyP said:
Am I right in thinking that the wrong type of charger can quickly diminish battery life?
Click to expand...
As far as I know, most "chargers" are simple power supplies(although they may communicate via USB or simply via voltage levels on the data lines to indicate current or voltage capabilities). The actual charging cleverness is in the phone.
EV "chargers" likewise. They are power supplies that tell the car how much power they can deliver, but the electronics in the vehicle take care of the details. I'm talking about home chargers here, not the ultra fast ones you find in motorway services, I've no idea how they work.
 
I bought some Shokz bone conduction headphones and the destructions clearly state that a slow trickle charger (5v 1a) should be used and not the faster phone chargers (5v 2.4a) or battery will be damaged .
 
John Brown said:
As far as I know, most "chargers" are simple power supplies(although they may communicate via USB or simply via voltage levels on the data lines to indicate current or voltage capabilities). The actual charging cleverness is in the phone.
EV "chargers" likewise. They are power supplies that tell the car how much power they can deliver, but the electronics in the vehicle take care of the details. I'm talking about home chargers here, not the ultra fast ones you find in motorway services, I've no idea how they work.
Click to expand...
Very true.

But the usage models for phones and cars have similarities, in that they're both high power demand relative to their batteries' size, and the batteries aren't swappable, so a rapid rate of permanent capacity loss is less acceptable than with power tools.

Power tool chargers do usually monitor cell voltages to prevent overcharging, sort-of: some of the necessary circuitry is in the battery and some in the charger (apparently this varies quite a lot by manufacturer). This was the approach in high-end applications long before Lithium Ion chemistry became commonplace although it's actually necessary now because earlier chemistries exploded only rarely (in comparison!). For example, this beast is a 1980s "portable" broadcast video recorder:
IMAG0000.JPG

That's 1" tape and it actually had a shoulder strap!
The battery packs were north of 2,000 UKP each, and each one had a microprocessor-controlled charge manager, which then was very novel and innovative. I _think_ the chemistry of the cells was NiMH, but it might have been NiCd (lower capacity when new, but more robust).

The charge manager chips we use today are quite a bit cleverer than the ones in those batteries. They also only cost pennies.
 
AndyP said:
I bought some Shokz bone conduction headphones and the destructions clearly state that a slow trickle charger (5v 1a) should be used and not the faster phone chargers (5v 2.4a) or battery will be damaged .
Click to expand...
To be honest, this is bit bit of a red herring. Did Shokz supply a charger with the headphones? If not, and they're telling you to use a generic 5v 1A charger, but don't incorporate any charge management in the actual headphones, then I'd send them back and ask for a refund.
If they supplied a charger, but warned against using a generic phone charger, fair enough, but they should, IMO, have used a non-generic connector.
 
Eric the Viking said:
Furthermore, the risk of fire doesn't diminish much as the battery ages (wears out). Also, the combustion products (smoke, etc,. given off) are highly toxic. In electric car fatalities involving the battery pack catching fire, the victim(s) usually die from toxic fumes (i.e. actual poisoning) before the fire reaches them. In a car, the combustion products will kill in <25 seconds.
Click to expand...
I went to a power electronics conference a few years ago and there was a talk from someone who worked on Formula E cars. He showed some slightly scary videos of the tests they do on the battery packs, one of which is driving a spike into it. The Formula E cars apparently have on-board fire extinguishers to protect the driver in the event of a battery fire. The fire extinguishers are apparently designed to keep the fire under control for 30 seconds (yes, seconds) to give time for the emergency crews to get to the car. They presumably have to have fire crews spread all around the track to be able to achieve that response time.
 
John Brown said:
To be honest, this is bit bit of a red herring. Did Shokz supply a charger with the headphones? If not, and they're telling you to use a generic 5v 1A charger, but don't incorporate any charge management in the actual headphones, then I'd send them back and ask for a refund.
If they supplied a charger, but warned against using a generic phone charger, fair enough, but they should, IMO, have used a non-generic connector.
Click to expand...
I just googled the headphones in question, and it seems they have a USB C power connector. That being the case, they have no business relying on the current being limited to 1a by the PSU. Asking for trouble.
 
Eric the Viking said:
Very true.

But the usage models for phones and cars have similarities, in that they're both high power demand relative to their batteries' size, and the batteries aren't swappable, so a rapid rate of permanent capacity loss is less acceptable than with power tools.

Power tool chargers do usually monitor cell voltages to prevent overcharging, sort-of: some of the necessary circuitry is in the battery and some in the charger (apparently this varies quite a lot by manufacturer). This was the approach in high-end applications long before Lithium Ion chemistry became commonplace although it's actually necessary now because earlier chemistries exploded only rarely (in comparison!). For example, this beast is a 1980s "portable" broadcast video recorder:
IMAG0000.JPG

That's 1" tape and it actually had a shoulder strap!
The battery packs were north of 2,000 UKP each, and each one had a microprocessor-controlled charge manager, which then was very novel and innovative. I _think_ the chemistry of the cells was NiMH, but it might have been NiCd (lower capacity when new, but more robust).

The charge manager chips we use today are quite a bit cleverer than the ones in those batteries. They also only cost pennies.
Click to expand...
That Ampex Nagra is lovely. They made such good quality gear back then. I've never seen a video recorder before, but have a couple of Nagra "portable" tape recorders which are effectively just ornaments now. The tape recorders could have a battery pack I thing but would also run off a bunch of Duracell (or whatever) C Cells.
 
Very interesting John, thanks for taking the time to have a look. For further info Here is the Shokz advice page regarding charging

OpenRun Getting Started

OpenRun features a 10- minute Quick Charge for up to 1.5 hours of battery life. You can charge your headphones with the provided magnetic charging cable. Please ensure the wall adapter(not included) does not exceed 1 amp or 5 volts. We do not recommend "fast chargers" such as Android or tablet...
shokz.com shokz.com

Sorry Andy for dragging this OT post further OT
 
[Sorry OT again]

Weirdly (I was just browsing for a pic), that is the actual unit we had in Bristol (bought mainly for "Casualty" I think, which was originally recorded in an adapted warehouse downtown). 20 min. tapes. The machine is now in private ownership.

I used to lug ordinary Nagras around (12 D-cells!!!), and it took days to recover if you weren't used to it. Truly a love-hate relationship!
 
Wife complained her Samsung was was not charging.
Off to closest phone shop, ZAR350 later for a replacement Samsung battery, turned out to be the charger :oops:
 
This thread is proving interesting for us ordinary consumers, wanting to learn from others' professional expertise.

The message I'd picked up about the adoption of the USB standards is this:

- Any USB-C device will charge on any USB-C charger. The device identifies itself to the charger when it's plugged in and the charger sets a suitable voltage and current for the device. In some cases, the cable joins in that conversation.

- This is all really useful for fast charging/ high power devices.

Is that generally true? Are the standards so muddled that Shokz have to add their warning?

(And sort of back on Andy's original point, I did once swap the battery on an old Motorola. It was fiddly but doable. However, the new battery was almost as bad as the one it replaced. I think I'd have been better off with a manufacturer-backed scheme than a random eBay bargain!)
 
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