Tungsten E Battery Problems.

[novastorm]

I dunno if anyone else has posted about this, I gave it a quick look but didnt see anything like my problem. My T|E has worked fine for about 2 weeks. Now for some reason the battery wont charge at all, I plug it into the charger and leave it in overnight and it sits at 1/8, 1/10th charged and does not move. I have tried a hard reset with the power plugged in, and I got it to charge ever so slightly, but not much more. I am now leaving the USB plugged into it to see if possibly my AC adapter is bad, (My Palm does recognize that its being charged so that might not be the case.) Yep. thats about it.

[Vidge]

I'm sure you have thought of this but... have you checked to make sure that the AC adaptor is properly plugged in to the outlet?

[novastorm]

yes, and ive tried several differnt outlets. thanks for the thought through.

[novastorm]

Now the thing wont turn off! LOL

[junglemike]

Because the battery ended completely. If you have a tester, make sure that adaptoer is pulling 5v. Anyway, if this unit is under warranty - replace it.

[witchdoctor]

My Tungsten E has been rock solid for months, keeping charge for about 3 days, and lasting about 3 hours constant use per charge (I read ebooks often). Two weeks ago, it dropped to 3 hours / 10 minutes, respectively, literally overnight. Arrived at work and wondered why it wouldn't turn on...

I've tried:
- soft / hard resets, with and without HotSyncing afterwards (thought some background program may have been keeping it on... nope)
- charging via USB, in PC and on PowerBook, and through 3rd party AC-USB adapter
- charging via official Palm adapter
- charging via generic adapter (slightly lower voltage)
- totally discharging (via force reset and coins on the screen) and subsequent full charge

...all to no avail.

Been doing some reading on LiPo (lithium ion polymer) batteries; this behavior seems atypical.

(90% capacity loss... overnight??!)

So many others have reported similar symptoms. Similar capacity batteries (in cell phones and the like) don't seem to do this... nay, it seems particularly limited to the *Tungsten E* (shifty conspiratorial look). Bug in the power management circuitry? Some vendors have reported "silicon" memory effect with LiPo cells. I'm gonna crack the case (out of warranty) and detach the battery... let it fully discharge.

[junglemike]

I'm not completely sure i understood you correctly, Do you mean that it IS charging and it IS working, but the battery looses it's charge eve in Off stat? Is this what you say?
Can you be more specific? you told what you did, but didn't tell what is the result
Well, it feels like smth is wrong with your battery. Li-ions and li-pols have extremely low self -discharge comparied to nicd and nimh. Also palm , when in off mode drains very low current - 1-2ma. So even with empty battery it should hold for a week at lest. So in your case it also could be a charging circuit problem or other problem with electronics. The good way to test it (if you don't have warranty :-) ) - is to plug regular 3 AA's instead of built-in li-pol and see how it wors. You can also measure current and check whether everything is correct.

[Ni+Mh]

My T|E battery has been pretty faithful to me having survived through times in which is still serves me well at the battery percentage of 10%

[witchdoctor]

Took it apart and wrote down battery info (size, manufacturer, etc.) Then I desoldered the + terminal. Left it for 5 - 10 minutes, then resoldered the terminal. (junglemike: multimeter is at my workplace, otherwise I'd measure the current.) Plugged it in and started charging... about 5 seconds after I plugged it in, the screen lit up white for about 5 sec. then turned off for about a second, flashed white again, then turned off. No Tungsten / Palm logo as with usual reset. Perhaps I tripped something? Waiting for it to charge... will post results in a bit.

For what it's worth, junglemike, yes, the battery will go flat in an afternoon without being switched on once. If I use it constantly (ebooks, etc.), I'll get about 10 - 30 minutes of use before it dies. From my experience with LiPo batteries, they tend to "age" gradually, storing less and less, not suddenly dropping like this...

Result after every "treatment" was the same: more or less the same small capacity. I can keep the unit on for 15 minutes and watch the battery meter at the top go from 100% to 30% in little increments. It's basically running down very quickly.

If this charge doesn't do the trick I'll run two wires out, hook up 3 AAs and carry that around for a while! :-)

[junglemike]

2witchdoctor
Ok, here's small instruction how you can find out and fix the problem.
First, you can read the similair thread here http://discussion.brighthand.com/palmhandhelds/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63406
on the Brighthand and see how someone fixed similair battery problem (with my little help:-))
Ok, first, the most important thing you have to check - is whether the battery is faulty (most chances) or palm is faulty. To do this, you have to measure the current, when taken from battery when unit is On and Off. Very important note: NEVER measure current directly from the battery - you will destroy the battery immediately, and it may explodre or leak. To measure the current , disconnect one (only one ) wire from battery and put there ampermeter (set it to 10A) . In normal working conditions, current should not railse more thatn 100, maybe max 130ma, In off it should be <10ma.
If , after measured, you see that current is MUCH higher in one of these conditions (on/off) - The unit is faulty - it is consuming too high current.
If you see that the current is right, and palm shuts down on about 3.7-3.75v - than the battery is fautly.
By the way, improper charging or wrong adapter could easily lead to a battery problem.
Small advice: do net leave your unit in cradle in charger for days, If you don't use it, - just charge and unplug.
If you found out that the battery is faulty - you can replace it with ANY li-ion (or li-ion polimer battery) that will fit there - not necessary the same battery for T|E. All new li-ion(polymer) batts are the same and provide 4.2v as full, and 3.6v as empty.
By the way, you can also try to put there a larger battery to encrease life time (see brighthand for more details)
Good Luck , will answer any specific quastions, if needed.

[palm sucks]

My wife gave me a Tungsten E to get my life more organized . While this product did fullfill its promise the first three days , the first time I removed this product from my house and charger it died just before a big meeting . My wife bought this product in the Radio Shack store in Carmel New York and I immediaitely brought it back . The sales rep never admitted that there was a problem with this PDA but questioned me for less than 20 seconds and gave me a brand new one. I should have suspected that I had a bigger problem than I thought I had because no big fuss was involved with the return. Guess what ? After two days with a another brand new one, the unit crashed after being away from the charger for more than two hours. This product is so unreliable that it is criminal . I researched this item the past few hours on the computer and I advise all to run...do not walk to your store and return it . It is a faulty PDA with no support system behind it and I had the extended warranty.
John O Donnel
Mahopac New York

[LionsFanBill]

I've had my Palm Tungsten E for 1year and 2 months. Its working fine for me. I use it everyday. The only problem I have is the on/off button broke but it can be turned on by pressing another button and it shuts off by itself. No problems with the battery at all though. My wife has had hers for 6 months and it wont take a charge.

Based on my experience with it, I would say that its a great product, but based on what I read here and the problem we're having with my wife's T/E I'd say they do have some problems. I guess I just got lucky with mine.

[TE user]

I have my TE for one year now. It works well with no very serious problems.
Battery lasts enough but my problem is with the speaker.
In the fourth month of usage the speaker started sparkling. After 2 days died.
I sent many emails to palm but no results.
Has anynone found any information regarding repair or replacement procedure inthe palm's site? Only an online repair order on charge. The local reps does not exist at all.
I decided to do something myself. The problem of the spaeker was of bad contact since it is not soldered on the motherboard but it is just in contact. The fact that ithe speaker is located in the upper side makes thing worse beacuse the casing it is not firmly closed there.
I was lucky enough and i found the SAME !! speaker form my digital camera HP 735 which was also faulty and finally broke down.
I replace it and verything eas ok.
Till then i had tested a lot of different speakers of the same size but different ohms (33-35 ohms) and battery drained out in a few seconds.
The correct speaker must be 10-12 ohms.
If the speaker contact is poor then the TE battery runs out EVEN IF THE PDA IS OFF. Keep in mind that the pda is always on and only the dispaly shut off when you press the on/off button.
In addition to that the upper key of the 5-key navigator does not work!

In general terms i am not very satisfied of the manufacturing quality.

[Marre]

As for battery aging, Li-ion usually goes from 100% to 70% capacity in 2 years so it's not normal to have the battery run out in like 30 minutes. It's mostly a problem with charging.

Also, check the operating temperature. If it's above 40'C then the capacity will be greatly reduced (temporarily) and charging will not work well. I think the lower limit is about 0'C.

[MDMAN]

Has anyone tried replacing the Tungsten E battery with a cell phone battery? I have two phones that I'm not using and took off the plastic casing on each. Each phone battery has a little PCB connect to the battery that has the original leads that goes to the cell phone. Do I need to solder to those original leads that went to the cell phone or remove the PCB completely and then solder to the battery itself? I've read that lithium ion batteries need some protection circuitry, and wanted to make sure about things before I disconnected the PCB. Thanks.

Calvin