UPDATE: Ultimate Battery Fix... All of this other shit is old and busted!
So after a while, even the upgraded charger was not enough. It was an irredeemable piece of shit from the beginning, and it never really got any better. So I junked it. Darn those tricky Chinese...they got me again with their inferior and shoddily built products! When will I learn?
Naturally, being a brick phone enthusiast, I decided to engineer a fix. You can't keep a kickass phone like this down for long!
Essentially, I gutted the original battery case and replaced the original battery with a pair of new 18650 lithium-ion cells.
This gives me a crazy huge capacity, but maintains the voltage needed to reliably run the phone and get a good signal. The batteries I bought were off the internet. I shopped around, and finally found a place called Battery Junction that had exactly what I wanted.
The actual battery charger I used is (http://www.batteryjunction.com/powerizer-ch-unli3-7v1-8a.html)
The battery pack I used is (http://www.batteryjunction.com/tenergy-37-4400-pcb.html)
The important thing is that you have a voltage of 4.0 (+/-). My specific battery pack and charger is 3.7 volts and gives excellent performance. It even seems to get better signal. I may be "juicing" the circuits, but I don't care. :)
Naturally, being a brick phone enthusiast, I decided to engineer a fix. You can't keep a kickass phone like this down for long!
Essentially, I gutted the original battery case and replaced the original battery with a pair of new 18650 lithium-ion cells.
This gives me a crazy huge capacity, but maintains the voltage needed to reliably run the phone and get a good signal. The batteries I bought were off the internet. I shopped around, and finally found a place called Battery Junction that had exactly what I wanted.
The actual battery charger I used is (http://www.batteryjunction.com/powerizer-ch-unli3-7v1-8a.html)
The battery pack I used is (http://www.batteryjunction.com/tenergy-37-4400-pcb.html)
The important thing is that you have a voltage of 4.0 (+/-). My specific battery pack and charger is 3.7 volts and gives excellent performance. It even seems to get better signal. I may be "juicing" the circuits, but I don't care. :)
To be able to neatly charge the new cells, and I just hacked a new charging port into the bottom of the battery case. I used hot glue and I don't give a fuck. Don't judge me. This is some artisanal level shit. The brick works better than ever and lasts for almost 2 weeks. Since I did this upgrade, I've talked for 6 hours straight on this bitch and still had a week's worth of charge. It's incredible. So hell yes, I used hot glue.
I used a drill. It wasn't exactly high-tech. Getting the battery open without breaking it was more difficult. Go slow, and use something thin and sturdy, like a good knife blade, to gently pry open the case. The original battery was hilariously shitty. It was actually a regular-ass V180 battery glued to a piece of scrap steel. I am completely serious. I wish I had taken a picture. China's finest strike again!
Anyway, this is the new charging arrangement. It's fucking pimp. The only thing is that the phone has to be powered off to charge. The phone will not charge if it is powered on. I don't know why. Who cares? Plug this bastard in for a few hours and it'll last for a long-ass time.
Bottom line: Best. Mod. Evar.
I'm going to keep the original charger upgrade information up and intact for posterity's sake,
but you should disregard the following info as a waste of time.
Bottom line: Best. Mod. Evar.
I'm going to keep the original charger upgrade information up and intact for posterity's sake,
but you should disregard the following info as a waste of time.
Battery Charger upgrade
Some of the guys over at www.howardforums.com have a good thread on the battery charger, how to check it, and some ideas on fixing it.
The charger as supplied puts out too many volts, which will cook the battery if you leave it on too long, and that sucks. The battery on this thing is about like a king-size Snickers bar, so it should have enough capacity that you shouldn't have to charge it every other day!
Here is the thread: http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/1305739-1.html
The charger as supplied puts out too many volts, which will cook the battery if you leave it on too long, and that sucks. The battery on this thing is about like a king-size Snickers bar, so it should have enough capacity that you shouldn't have to charge it every other day!
Here is the thread: http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/1305739-1.html
What I did to cure the whole problem was open up the charger and completely gut it. Throw out the whole circuitboard. It charges at too high of a voltage, and is just plain no good. Cheap Chinese pirate junk!
Anyway, take a wall charger for another phone. I bet you have one lying around. I know I do, since all these damn phone manufacturers seem to make a proprietary charger for each and every single model of phone they come out with, that way you'll have to buy a new car charger, a spare wall charger, etc. It's a marketing strategy.
So I just happened to have an old Samsung charger lying around that was rated at 3.7 volts. Perfect. I cut the old charger tip off, stripped the two wires, and hooked them up inside the body of the old charger, taking care to ensure the polarity would be correct. I knotted the wire so that the cable would not come out of the plastic housing, and I was done.
Now you can charge the phone like normal, and get all the battery life you should be getting from such a giant 4200 mAh battery.
It's unfortunate that such a basic thing like the battery charger is all screwed up, but hey. That's why it's a gray-market China phone.
The QC in those backalley, unregulated Shenzhen electronics sweatshops is not that good. Fortunately, a little bit of knowhow can turn that right around. Ain't the internet grand?