Re: Somewhat unusual cell phone issue (220 charging)

Phil,

1. The battery indicator on Motorola V5xx-series phones isn't terribly good
and can give misleading information on battery life. In particular, it tends
to show fully charged right after partial charging even though the battery is
nowhere near fully charged. The best thing is to charge the phone until its
display shows "Charging Complete". If that isn't happening, then something is
wrong with charger and/or battery and/or phone.

2. A slow travel (wall) charger (e.g., SPN5037B) can take quite a bit longer
than 2 hours to fully charge a V557 battery on 110V, particularly if the phone
is left on while charging, since even at idle the phone consumes enough power
to significantly slow the rate of battery charging. It's best to turn the
phone off when charging on a slow charger, and to charge for several hours
(e.g., overnight) or until the phone shows "Charging Complete".

3. It's possible that your slow travel charger had less (half as much) output
on 220V as compared to 110V. I don't know the design, so I can't say for
sure.

4. Batteries can be worn out more rapidly by frequent under-charging, another
good reason to charge the phone until it shows "Charging Complete".

5. The Motorola PSM4250 charger (same as NNTN4250) I use is rated for
worldwide usage (100-240V 50-60Hz, 1.5A). Even if the output is less on 220V,
it should still have sufficient output for rapid charging. My guess is that
the SPN4716 charger is the same, but I don't know for sure.

6. For insurance, you might want to get a spare battery and a desktop charging
stand. That way you could fully charge a backup battery during the day while
you are using the phone.

7. A backup battery pack that uses disposable AA batteries (e.g.,
<http://www.thetravelinsider.info/phones/cellphonerecharger.htm>), or
disposable backup batteries (e.g., CellBoost <http://www.cellboost.com/>), are
other ways to make sure you always have power.

8. A good 12V car charger might be another way to keep your phone charged.

-John Navas


On 04/11/2006 06:57, Phil & Mary Puddington wrote:

>John,

>It appears you are a very effective techno-wizard on cell phones,
>from reading some of the forum discussions to which you contribute.
>Perhaps you can help us with a very recent problem, somewhat
>different than most I have read about, that occurred on a trip to
>Italy just ended. I am interested in trying to answer this issue
>before I go to Kenya in June on another mission trip.

>My wife and I both have Motorola V557 phones, obtained from Cingular
>in late February, 2006, to replace V180 phones which suffered from
>common LCD fragility failures. The V557s came with the usual low
>power 375mA SPN5037B wall chargers of which I now realize you are
>justifiably critical. We have been in the habit of charging these
>phones on a daily basis overnight at home in the USA, realizing that
>it probably only took about 2 hours for the phone to be fully
>charged. We usually leave them on during the charging, and we have
>never had a problem with battery life which, when we sometimes forgot
>to put them on the charger, seemed to last 2 or 3 days.

>When we left for Italy on March 31, we took one wall charger with us,
>expecting the same rapid charging to occur on the 240 volt, 50 cycle
>service in Italy. To our great surprise, even after charging our
>phones 7 or 8 hours, they began to run out of battery strength in
>about 6 or 7 hours, first with the audible alarm and then with a
>complete shutdown. Fortunately, I had brought with me a backup V188
>phone an its even lower power 350mA SPN5093A wall charger, which
>seemed to work perfectly normally (like in the US with respect to
>short charging time and long battery life), and this allowed us to
>have one phone that worked. Even leaving my wife’s V557 on its
>charger overnight, the same rapid decay of battery life was
>experienced, usually giving up around 3 or 4PM. Quite obviously this
>did not provide the ability to communicate with each other if we
>became separated, and it was of great concern. What might have
>contributed to this problem? Is it possible that the SPN5037B has
>even weaker output on the 240 volt, 50 cycle service? Is it possible
>that the phones or batteries could have been damaged (although my
>wife’s seems to be quite normal now, being charged on the US 120 volt
>home service)? I am temporarily still using the V188, but I am
>anxious to get a reasonable perspective on the problem.

>I would like to be certain that the V557 system will work for the
>Kenya trip (using the Kenya/UK standard 240 volt, 50 cycle service),
>because I would like to use the V557 in teaching some primary school
>children in an isolated village about emerging technologies, sort of
>a take off on Friedman’s book, "The World is Flat". I will probably
>still take along the V188 as a working backup and insurance. Last
>year I found the V180 to be a very useful tool in communicating
>locally on quotes, etc., with text messaging, eliminating my
>inability to understand some of the local accents.

>Also, in doing some initial research on the 1500mA SPN4716 you
>strongly recommend, I can’t find any reference to its voltage and
>cycle specification.

>Thank you in advance for any assistance, advice, and suggestions you
>can offer on resolving this problem.

>Phil
--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>