Hardware battery life

[NotErista]

hey so my switch has started to charge in a minute then die in 30 secs if i do nothing? what do i do.

 

[pcwizard7]

you could take off the back and plate and unplug the battery for 30 secs then plug back in and see if can power on or charge

 

[NotErista]

you could take off the back and plate and unplug the battery for 30 secs then plug back in and see if can power on or charge

I dont have the tools and I dont have a lot of money cus of covid

 

[FAST6191]

In other things (as in I have had hundreds of laptops, phones, battery driven power tools, vehicles and more cross my bench and it is the main thing people tend to look for) that is usually a battery failure -- batteries are made up of multiple cells that add up to make the necessary voltage. If one of them goes pop (and it is usually just one or two) then the total voltage drops below the cut off. The slightly lesser version of that is before the failing cell fails entirely it still has a fractional capacity and thus it charges up quickly but has nothing once it does (charges quickly, discharges quicker as you have seen).

Replacement battery time is usually what happens next. That or it becomes a TV console and lives on that.

Be wary of the battery puffing up as that can happen with this and might distort frames, cases and screens (or not come out of a dock).

 

[pcwizard7]

without tools or another battery just use it as docked switch

 

[BigOnYa]

Only $20 US dollars for a new battery and tools to open it.
https://www.amazon.com/HDCKU-HAC-00...t=&hvlocphy=9014979&hvtargid=pla-823764721875

 

[Foxi4]

In other things (as in I have had hundreds of laptops, phones, battery driven power tools, vehicles and more cross my bench and it is the main thing people tend to look for) that is usually a battery failure -- batteries are made up of multiple cells that add up to make the necessary voltage. If one of them goes pop (and it is usually just one or two) then the total voltage drops below the cut off. The slightly lesser version of that is before the failing cell fails entirely it still has a fractional capacity and thus it charges up quickly but has nothing once it does (charges quickly, discharges quicker as you have seen).

Replacement battery time is usually what happens next. That or it becomes a TV console and lives on that.

Be wary of the battery puffing up as that can happen with this and might distort frames, cases and screens (or not come out of a dock).

Puffing up is one thing, becoming a fire hazard is another, probably more important consideration. I normally recommend looking into any battery faults and refrain from charging them if at all possible - any internal shorts only get worse with current flow. In a laptop battery this isn't as big of an issue since the cells have vents and can off-gas if needed, pouch batteries will just puff up when the electrolyte starts breaking down as you mentioned and can even rupture - they should be disposed of as quickly as possible.

 

[NotErista]

Puffing up is one thing, becoming a fire hazard is another, probably more important consideration. I normally recommend looking into any battery faults and refrain from charging them if at all possible - any internal shorts only get worse with current flow. In a laptop battery this isn't as big of an issue since the cells have vents and can off-gas if needed, pouch batteries will just puff up when the electrolyte starts breaking down as you mentioned and can even rupture - they should be disposed of as quickly as possible.

I think it's just display as charging quick beacuse once it hits 1% it sometimes stays like that for 3 hours and I can still play but it gradually get better at charging it usually takes a hour or 2 to charge so I think it might be a temporary issue

 

[Foxi4]

I think it's just display as charging quick beacuse once it hits 1% it sometimes stays like that for 3 hours and I can still play but it gradually get better at charging it usually takes a hour or 2 to charge so I think it might be a temporary issue

The Switch battery is 3.7V nominal and has 2x positive, 2x negative and 1x sense wire, which tells me that it may be composed of two cells internally. I can't seem to find a pinout or a cell teardown so I can't confirm or deny, but if this arrangement is correct, you might get correct voltage regardless of whether both cells are functional or not (if one is straight up disconnected, the other will do all the lifting. You'll only see a voltage drop if they're out of balance which shouldn't happen in a parallel) and Nintendo wired it like this to facilitate faster charging, which makes sense. Alternatively, it's a single cell and they doubled up on the current-bearing conductors, leaving one wire for a thermal cut-out or some other monitoring/safety device, that's also not uncommon.



I wonder if it's the battery or the charge circuit that's at fault - hopefully the former since that's easier to fix. You're getting *some* charging activity, so that's good news and a reason to be optimistic. In any case, I would invest in replacing it if a "trickle charge" doesn't solve the problem. Power the console down entirely, plug it in directly (instead of using the dock) and leave it be for a couple of hours. No touchy!

The way these circuits work is that they will slowly charge a cell at a small fraction of the usual current in an attempt to "save it" from an overdischarged state - lithium batteries *do not* enjoy being fully discharged, they will straight up commit sepuku if left unattended in a discharged state. It can take a while before the circuit determines that the cell can receive full charge current, so be patient. Don't play on it while it's charging if it's so critically low, you're not doing it any favours.

If the console works as normal, but reports the wrong percentage value after a long charge like that (could take several hours), it has trouble sensing and it needs attention.

 

[pcwizard7]

I remember a similar issue and found the possible solution that was used to fix it

Nintendo Page on this issue
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/...e-Indicator-Displays-Incorrectly-1250816.html

Payload fix for battery percentage from GBATEMP Thread
https://gbatemp.net/threads/fix-for-linux-battery-issue.508715/

 

[Foxi4]

It's entirely possible that the issue might be in software, it definitely should be investigated a bit further since this behaviour is unusual.