Homebrew New 3DS (standard) Battery Issues

[Benlo]

Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster with an issue that has me stumped.

I've been using my standard size new 3ds for quite some time now, (Since late 2016 I believe?) and ever since I installed cfw I've had battery issues. I used it before installing cfw with no issues, and about 2 years after buying it decided to take the plunge into the world of homebrew.
Since then my battery issues have been pretty steady, I've replaced the battery 3 times and now even have a supposed larger 3rd party battery with the same specifications (except for mah capacity) inside it to see if that would help but it hasn't.
The main issue is obviously that the battery life is very short, but also that it will die in sleep mode very quickly. Recently, though, the issue that has me posting here is I will be using it at 3 bars (almost full) and then the light will go from blue to flashing red to dead in 10 seconds.
Any recommendations? I've reseated it, cleaned the contacts with isopropyl, made sure the battery is secure and not bouncing around, and nothing seems to improve the issue.

Oh! It also seems to say its finished charging after 2 hours or so, so I assume the battery is at least big enough to take that much of a charge, but would that account for the fact that the 3ds also says its full then randomly dies?

 

[r5xscn]

Does this happen when you run OFW? Try to run it on OFW and see if it also occurs on OFW now to eliminate HW issues.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Do you have a flashcart inside the cartridge slot? Those drain the battery fast even if not in use (standby or playing a game from console SD).


The 3DS family doesn't have a coulomb counter/energy meter that would allow somewhat accurate "fuel gauge". The percentage that can be seen in Rosalina menu is little more than a fancy voltage reading. And the bars the normal Home Menu shows are plain ridiculous:
100%-61% → 4 bars
60-31% → 3 bars
30-11% → 2 bars
10-6% → 1 bar, red led
5-0% → 1 bar, red led flashing


An obvious method of testing if the console has any problems is using your batteries in another N3DS which is known to have no problems (or a device for measuring the capacity of li-ion cells).

Charging for only two hours sounds pretty fast for an empty KTR-003 as the 3DS doesn't charge fast (which is good for the batteries) and the last hour or so is the constant voltage phase where the current gets reduced more and more.


I know of no reason why custom firmware should have any impact on battery life.

 

[Benlo]

Do you have a flashcart inside the cartridge slot? Those drain the battery fast even if not in use (standby or playing a game from console SD).


The 3DS family doesn't have a coulomb counter/energy meter that would allow somewhat accurate "fuel gauge". The percentage that can be seen in Rosalina menu is little more than a fancy voltage reading. And the bars the normal Home Menu shows are plain ridiculous:
100%-61% → 4 bars
60-31% → 3 bars
30-11% → 2 bars
10-6% → 1 bar, red led
5-0% → 1 bar, red led flashing


An obvious method of testing if the console has any problems is using your batteries in another N3DS which is known to have no problems (or a device for measuring the capacity of li-ion cells).

Charging for only two hours sounds pretty fast for an empty KTR-003 as the 3DS doesn't charge fast (which is good for the batteries) and the last hour or so is the constant voltage phase where the current gets reduced more and more.


I know of no reason why custom firmware should have any impact on battery life.

I do have a flash cart, I will take that out and see how that affects everything. Why is that? Are there any flashcarts that don't do that?