4200mAh Nexus 4 - second internal battery!

[Armalong]

Wonder if someone still watchs this topic, going to do same upgrade with wood made back, it's ready, im waiting for the package as well as additional battery.

 

[dragos281993]

Wonder if someone still watchs this topic, going to do same upgrade with wood made back, it's ready, im waiting for the package as well as additional battery.

Be sure to take some pictures, or maybe even make a short video about your "upgrade".

 

[Armalong]

Be sure to take some pictures, or maybe even make a short video about your "upgrade".

I'll start here with something I already have and then will post more text and pictures while mine project continues.

I thought about replacing original battery with battery with bigger mAh capacity and found this topic. I liked they way the OP made his phone, read all the topic, started reading some stuff and decided to do the same. Ordered battery on ebay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/181839893052 , still doesn't have it) and multimeter (http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6962326170.html?orderId=69741195993066). Also asked friends about electronics, soldering and battery things because never actually knew how it worked. And practiced with some other electric stuff to not to break phone in moment of truth. Removed my N4 back many times, following this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZDAIgwbXk4 it's long, but well made), did some measurements and checked how all the antennas are placed there. Going to keep NFC and QI using some pins from old laptop or just wires. Also read the article about replacing phone's back (http://xdaforums.com/nexus-4/general/how-to-nexus-4-replace-cover-glass-t2257896) to be aware of how to move antennas from one back to another.
About back. Since we don't have here in Russia 3d printers much, especially in small city where I live, I've made a decision to make it of wood. May sounds strange, but I found this idea fun =) It won't be full back replacement, but additional block on top of place where back glass is now. Here is a sketch to make it clear.
http://aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/render/1.png
I even made simple version of back just to practice and felt if I could do this properly or not. Here is my monster:
http://aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/phone.jpg
It won't fit of course and I found a master who can do this work carefully, it was a lady from Crimea. She and her husband do all the stuff from wood and you can oder them any shape and even choose type of wood.
I did sketch with all the measurements and sent them, here it is (http://aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/render/3.png), you can just print it on paper with 100% zoom and it will has real size and fit phone.
After few days they finished this thing and sent to me, I'm still waiting.
http://cs625129.vk.me/v625129880/629fa/rPLKNWd2YtQ.jpg
http://cs625129.vk.me/v625129880/62a03/BzIzYpVfo1I.jpg
It's made of juniper, it's good for your health to inhale smell of this wood =). I asked them to left some extra place in the left top angle (green dotted polygon on a sketch) in case I'd add some extra things inside.
This back costed me 30$ with delivery, I believe it's cheap, because order is quite special and wood itself isn't cheap too.
Looks like this additional back going to make my N4 two times thicker but I don't mind since it has large battery =)

Finally got my back, it fits almost perfect, only edges have little gaps, but I'm completely satisfied, I thanked people from Crimea who made this. Didn't do anything with it yet, just attached it to the phone.

Continued to do my deed. Still have no battery and multimeter, anyway decided to screw wood back to original.
At first I positioned new back and fixed awhile with scotch tape.

Then melted 4 holes in plastic using nail and lighter.

There still glass left, I drilled it. Used for it device for nails. Even it was perfect instrument I thought I still got cracks. But I didn't mind, anyway this glass would be partly removed.

Then I placed wood to the back again and used needle to mark place, where hole for screws should be (marked on picture below with red circle). And also found good screws and plastic cylinders (don't know how to call it even in Russian) for them, they were taken from broken CD player.

Last thing I did was gluing cylinders to wood surface, using needle as a guide.

Then two backs were screwed, unfortunately not very accurate first time, so I had to paste up and then glue it again, after that it fit well. Anyway I'm planning to fasten these backs also with double-sided tape beside screws.
That's all I have by now.

Hope all the pictures are available.
BTW I wonder is there possible to solder microsd reader since there will be extra place in new cover back. Reading this article this moment, it's for nexus 7 but might have some interesting stuff (http://rootzwiki.com/topic/30797-op...in-micro-sd-card-reader-to-nexus-7-build-log/). Any ideas?

To be continued...

 

[fuel426]

I'll start here with something I already have and then will post more text and pictures while mine project continues.

I thought about replacing original battery with battery with bigger mAh capacity and found this topic. I liked they way OP made his phone, read all the topic, started reading some stuff and decided to do the same. Ordered battery on ebay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/181839893052 , still doesn't have it) and multimeter (http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6962326170.html?orderId=69741195993066). Also asked friends about soldering stuff and practiced with some other electric stuff to not to break phone while upgrading. Disassembled my N4 many times, following this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZDAIgwbXk4 it's long, but well made), made some measurements and checked how all the antennas are placed there. Going to keep NFC and QI using some pins from old laptop or just wires. Also read the article about replacing phone's back (http://xdaforums.com/nexus-4/general/how-to-nexus-4-replace-cover-glass-t2257896) to be aware of how to move antennas from one back to another.
About back. Since we don't have here in Russia 3d printers much, especially in small city I live I've made a decision to make it of wood. May sounds strange, but I found this idea fun =) It won't be full back replacement, but additional block atop of place where back glass is. Here is a sketch to make it clear.
http://aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/render/1.png
I even made simple version of cheap wood just to practice and feel if I can do this properly or not. Here is my monster:
http://aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/phone.jpg
It won't fit of course, so I found master who can do this work carefully, it was a lady from Crimea, she and her husband do all the stuff from wood and you can oder them any shape and even choose type of wood.
I did sketch with all the sizes and sent them, here it is (http://aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/render/3.png), you can just print it on paper with 100% zoom and it will has real size.
After few days they did this thing and sent to me, I'm still waiting.
http://cs625129.vk.me/v625129880/629fa/rPLKNWd2YtQ.jpg
http://cs625129.vk.me/v625129880/62a03/BzIzYpVfo1I.jpg
It's made of juniper, it's good for your health to inhale smell of this wood =)
I asked them to left some extra place close to the battery (green dotted line on sketch) in case I'd add some extra things inside.

Hope all the pictures are available.
BTW I wonder is there possible to solder microsd reader since there will be extra place in new cover back. Reading this article this moment, it's for nexus 7 but might have some interesting stuff (http://rootzwiki.com/topic/30797-op...in-micro-sd-card-reader-to-nexus-7-build-log/). Any ideas?

To be continued...

This is amazing. Keep on shining you bright star. I might even buy a nx4 to do this

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

 

[Fatsodonkey]

Can you please translate that scetch text to english? I would love to get this 3d printed somewhere.

 

[Armalong]

Can you please translate that scetch text to english? I would love to get this 3d printed somewhere.

Why not, but I have to warn you, these measurements might be not very accurate. And I also made the cover 8mm thick because of the wood, it's not so solid as plastic. You can make it thinner, for example 7mm or even 6mm if you make the accumulator recess thinner.
aleksey-yaremenko.ru/uploads/render/3_eng.png

 

[epicoftimewasted]

These mods are awesome. Thankfully my battery has held out pretty good over the years, so I haven't had to resort to anything so extreme!

 

[Fatsodonkey]

The best thing would be if someone could 3d scan nexus 5 back inside out and then 3d print it with more size that would fit a second battery. That would be awesome. I just asked one company that would it be possible. Waiting for answer.

 

[bert1994]

Nexus 4 Mod vs Nexus 6

After some months i need to say: My Nexus 4 with the 2100mah battery + 4000 mah battery performs as well as the nexus 6 regarding battery life. It seems there are some issues with both batteries having some current flowing in between.

However, my Nexus 6 does equal or better compared to my modded Nexus 4.

Also interesting: My modded Nxs 4 runs out of battery at the end of the day. Shutting down the device and turning it back on gives me about 70% of battery back. I know that the values shown in Android are not true values. So if anyone else plans doing this, you may need to modify some system files to make this work properly.

 

[brzlian.developer]

I would just like to thank everyone on this topic for the amazing ideas. I added a 2600mha Galaxy S3 battery in parallel (positive to positive, negative to negative) to my original 2100mha battery, and now my Nexus 4 is back to it's amazing self.

I did not wired (soldered) anything, I just used an old USB cable that wasn't working anymore, peeled it, and passed one wire through the positive connector of the old battery, and the other through the negative.

I've got the idea for solving my problem without soldering anything from another topic where a guy charged a Nexus 4 battery using an old micro USB cable:

http://xdaforums.com/nexus-4/general/how-to-bring-nexus-4-battery-dead-t2975391

The wire is very thin, the connector still was able to plug on the phone. Then I made a little hole on the side of the back cover, so that I could pass the wires to the exterior of the phone.

Then I just used duct tape to keep the positive and negative wires "stuck in place" on the battery connector. Used more tape to fix the battery on the back of the phone, and the cut a hole on my silicon case to give space for the external battery.

The phone is now 1/3 thicker than before, it's almost unnoticeable, and the battery life is more than 10 hours with the screen on and heavy use. With normal use, I go more than 24 hours without worrying about charging. I'll try to get some photos later.

Thank you guys for this awesome community.

 

[pedro_nf]

Some info about batteries

I'm looking for info on how to adapt a bigger battery on my old Nexus 4 and this thread is great.
Just a quick comment about battery connections:
- the battery is charged through the phone by a dedicated electronics chip that is calculated for the original battery capacity, if you change the original battery with a bigger one then it will charge more slowly or sometimes don't even charge correctly because the supplied current is not enough. On low end electronics it can even break the charger circuit. Replacing the original battery with a slightly bigger capacity battery should be ok.
- be careful when connecting two batteries in parallel, at the moment of connecting the wires the battery with more charge will discharge over the battery with less charge (charging it) until both batteries have the same charge. If one of the batteries is almost discharged and the other almost full, then you will have a high current going through the batteries that can be greater then the max charge or discharge current, breaking one or both batteries. For LiIon batteries they can heat up and catch fire. Most of the times the simple fact of connecting batteries in parallel will shorten the batteries life time. So I'd say its better not to do it...

Ho and by the way, the connection in picture on #291 is plain wrong, never connect 5V supply directly to the battery!

 

[brzlian.developer]

4 batteries

I'm looking for info on how to adapt a bigger battery on my old Nexus 4 and this thread is great.
Just a quick comment about battery connections:
- the battery is charged through the phone by a dedicated electronics chip that is calculated for the original battery capacity, if you change the original battery with a bigger one then it will charge more slowly or sometimes don't even charge correctly because the supplied current is not enough. On low end electronics it can even break the charger circuit. Replacing the original battery with a slightly bigger capacity battery should be ok.
- be careful when connecting two batteries in parallel, at the moment of connecting the wires the battery with more charge will discharge over the battery with less charge (charging it) until both batteries have the same charge. If one of the batteries is almost discharged and the other almost full, then you will have a high current going through the batteries that can be greater then the max charge or discharge current, breaking one or both batteries. For LiIon batteries they can heat up and catch fire. Most of the times the simple fact of connecting batteries in parallel will shorten the batteries life time. So I'd say its better not to do it...

Ho and by the way, the connection in picture on #291 is plain wrong, never connect 5V supply directly to the battery!

Hi Pedro. For over two months now, I'm using FOUR batteries in parallel on my 2012 Nexus 4. At the moment, it haves a chinese knock off internal battery, and I connected another three Galaxy S4 batteries on the back of my phone. It never got hot or anything, and charges normally. I get over two days of heavy use on a single charge, something like 12 hours of screen time with a high brightness level. It looks like a tank, but I kinf of like it that way. And since I need to always be on the latest Android versions, Cyanogen just released Nougat for the Nexus 4, I can't see myself changing phones anytime soon.

Since according to forum rules I can't post outside links, if you want to see how my phone looks with 3 batteries attached to it's back, go to the link bellow.

http : // imgur.com/a/0Gie2

 

[shubham.chitriv]

single battery soldered

LG g3 of 3000mah is soldered, but battery backup is still as n4 battery was, is there any modifications required in system files for the new mah battery to work on full power

 

[pedro_nf]

Hi Pedro. For over two months now, I'm using FOUR batteries in parallel on my 2012 Nexus 4. At the moment, it haves a chinese knock off internal battery, and I connected another three Galaxy S4 batteries on the back of my phone. It never got hot or anything, and charges normally. I get over two days of heavy use on a single charge, something like 12 hours of screen time with a high brightness level. It looks like a tank, but I kinf of like it that way. And since I need to always be on the latest Android versions, Cyanogen just released Nougat for the Nexus 4, I can't see myself changing phones anytime soon.

Since according to forum rules I can't post outside links, if you want to see how my phone looks with 3 batteries attached to it's back, go to the link bellow.

http : // imgur.com/a/0Gie2

Nice
Well, it is possible to do it and RC cars and planes enthusiasts do it all the time. But you should make sure they are identical batteries, same voltage, same chemistry, same manufacturer, same age. And same voltage when you connect them.
With time, as batteries age differently they will have slightly different capacities so you'll start having cross charge currents between batteries, when they are not connected to the charger. So theoretically parallel batteries will have a smaller life span. But as many things in real life, in practice it'll be just fine

 

[brzlian.developer]

Nice
Well, it is possible to do it and RC cars and planes enthusiasts do it all the time. But you should make sure they are identical batteries, same voltage, same chemistry, same manufacturer, same age. And same voltage when you connect them.
With time, as batteries age differently they will have slightly different capacities so you'll start having cross charge currents between batteries, when they are not connected to the charger. So theoretically parallel batteries will have a smaller life span. But as many things in real life, in practice it'll be just fine

I used my N4 with 4 batteries for over 6 months, but unfortunatelly I dropped it and the screen got destroyed. So I'm using a Xiaomi Note 3 now. I kept the batteries, maybe I'll attach it to another phone someday.

 

[shubham.chitriv]

LG g3 of 3000mah is soldered, but battery backup is still as n4 battery was, is there any modifications required in system files for the new mah battery to work on full power

HAve a look at this please

---------- Post added at 04:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:03 AM ----------

!!

Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Did u made any modifications in system files, if yes what are those???
I attached a lg g3 battery plus original N4 battery but it is giving same battery backup as before

 

[KitsuneFoxy]

Hearing all this sounds great, is there a anyone eho would offer a prebuilt ready to go kit? With two batteries. I have no solder experience and have tremors. I dont feel like i would be confident otherwise. I can pay however. Being based in the uk might be sn issue, but would love to chat about one ready to plug nd go

 

[tommmtom]

Hearing all this sounds great, is there a anyone eho would offer a prebuilt ready to go kit? With two batteries. I have no solder experience and have tremors. I dont feel like i would be confident otherwise. I can pay however. Being based in the uk might be sn issue, but would love to chat about one ready to plug nd go

Where in the UK? Pm me if you want..

 

[KitsuneFoxy]

In the east Midlands. I have no way to make the case for the two batteries. I know where to get OEM nexus batteries. Its just that case of yours is 3d printed? How much would one cost to make from you?