[Q] Charging Interrupted - Battery Temp Too High or Too Low

[dmw_4814]

I recently received a Droid Charge from Verizon as a replacement for a Thunderbolt which was basically rendered inoperable by the May OTA update due to near constant rebooting. I really like the Charge (with the exception of that hideous brown/orange theme - some of which looks designed by 1st graders!), but I'm having a MAJOR problem with it that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one suffering this issue!

I drive a tractor-trailer for a living and use Google Navigation as a back-up to a truck-dedicated GPS unit I have in my tractor. I have a dash mount that I used to keep my Thunderbolt in and I had no problems with it at all (except for the constant reboots). However, the first day I was using the Charge, the screen went dark all of the sudden after a couple of hours, and I'm like WTF?!! I couldn't get it to anything, so I pulled it out of the dash mount and let the sun shine on the screen - I saw the display was still on, but it had dimmed to the point that I couldn't see it without a light shining on it. In the middle of the screen was a dialog box with an exclamation point and the message "Charging Interrupted - battery temperature too high or too low"! I unplugged the Verizon-branded car charger and as soon as I did that, the screen became bright again, and the message disappeared. I left it like that for a while, until the low battery warning appeared. I then plugged the car charger in and let it start charging. Well, guess what? It darkened the screen again after almost 30 minutes of being connected to the car charger, and I saw the same battery temp too high message on the screen!

I have since tried to use the wall charger I got with my HTC Thunderbolt (my tractor has a power inverter in it, and electrical outlets to plug a power cord into, just like the outlets at home), but I got the same warning message on the screen. This is a REAL problem as it's basically causing the phone to be unusable, since I am not able to charge the battery when it gets low, due to the phone interrupting the charging! I went to a Verizon store, thinking it might just be a bad battery (especially because, when I first put the battery in the phone and plugged it in to charge, I got an "Incompatible battery" message on the phone). I took the battery out and reinserted it, and I never got that message again. Verizon gave me a brand-new battery, but that didn't help. They sent me another Droid Charge to replace the first one, but the 2nd one is doing the same thing!

Anybody have any idea what's going on here? I've had the same problem now with 2 seperate batteries and two seperate Droid Charge phones, but I never had that problem with my Thunderbolt, even though I used the same wall & car chargers with IT! The back of the Charge's are getting very hot, but, then again, so did my Thunderbolt, and I never had a charging issue with it. I'd really like to keep the Charge and send my Thunderbolt back to Verizon, but I can't do that without finding a solution to this problem!

Thanks,

Dennis

 

[Yankees368]

I used to have this issue with several HTC phones. What happens is that if you keep the phone on the dash in direct sunlight, the battery reaches critical temperatures and to prevent the risk of failure, it stops the battery from charging. This happened all the time on my HTC phones from the Mogul 6800 to the Touch Pro. Not sure why the T-Bolt didn't have that issue, maybe it was set to a higher threshold before stopping the charging.
You may want to keep it out of direct sunlight or take the battery cover off to let more air flow in when charging on the dash.
Hope that helps.

 

[Bear55]

I had the same problem. The warning message seems to be a safety feature built into the Charge that waits to charge the battery until it is cooled off.

I found that unpluging and turning off navigation for a while helped cool things off.

I also tried having the phone fully charged before using it for navigation and then plugging it in and this seemed to help. I am no expert, but it seems that when the phone is not trying to charge a battery rapidly it deals with the GPS heat better.

I hope this helps; stick with it and keep bugging Verizon!

Sent from my Charge using XDA Premium App

 

[Cruiserdude]

So they sent you a Charge, but you kept the tbolt charger? And they have sent you multiple Charges and batteries, but never the correct charger? If this is right, you need to tell them to give you a Charge charger (heh). This phone seems to be pretty particular about what charges it, I can't even use a usb extension cable, so the wrong charger may be the culprit.

 

[rmanaka]

I've been getting this as well using CoPilot Live v8 (just upgraded to v9). I found if I turned down the screen brightness a bit, say to 80%, I could still see the screen but avoid most of the battery charging issues.

I also just purchased a Tetrax XWAY mount that will attach to an air conditioning vent. We'll see if blowing cool air onto the back will let me drive around with the brightness turned full up.

My concern with brightness all the way up is that I am not sure if the charge rate from the lighter plug will keep up with the discharge rate on the DC when everything is running full tilt...I just ordered a Tek-Tok Wireless lighter plug USB charger, Input: 12-24V DC; Output: 5.0V DC 2.1Amp! Let the frying begin!!!

p.s. I tried the Samsung/Verizon navigation mount on a 5-day trip...not too bad of a design, BUT, would not work with my extended battery and back PLUS when the DC goes into car dock mode (automatically when inserted into the navigation dock) it comes up with a screen that has a shortcut to VZ Navigator that CANNOT be edited or changed to another navigation program. You have to disable the dock in order to use another navigation program! What's with THAT, Verizon and Samsung!!! Needless to say, returned the mount yesterday...

 

[blarrick]

Try turning your brightness down, make sure it's going into sleep mode and keep it out of direct sunlight

 

[2pezboy]

I also had the exact same overheating issue. After getting a replacement device I started looking at the charger I was using. I had been using a micro usb charger that only output 500ma. The droid charger is 1000ma (or 1 amp). Apparently I was using more power than the charger could provide. The charger couldn't keep up and I guess that must have been the issue because since switching to a 1 amp charger, I haven't had overheating issues.

 

[Ritorix]

"Charging Interrupted - battery temperature too high or too low"

Living in Miami, I have seen this message a few times after leaving the Charge in my car.

Run a free sensor program to tell you the battery temp when it does this. Mine gets up to 130 F.

If your phone isnt really at 130F, maybe something is tricking the sensor or it is faulty.

 

[dmw_4814]

I rooted my Charge today, installing a new kernel (imnuts' PeanutButta Jelly Time) and a new ROM (GummyCHARGED 1.8.5), and I drove 3 1/2 hours from my terminal back to my home for the weekend with the Charge plugged into the charger and never once got the "battery temperature too high or too low" message!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that doing this eliminated my charging problems with the Droid - we'll see!

Dennis

 

[Bear55]

Google maps updated and one of the new features is "Improved battery power management for Navigation (Beta)." Hopefully this helps to solve our problem!

Sent from my Charge using XDA Premium App

 

[blempka]

One thing I did to help prevent this issue when it gets to hot is to set the air vents in your car to the defroster setting, so it will blow air at the windshield, and in turn your phone on the dash. Also, taking off the back can do wonders to prevent over heating.