charging bl-5c | bl-6c

[Mike (mwester)]

Michael Shiloh wrote:
> Playing the devil's advocate for our hypothetical legal department,

Ah, *those* folks; the same ones who processed the gllin drivers?  :-p  :-D

> shouldn't we only charge batteries that we have tested against and 
> know the charging curve for, so that we know we won't overcharge and 
> potentially cause the battery to explode? For this reason (I suspect) 
> all cellphones look for the ID of the battery, and if it's not the one 
> they were designed for, they refuse to charge.*
>
> Granted, this is an extremely paranoid point of view, and is not mine. 
> Besides, since our source is open, nothing prevents anyone from find 
> the code that does that test, and bypassing it.
>

Or better still, finding that code and replacing it with code that would 
recognize the alternate batteries and changing the charging limits and 
parameters as appropriate -- that to me would be the true essence of 
openness.

> Assuming, of course, that this is the reason we do not charge BL-5C 
> and BL-6C.
>
> Michael
>
> * Another reason is that the cellphone maker would have you buy the 
> expensive battery from them, rather than the cheaper knock-off 
> replacement from Radio Shack or whatever.

You'll pardon me for believing that this latter reason is almost 
certainly the true reasoning for the current cellphone makers.  I think 
that if the industry wished to do so, they could all have agreed on a 
safe fall-back set of defaults that all devices and batteries could 
accommodate safely (even if sub-optimally).

If there is a u-boot or other software thing going on, I think it would 
be big marketing statement if OM could offer support for other vendor's 
batteries as a built-in, standard "openness" feature...

> Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote:
>> Hi Andy,
>>
>> do you think there is a way to enable charging for the Nokia BL-5C 
>> and BL-6C batteries in the GTA01/02? They work fine, but for some 
>> reason our PMU does not want to charge them in the device.
>>
>> :M:
>>

Mike (mwester)