Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

The new (current model) has the camera switch, all the covers i have gotten had it, and it's 4-6 pieces so far

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

My friend is planning to do the same kind of mod for Samsung Galaxy S2. I don't see any problems (yet) it wouldn't work.
At least Mugen offers bigger battery to SGS2 also.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

You do realize, that once Mugen ships the battery to you that OldAbe has so generously offered, you'll be in their database, with an order number, and can legitimately order more covers, right? ;)

The lack of an optics cover is the main reason I've not gone to their system. I see why they did things they way they did, but not having a cover would ruin my camera quickly due to pocket lint and sand and what not. I also have an otterbox cover and a skinomi front skin, otherwise that would be scratched up too.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Yes now it will be legit :p
But have with no problem ordered about 6x so far :)

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Anyone else had any issues with trying to checkout via the Mugen battery website? I'm not using PayPal and the "Checkout" button at the end, below the form, doesn't actually link to anything. Its just and empty gif.

Contacted them and have yet to receive a response.

I'm wondering what people's experience has been with the company and how long it took for the item to ship/arrive. Did anyone choose expedited shipping as I am? If so, I am very interested in the delivery time.

Yours truly,

Abe

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

In my signature, there is a tutorial on how-to prepare 100% working (i.e., recognized by N900 software) optics cover MOD to Mugen Cover.

I can also prepare one for a fixed "donation" - same apply to dual-scud.

/Estel

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

I can confirm and recommend this!
Just received my dual-scud made by Estel and also the modded mugen cover by Estel; and both are working perfectly.
The scud gives you incredible lifetime (it is really unbelievable, if you are only used to BL-5F). And the camera switch works flawlessly. OK, it will not win a design price ;), but it is a handmade mod and looks okay and as already mentioned covers your lens and activates camera on opening; so fully functional.

I do want to express my deepest thanks to Estel for his work.
THX


P.S.: of course thanks also goes to dr_frost_dk for his endless testing

P.P.S.: just rethought my wordings and why should it not win a design price? This mugen mod would be worth it! Even a company like mugen did not invent it, but a brave TMO member...

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Thanks peterleinchen - BTW, I totally agree about "won't win design price". It would be much more "shiny", if done with galvanized aluminum plates - unfortunately, I don't have access to those, at least, not for a reasonable price.

If I ever finish my CNC machine, controlled via linuxbox (it's *almost* complete!), I'm going to replace all (wlel, most off) plastic elements in N900 case, with Allu ones, painted black.

/Estel

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

I would certainly be interested in some custom CNC/3D printing action for the N900. I can't think of anything immediately that I would customize. I'll leave that to you.

Emphatically,

Abe

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Placed an order today for two Mugen batteries with cover - one for myself and one for "dr_frost_dk". Ordered with 2-4 day shipping. Highly doubt they will arrive that quickly but am eager regardless to find out how accurate the claims are about their product.

True - they are ridiculously overpriced but as one consolation they did make a custom back cover which allowed the community to make use of their battery mods.

My only concern is shady Chinese manufacturing. I just don't want the battery giving me a lobotomy whilst I'm checking my voicemail.

I will post my findings when the battery arrives.

Sincerely,

Abe

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Mugen in the house, testing has begun :p
Results will be ready in minimum 8 hours, have to put some cycles on the battery.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

FWIW: The Mugen folks have seemed trustworthy to me. I have been dealing with them since the N810. There was some hassle making a purchase from them once, but it was resolved.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

This post is going to be on the progress on the Mugen XL battery's capacity test.
It is tested like all other battery's i tested, test is done with 2x discharge at 800mA & 200mA, the discharge total mAh (800mA + 200mA) is the one that's reported in post #1.
800mA for general discharge (HIGH but in the area of what our N900 is capable of), and 200mA for just getting the last mAh out of the battery's, generally 10-30mAh depending on battery size.
Also note that ALL battery's have shown the HIGHEST mAh on the 1'th cycle, this is also reflected in the official graphs of various LiPo, Li-ion and LiFe battery's.

Now the mugen battery, well 1'th discharge does not fare well.
At 800mA im only getting 2203mAh...
At 200mA i got 32mAh
And like all other's i always round down so 2235 becomes 2230mAh, and in retrospect to 1'th charge always is the best this does not fare well indeed for the mugen's advertised capacity of 2400mAh, but lets get to cycle 3 as usual before calling it.

2'th charge:
0.8A = 2219
0.2A = 30
Now it would seem as the battery has gained abit of capacity here, but i have really charged it to the MAX witch is more then normal just to give this battery the BEST case to get it closer to the 2400mAh mark, but it now sits at 2240mAh (2249mAh), for the 3'th charge im going to charge it normally, and this will no doubt show the same mAh as charge 1.
Now even with the MAX charge it still is 160mAh from it's target, im really sorry to break the bobble of you than cannot see the advantage of making your own Dual battery, and just buying this battery, the 2x christgift that i made (REALLY CHEAP) had 2500mAh+

3'th Charge:
0.8A = 2210
0.2A = 34
So that's 2240mAh (2244) again.

4'th Charge:
This will be with another charger just to rule out that possibility, when i contact mugen they cannot say error on my part then.
I don't expect to see any difference at all on the 4'th charge, only a small decrease since the normal charger that have been used for ALL battery tests is VERY accurate when looking at the battery's tested.
0.8A = 2168
0.2A = 29
Final on the other charger is 2190mAh (2197)

---------------------------------------------

I will be contacting mugen and asking if they can really standby their battery when it cannot even live up to the perfetic 2400mAh that it should.
But before that im going to do a 4'th charge on another charger just to make absolutely sure that the culprit is not the old charger that have tested ALL other battery's.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Dear friends,
I have followed the tread from Estel http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=846 how to measure the capacity with bq27200.sh
I have done all the commands, I have moved the file in /usr/bin but It still giving me bq27200.sh: Permission denied.
I red all the pages of the tread here. Trying all the possibilities with /usr/sbin etc. but no success. Probably I am missing something. Is there some special packages needed to start bq27200.sh script?
Mainly I want to recalibrate the phone, because I am fed up watching the how it is showing the % of charge/discharge in wrong way.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

what % are you referring to? my meter or the inbuilt system

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Sorry if I did not explain clearly. I mean that even the batt is fully charged the batt widget says it is 93,5% (it actually vary from 92% to 96%). I tough it is like that because I bought the phone second hand and the original batt lost part of it's capacity. But last week I have received new Japod from DX and the situation is the same. I am not so keen in measuring the capacity but to recalibrate the chip to give the correct info.
What I am doing wrong that this script is giving me "Permission denied" answer? Where to check or what to check?

P.S. I did not use your Battery meter, because I can't understand what should I do according to your explanation "And import beecon in QBW".

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Well you apparently have to read up on one of the coolest tools we have called "Queen Beecon Widget" (QBW), my meter is homemade and will show the REAL % left, but as for not hitting 100% that is due to 100% being 4.23V and normal charging often only goes to 4.20V, now the last couple of % is not really going to mean much, we are talking maybe 3 minutes more runtime.

If you want more runtime btw, i suggest getting a Scud battery.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Did you make the script executable?

# chmod 755 bq27200.sh
# ./bq27200.sh

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Pretty disappointing. The battery really should be at least 2400mAh and not just because they claim that (although that is the least you should expect considering) but because of the typical charge that is found in batteries of the Mugen size. Given that the average is about 1250mAh for a battery that fits in the N900, and the Mugen is twice the size of the original, you should really expect 2500 mAh from it. Anything over that would be excellent, but not expected.

Unfortunately, assuming your tests are coming along accurately, the battery is approximately 2240mAh. When you also factor that the cost is 5-6 times a standard battery you really lose any credibility in value.

I would have been happy if the battery hit 2500mAh or above. As it is, it doesn't even hold the indicated capacity. Mugen should be ashamed.

I have had the Mugen for about three days. Given that my former battery was quite old, the Mugen effectively doubled the battery life I was getting - but that of course has no bearing on the quality of the battery. I will be sending Mugen some complaints and requests to change there stated capacity once Dr. Frost confirms his findings. I suggest that any Mugen owners do the same.

Yours truly,

Abe

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

I want to throw another variable into the mix, which is how long the cells have been in storage. A Li-ion battery, charged to full and stored at 25 degrees, can be expected to lose (permanently) up to about ~20% of its capacity over 12 months. With no new N900s shipping, I suspect most of the people who are going to buy Mugen batteries have bought them, I imagine they're perhaps not as "freshly made" as they were. It's entirely credible that they built your batteries using cells that were indeed fully 1200mAH, six months ago. By extension, this favours the after-market Chinese manufacturers (Scud) who are probably seeing more demand and are therefore shipping their cells at a month or two old.

Either way, the measured capacity is the measured capacity and it doesn't exactly favour buying Mugen - but I suspect that the problem may be as much about age of stock as of fundamental misrepresentation of capacity...

Edited to add... +1 to the Scud - my 6 month old Scud tested at 1425mAh the other day and gives, as you would expect, a 10-20% increase over original BL-5J.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh something nice happened.

I dropped my N900 with the Mugen battery about two feet onto a hardwood floor. It shut off completely. Tried turning it on. Didn't work. Freaked out because I have only had it two days - it's replacement for my last one that I had only two weeks. Tried everything and I couldn't get it to work.

Then I put the old battery back in and it powered up beautifully. I have never had a battery break. The mobo on the N900 survived, the LCD survived, the glass survived - but the battery broke.

Theres another negative for Mugen batteries. Sure, I dropped it, but come on.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

I must say the confidence in mugen battery's are getting quite low, i have dropped my N900 5+ times with my Dual Scud, still works fine.

But you can have the one you donated to me if you want :)

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Dr. Frost - the Mugen is yours. Period. Once given, forgotten.

Besides, I think I'm going SCUD.

Best Regards,

Abe

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Ok, so dual scud or just single?
You have the cover so you have that option now :)

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

A hand made scud, signed by the battery masta? That'll be worth a few bob in a couple of years!

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

4'th charge with other charger came in at 2190mAh so im calling it at 2240mAh for the Mugen XL battery.


And Old Abe i just looked in my battery drawer, i have 2x Scuds (the good ones ;)) and i really want to repay the VERY kind gesture of donating the expensive mugen battery.

So i want to make a dual scud and send it your way, you have the mugen cover so now you can get a REAL POWER battery at 3000+mAh :)

And for everybody else, i have a 2240mAh Mugen Battery with cover for sale, but as im not a greedy corporation i can only take a price of 30euro / 40$ (shipped) for it

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Are you 100% the batteries dead?
I would think it maybe the contacts have bent or something like that. It should be repairable, or send it back to Mugen for a replacement under warranty?

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Well in other news i have contacted mugen for an explanation on their not so good battery.

And they don't dare ignore that, try to google "mugen battery" and see how high this thread is on the list.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

I already contacted them this morning. My first thought was actually the same you mentioned (contacts) but I don't generally tinker with batteries. I tinker with everything else - just not power supplies and batteries.

I will post back what I find out from Mugen

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Thank you for the offer of the scud batteries. I really appreciate it but for now I'm going to wait and see how Mugen responds.

Side note: you don't owe me a thing. Glad to send it your way; you made a great review. I might pay you to fashion a scud duo for me if Mugen acts like a douche about the battery business. If they complain about my dropping it I'm going to cite their false advertisement. If they don't take it back then I will try to repair it and thereafter test the battery, post my findings (which will obviously match yours) and then the company can't refute their false advertisement.

We shall see how this plays out.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Ok but the offer is on the table, let me know what happens.
And yes mugen has some explaining to do, both on the capacity and if it can get disconnected inside (between circuit and battery) when dropped then that is shameful build quality on par with some of the fake battery's i tested.

And the scuds i have i did not pay for, Lucia Lui's Store gave me the sample because of the tests, also good advertisement for the store, since it is the one that is linked to.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Could check if there's voltage on it? That's not tinkering really.
If no voltage something has gone faulty inside.

Also consider if the contacts on the device are slightly misaligned, this could possibly cause some makes of batteries to work and other not.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Just got the first email back from mugen, and what a load of S*IT i just got, it sounded like they did not even know what they where making (battery's), also they can't see a problem with the price of their battery, i must say after going over it, and reading alot of users here having problems with their mugen battery over the years, say that the quality of this XL battery is not very good compared to others like our beloved SCUD that only cost 25$ for 2x to make a 3000mAh XL battery.

But they have one more reply and it better be VERY good.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

i just got my 3 ordered scud batteries from lucia lui today.

I must say i used one battery alone and measurement gave me 1648ma - this battery IS powerful!

i am now doing the measurements of the assembled double battery - playing a video for more than 3 hours, and the device seems to have much more power to hold on...

The original battery became too weak so i decide to go with this thread's suggestions and tips.

Thanks for this great forum and amazing people that makes all this crazy stuff :)

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

damm mugen are just trying to discredit me, also they did not read a fu*king word of the email i sent, they actually think i used the N900 to test the battery's!!!

They are really p*ssing me off, to the point that i would almost ask my fellow maemo users to send them mails.

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

Dr. Frost,

I am currently in "litigations" with Mugen. I will keep you updated with developments. I will be shipping my battery back to them tomorrow. We will see how that plays out.

Please keep us updated with what you find. If they mess with me about this battery I am going to post my own findings of underpowered Mugen batteries.

Regards,

Abe

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

I read the battery guide, very useful indeed :)

Now I have a question: those batteries (specially polarcell and scud) are so good considering other parameters more than the capacity? I'm speaking of things like overheat, durability, possibilities of damaging the device after long usage.

Since they are not original products I'm a bit scared of; you know, now I got two batteries and to be sure of getting a genuine Nokia BL-5j, I buyed a broken 5230 on ebay :D

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

SCUD and Polarcell are recommended cause of top build quality and top capacity, the same goes for Japod, and of course Original BL-5J battery, you can buy a scud, no problems there.

This is also why i included a Best Battery list of the top 5 in capacity, where i recommend SCUD, Polarcell and Japod

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

i am trying to recalibrate the N900 to my dual scud battery according to Estel's great guide (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=846)

After VDQ=1 (battery is full) I disconnect the charger and run "stop bme".
After a minute I run the "bq27200.sh" script and make sure that VDQ=1 (I also did that a few times during the discharge process in order to make sure that everything is still OK).

At some point during the discharge (approx. at half way), I can see that $RSOC%=0 and the battery is still far from being empty. After this time, running "bq27200.sh" shows VDQ=0 and so - I cannot get the phone to fully discharge and recalibrate (to get to EDV1=1 just after VDQ=1).

How can this be solved?

[Update]

i've see Shadowjk' post at http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=888 but failed to understand it - this answer was given to the exact problem i'm having.

Shadowjk said "if it runs for too long" - what is he referring? what is running for too long? i tried to charge until the charging led became green and then waited ~10 minutes more before disconnecting the charger, but still had this problem.

does the explanation means that RSOC becomes 100% before the charger's light is becoming green? does charging to reach the green light is the cause to the VDQ=0 before discharging ends?

Re: Battery Tests, Homemade 3000mAh XL Battery & Q&A (GOTO POST #1) SCUD is BACK!!!
 

As I mentioned before, I've had good luck with Mugen over the years.

My impression is that a comparatively ignorant customer service type handles most of the correspondence. Treating him as if he is Mugen is kind of like treating me like I'm Dr. Frost and talking about how poorly informed maemo.org is.

That's not to excuse Mugen, but my experience with several of their batteries over several years has been good.