Hello all,

 

EDIT: My apologies for many typos and bad rephrasing, extra words, I was in a hurry last night to post this message which got longer and longer as the minutes passed.. I was posting it from my "landline phone" (lol, can`t call my lenovo a mobile phone anymore) and I didn`t re-read it very throughly since I feared that the phone would "die"... it sometimes dies out of suddenly (e.g. restarts) and unless this forum has an advanced "message autosaving" feature for the mobile view as well, I would have been toasted :D.

 

First of all - I am an experienced embedded engineer and I have advanced knowledge of electronics.

 

The problem I am experiencing is that my phone doesn't work while on battery anymore. It rarely boots while connected to the charger (and lol, it doesn't boot connected to it's original charger, but only when connected to some fonken? brand charger).

 

Now everything started a month ago when the back case popped open on the right side of the screen (looking at the phone, so on the oposite side of the buttons)... Swollen battery and what is mode interesting - a nasty lithium solvent smell. I had instantly ordered a new battery and I'm waiting for it ever since (it seems Amazon is also delivering from China, at least my battery....). I was only charging my phone in a metal butter cookie case (lid layed on top, phone in airplane mode otherwise the signal amplified would kill itself) , so that if it catches fire during the night, the fire is enclosed :). 2 weeks later no battery arived, I noticed that I ordered from market place.. I went to a local GSM service and asked for a replacement battery, I was sick of waiting (warranty would end in 1 month but safety comes first).. they did not have any battery for my phone, they said it must be ordered and the wait time is 30-60 days (lol, China again, isn't it?). I refused and they patched (sealed) my battery anyway, reminding me of all warnings and cautions and rulse that I breach...

 

THE BEST PART: They showed me a mill defect on my phone's aluminum case which ate/dug its path in the battery's oxygen barrier bag and cut it really nice, battery polymer bag was split open... Right below the power button but in the other side there is a milled slot (no idea it's function, but it's there), half the height of the battery; the top edge was not finished and had a barber-knife-like 1mm-wide sharp edge which also cut my finger to the flesh (GSM service personnel was really nice and showered it to me before sealing my battery and assembling it back; they told me about the risk of fire et cetera, I told them I'm one of them, just not with phones). They immediately removed the sharp edge with a screwdriver and I didn't get the chance to take a photo of it (I just cut my finger)... Not that I had a phone, but they had plenty :).

 

So, one more week passes (3 already) and my phone shuts down randomly, battery goes from 80% to 2% and charges in seconds, I knew it was beyond dead. Got a smaller battery from my GSM-service now friends, went home and did the following:

1. Removed phone battery

2. Separated faulty battery from its protection and identification board (fautly battery has 263+mOhm resistance...)

3. Performed a test with a different battery (s-whatever, won't say it's name here, 3.8v, 20% smaller wattage) connected to the Lenovo battery protection board (s* battery was not stripped from its protection board, I had simply soldered the wires to the protection board contacts) and it worked.

4. It worked like this for half a day, charging and discharging normally, performed several tests, had a benchmark discharge the battery then charged it back twice.

5. I went to my desk to correctly assemble the battery so that it sits the best in the phone's case and I can close the case.. disconnected battery from phone, and soldered shorter wires, packed it nicely with kapton tape... But one of the screws that didn't stay well enough on the magnetic screw pad got to the battery protection board connector and there it was, a small spark, just before I reached for the phone body to reassemble it.......

Since then the phone doesn't show any battery (0% all the time, disconnecting the power cable kills the phone etc), it rarely boots completely without resetting and starting to boot again... Oh well.. and I ordered another battery from Europe, China is simply too far and I don't like Amazon marketplace anymore.

 

Disconnecting the battery entirely will prevent phone from starting (stuck on boot loop, there is some high current consumption somewhere and charger doesn't have the right pipe size to shovel in that much current, plus microusb).. battery voltage is 4.08 and it stays there, it doesn't move a muscle, no matter what I do... Phone board battery test points show good voltage, feeding the board with 4.00 (ovp@4.15, just to see if it charges or not) shows no signs of battery interaction, no consumption, no charging...

 

**** QUESTION ****

Is the phone in some battery protection/disabling mode? How can it be bypassed?

Or what happened? Had I probably damaged the battery protection board and since the phone cannot identify it anymore, it won't touch it?

 

THANK YOU ALL AT LEAST FOR READING :)

Hi ro0ter,

 

This is beyond the scope of what we can help with on the forums, we recommend going to a repair center for further assistance. Thanks!

 

Regards,
Daisy
Moto-Lenovo Support


**Please don't ask me questions by Personal Message; questions belong in the forums

Dear Daisy,

Thank you for your answer. I would like to assure you that my competences are very similar to a repair center engineer, except for the fact that I don`t have any service manual (not that I`m trying to ask one, I simply want to know if replacing the battery will make the phone recover or if I need to buy a different phone)

My question was targeted to one of you (e.g. lenovo/motorola representative, thank you for answering). I would kindly appreciate a honest answer, should you wish to answer me: Would the phone refuse a battery if it is unable to identify it (id pin) or read its temperature (temp pin)?

I also remember that I once saw a random "your battery temperature is too low" several days ago, while inside the house for at least half a day, outside temperature 21*C, inside temperature 23*C, phone temperature 27*C...

Also, what is your position regarding the case defect? I can only upload a photo of the "fixed" milling defect (one can see that the defect was scraped off), but I can also upload a photo with the battery punctured (cut) spot, it is obviously made by the respective milling deffect...

Many thanks!

Dear Lenovo manufacturer,

 

Should the phone not be able to identify its battery, it will 100% ignore it.. Even after fixing the broken ID wire (on the ribbon), the battery would still not be recognized.

 

The Amazon ordered battery arrived (obviously from China) and the phone started right up after connecting it. The phone works like a charm, the battery now holds even better than it did when I first purchased the phone (honestly, and by that time the phone had no additional applications installed - ofcourse - except for the bload applications injected by lenovo); note that right now my phone nas about 80 applications, about half of which are running in the background. New kina battery life: almost 2 days. Original battery life when the phone was new, nothing installed: about 1 day and half.

 

I hereby thank the lenovo phone manufacturer for offerring me the occasion to work inside a Vibe X3 phone. Not very surprised by the technical abilities of the manufacturer (it is however quite hard to plug back the fingerprint sensor)... Thank you so much for the low-quality-milled-aluminum-frame which bit into the battery oxygen barrier polymer sack (top-right battery side, phone display facing down, God knows why you added that slot there, but it`s obvious that it was not correctly milled, nor correctly deburred!), causing the battery to swell, causing phone`s back case to pop... lithium solvent fumes were discharged. The aluminum case burr was so sharp that it cut my finger like a scalpel. Also, I hereby thank the lenovo engineers on this forum which not only were of no help, but they refused to help (in my opinion it would have been better if no lenovo engineer replied, because now I know that they simply don`t want to help).

 

No worries, this was my last lenovo/IBM/Motorola purchase. Bad quality of the phone internals (which caused a deffect voiding the warranty - e.g. phone back popped open - it was glued with some sort of thin black foam tape) and last but not least - VERY VERY VERY BAD SUPPORT. Have a great life!

 

To be noted: my intentions here are not to offend anyone. This is my personal, subject opinion.