Swollen Battery <1yr in, How to address?

Could people reporting bulging batteries please also report how they are using the battery.
Are you often cycling it deeply, or mostly using the laptop with the charger connected, or some of each?
If you often use the laptop with the charger connected do you just let it charge to 100% or do you limit charging to 80%, 70% or whatever in the BIOS?
Thanks.

From the earlier cases that do have this information, it’s pretty clear that it’s not user wear related and is in fact abnormal battery performance. There doesn’t seem to be a specific wear pattern that causes this.

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Oh no mines coming up on that mark or even passed it already, well keep an eye on it.

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Note for anyone with the 61Wh battery: this damage will be covered under warranty, your warranty will be extended and there’s a fix in place for this.

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Back to a 55Wh-ish battery.

I think that if you know beforehand, you’ll be free to charge it to 100% just before you need to use the laptop on battery power.

If the 55wh battery doesn’t swell as easily than 61wh, and the 61wh swelling gets mitigated by charging to 90%(55wh). What’s the difference between a factory 61wh battery and a 55wh battery chip-tuned to 61wh?

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Meaning you’ll either have to go into the BIOS to fiddle with charging the threshold (flipping it from 90% back to 100%)…or ectool it if you’re running Linux.

Exactly. No difference in my book if you had to do a 61Wh - 10% just so it has the same level of aging reliability (as the 55Wh battery) in the long-plugged-in use case.

The 61Wh is over promised in this case of long-plugged-in.

It’s almost like a hardware regression via software (BIOS).

It’s 61Wh when you need it.
And its lifespan is fine if you’re not abusing the hell out of it. Sorry, but holding li-ions at 100% 24/7, day after day, is very hard on them. And that’s how all li-ions are.

I limit charge when plugged in for an extended time on all my devices.

For android, there is Advanced Charging Controller App (AccA) which offers options to dial back the charging rate as well, when you don’t need fast-charging, or optionally when battery temperature is over a configurable threshold.

It has schedule options too. For example, if you plug in your phone before going to sleep, as most do, you can create profiles to have it at 100% right when you wake, without the normal fast-charging & holding at 100% all night. Avoiding all that unnecessary battery stress. Instead it can slow-charge to a limit you set, holding that during the night. Then, shortly before morning, contiune charging right up to 100%, just in time for you to wake & take it off the charger. You have both 100% and you’ve prolonged the useful life of your battery. No downside.

You left out the first half of that sentence:

According to Framework the wear occurs when the battery sits at 100% for over 5 consecutive days. They are producing a software update to automatically reduce the cap after 5 days, however in the meantime they suggest that the people regularly leaving it plugged in for 5 days straight can just apply that cap all the time.

Yes. In fact, I left out the rest of the post.

I’m just doing the math. e.g. 2+3 → “Gives you 5”. “Why you’re doing 2+3”…that’s well explained by the originating post.

It’s then reasonable to consider the heat generated at a voltage.

My 55W can charge at over 17.6V which will happen if I use 100% and do so for ever. 4 x 4.4V

I keep my charge limit to 4 x 4.1 not the recommended charge rate of 4.2V so it can never get even near the 4.2V let alone the 4.4V when charging.

So if the battery specified charge rate is x volts, check the voltage at 96% and you may find it’s low enough not to ‘over charge’

The 90% was an idea not advice or a solution per se.

There’s no way I would rely on a Battery Management System, in a battery to care for my battery if I leave it charging to 100% for 120hours.

If I read (and understood) Framework’s post correctly and accurately: No, there’s no explicit mention of the relationship between “occur” and “over 5 consecutive days”.

The “5 days” is a newly implemented software behaviour, not the battery’s own behaviour of the occurrence of the issue.

If we go with what you said " wear occurs when the battery sits at 100% for over 5 consecutive days" That means, by the time the newly implemented behaviour kicks on on the start of the 6th day, then the wear has already occurred. (If we were to nitpick, yes, wears occur regardless of whether you use the battery or not, it wears just by sitting there).

The note was ‘an extended period of time’

5 days is the limit indicated for a mod to the BIOS

With this firmware, the system automatically allows the battery to slightly discharge from maximum voltage if it has been left plugged into power for over 5 days.

The wear is constant but clearly critical at some point, so this 5 day idea is supposed to help the battery go beyond it’s warranty :slight_smile:

‘maximum voltage’ Once you see that via whatever you use, then just ensure it doesn’t reach that. I mean even 99% may be fine, but it’s the voltage not the percentage.

I know. I’m pointing out Kyle’s statement is incorrect. (Read, again, what I posted in my previous post)

I can clarify here. The damage happens to the battery if it is held close to 100% over one year.

There is no issue holding it at 100% for 5 days. We just have a 5 day threshold to lower the max state of charge, so that you can accumulate a lot of additional time at a lower charge threshold to extend the overall lifespan of the battery well beyond one year.

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So OP’s battery of <1yr is not related to the " 61Wh battery lifetime extender functionality and warranty" thread then. Nice to see 61Wh batteries get auto extended warranty.

If I’m reading it right: If I buy a 61Wh battery today, I would get a 2-year warranty with it by default, because Framework isn’t shipping new firmware for ‘all’ FL13 generations right away.

“61Wh batteries purchased in the Framework Marketplace prior to the firmware update being available for all Framework Laptop 13 generations.”

Can you clarify what “being available” means? Available as beta, or as non-beta Release?

The same thing happened to my battery, I have contacted support and so far they have not asked me if my laptop is plugged lots of days in a row (although it is).

Some feedback, after 3 emails exchange support has not confirmed that they will be replacing the battery. I guess that they will but they have not confirmed it yet.

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I suppose ~ how close? 99% or 96% and given the variability in reporting via the BMS etc. my pref is to keep it at 78% full time, as it is plugged in 96% of the time.

And ‘full time’ that’s a risky term 24/7/365.25 oo. . .

I would worry keeping it at 90%

Still this is about swollen and puffed not capacity type issues. Phew!

I go for the voltage and keep it 0.1V below charging specs and set the BCL to what gives that. i.e.my battery is at a constant 16.4V (55W chemistry)

55W version

Nominal voltage as 15.4V
Charge voltage 17.6V or 4.4V per cell

61W version

Nominal voltage as 15.48V
Charge voltage 17.8V or 4.4.5V per cell