How does Battery Management System work (at the hardware-interface level) ? And how is idle self-discharging of batteries handled?


Question

I came across the following when I was reading up about fully drained batteries in phones:



If the phone is OFF for a month, then it is probable that the battery has gone down to a point that the BMS has shut it down. The BMS won't allow you to charge the battery because, in its own assessment, the battery is dead. Best way to test this case is to have another same phone with a good battery (or just a new battery altogether), detach the cable from that and test on yours.



Referring to the above, do Android phones have their BMS as part of their bootloader or kernel? Or is it a part of the Power IC itself?


Are there any safety mechanisms related to booting up a device with fully drained batteries? If so, why?

(Came across something similar)



I've had difficulties with phones in the past after batteries have fully discharged - eg the Moto G5 had some battery protection "feature" that stopped it starting up if it thought the battery was fully discharged - it was a bit over sensitive so would sometimes assume the phone was fully discharged when it wasn't. Try leaving it on charge for 24 hours or so then holding down the power button for for at least 20 seconds with it still on charge.



Answer

Battery Management System is a very broad term that covers battery charging /discharging/monitoring / power IC /responding to critical events like shutting down on low battery level / User Interface actions (increasing CPU speed when user touches screen - touch boost) and many other things.



  • Your first quote is only instance of management system where the battery voltage has fallen to a very low level, and a protection circuit kicks in and prevents further charging. This protection mechanism is mandatory



To prevent the battery from over-discharging, a control circuit cuts off the current path at about 2.20V/cell.




  • Booting up from a fully drained battery, is not permitted, since it would only further drain the battery. Booting consumes a lot of power and doing so on an already drained battery can lead to irreversible damage to the battery. And what's the point of booting up, if the device can't be used thereafter?


There are ways to overcome these problems but it is best left to qualified technicians to handle it. There are many questions on this site dealing with such situations.


As you would guess from the first paragraph, this being a complex system, it is dealt at a low level, meaning at a kernel level with proprietary hardware interfaces. Related Where are the battery capacity files located?


Topics


2D Engines   3D Engines   9-Patch   Action Bars   Activities   ADB   Advertisements   Analytics   Animations   ANR   AOP   API   APK   APT   Architecture   Audio   Autocomplete   Background Processing   Backward Compatibility   Badges   Bar Codes   Benchmarking   Bitmaps   Bluetooth   Blur Effects   Bread Crumbs   BRMS   Browser Extensions   Build Systems   Bundles   Buttons   Caching   Camera   Canvas   Cards   Carousels   Changelog   Checkboxes   Cloud Storages   Color Analysis   Color Pickers   Colors   Comet/Push   Compass Sensors   Conferences   Content Providers   Continuous Integration   Crash Reports   Credit Cards   Credits   CSV   Curl/Flip   Data Binding   Data Generators   Data Structures   Database   Database Browsers   Date &   Debugging   Decompilers   Deep Links   Dependency Injections   Design   Design Patterns   Dex   Dialogs   Distributed Computing   Distribution Platforms   Download Managers   Drawables   Emoji   Emulators   EPUB   Equalizers &   Event Buses   Exception Handling   Face Recognition   Feedback &   File System   File/Directory   Fingerprint   Floating Action   Fonts   Forms   Fragments   FRP   FSM   Functional Programming   Gamepads   Games   Geocaching   Gestures   GIF   Glow Pad   Gradle Plugins   Graphics   Grid Views   Highlighting   HTML   HTTP Mocking   Icons   IDE   IDE Plugins   Image Croppers   Image Loaders   Image Pickers   Image Processing   Image Views   Instrumentation   Intents   Job Schedulers   JSON   Keyboard   Kotlin   Layouts   Library Demos   List View   List Views   Localization   Location   Lock Patterns   Logcat   Logging   Mails   Maps   Markdown   Mathematics   Maven Plugins   MBaaS   Media   Menus   Messaging   MIME   Mobile Web   Native Image   Navigation   NDK   Networking   NFC   NoSQL   Number Pickers   OAuth   Object Mocking   OCR Engines   OpenGL   ORM   Other Pickers   Parallax List   Parcelables   Particle Systems   Password Inputs   PDF   Permissions   Physics Engines   Platforms   Plugin Frameworks   Preferences   Progress Indicators   ProGuard   Properties   Protocol Buffer   Pull To   Purchases   Push/Pull   QR Codes   Quick Return   Radio Buttons   Range Bars   Ratings   Recycler Views   Resources   REST   Ripple Effects   RSS   Screenshots   Scripting   Scroll Views   SDK   Search Inputs   Security   Sensors   Services   Showcase Views   Signatures   Sliding Panels   Snackbars   SOAP   Social Networks   Spannable   Spinners   Splash Screens   SSH   Static Analysis   Status Bars   Styling   SVG   System   Tags   Task Managers   TDD &   Template Engines   Testing   Testing Tools   Text Formatting   Text Views   Text Watchers   Text-to   Toasts   Toolkits For   Tools   Tooltips   Trainings   TV   Twitter   Updaters   USB   User Stories   Utils   Validation   Video   View Adapters   View Pagers   Views   Watch Face   Wearable Data   Wearables   Weather   Web Tools   Web Views   WebRTC   WebSockets   Wheel Widgets   Wi-Fi   Widgets   Windows   Wizards   XML   XMPP   YAML   ZIP Codes