KB: Phone not/barely charging from power supplies when keyboard is not full

[Phalio]

Greetings,

I'm also a mostly-contented owner of a PinePhone + Keyboard. I've had similar problems/a query and was glad to see someone else has opened the discussion as well!

So my problem. I'm aware that the docs/wiki say when the KB is attached I shouldn't use the PinePhone's USBC port to charge the device. I've refrained from doing so since attaching the keyboard.

However since then, my PinePhone (and presumably the keyboard too) have drained their batteries and the PinePhone will not power on. I tried charging the Keyboard for many hours then pressing the on/off button on the keyboard. Still, when I press the power button on the pinephone nothing happens, it does not power on.

In short: I'm wondering how to recharge and power on my PinePhone after both batteries have completely drained. I would like to avoid detaching the keyboard as I'm afraid repeated attaching then detaching will damage the keyboard.

My charger outputs 5V/2.4A, though I have other chargers that supply 5V/3A and I will try these after reading the earlier posts in this thread. I have been using the Pine64 USB->USBC cable to charge these previously.

Until then, I would greatly value anyone's wisdom.

Best,
R-T-G.

As drh said, that sounds like your pins are not connecting so your phone doesn’t get any power from the keyboard at all. That initially was the case for me as well, keyboard input worked (though it also had short periods of not working) but power input only worked when I pressed against the screen where the pins are located. Try to either use the aforementioned shim method, or alternatively what worked for me is inserting the phone into the case differently. I interpreted the official instructions as having to put the long side with the volume buttons in first, but I found a post on Reddit that suggested inserting the short side with the cameras and headphone jack first and then firmly squeezing the phone in, starting from the headphone side working towards the microphone side and especially also applying pressure to the middle where the pins are and not only to the edges. This supposedly inserts it properly instead of the plastic clip thingy next to the pins pushing the pins away from the contacts which would be counteracted by a shim. And it worked for me as well. Power and keyboard input have worked flawlessly since.

I believe the keyboard charging chip activates automatically when a power supply is plugged in, so pressing the keyboard button isn’t necessary in that case. Since you’ll have to take the phone out of the case for the shim or insert methods anyway, I suggest taking it out, charging it to full by itself and then attempting to solve the pin connection issue. That way you can immediately turn the phone on after putting it in and tell if the pins are connecting by checking if the phone says it’s charging instead of being uncertain because the phone won’t turn on.

The keyboard is okay. I wish the keyboard battery last longer. For me, I get about 50% longer use time with the keyboard battery. It is not long enough for me to use the keyboard because of the battery in the keyboard. Perhaps a future  software  update will help lengthen the battery time when using the keyboard.

For me the keyboard battery is enough for one full additional charge of the phone battery and then another small charge of up to 30%, depending on the circumstances. The phone of course continues to consume power while it’s charging from the keyboard battery, so that has to be entered into the equation as well, but it still feels like less than the supposed additional 200%. Or maybe electricity doesn’t work this way, I have no idea. Or future updates will improve it. Either way, I definitely consider the additional charge I get to be enough so far, thanks to the keyboard I haven’t had issues with not enough battery capacity as I had before.

Except of course for the power supply charging behaviour I mentioned in my original post, but I have a cable that transfers the full 3A now, so with it plugged in, the phone’s charge at least stays constant now at low loads until the keyboard battery is done charging instead of continuing to drain. So unless I have to do something that’s more power intensive than simpler terminal stuff while both batteries are low, I’ll be good. Still, I really wonder if setting /sys/class/power_supply/ip5xxx-charger/constant_charge_current to something lower would improve this, it seems to me that it might, but I have no experience with this type of stuff and I’m afraid I could damage something if I play around with these values. So I won’t try that until someone can tell me if it’s a good idea.