(11-27-2020, 10:58 PM)barray Wrote: (11-27-2020, 02:25 PM)ImaPagan Wrote: Thank you for your post. No, the unit was not left on the USB charging cable. I know that there was no impact force to the unit for certain unless something happened to the unit in the factory or shipping, nor has it been over charged and never has been over-discharged. The charger is a standard 2 amp phone charger that is used with other devices without issues. If using the Pinetab for normal use, such as an e-reader causes it to run at high temperatures, than that would be an issue for Pine64 to figure out. My Pinetab has had very light use.
Also, I went ahead and submitted a ticket just to let Pine64 know of the issue. I was a bit surprised that they responded, since there have been complaints about lack of responses posted to the forum. They asked me to open up the Pinetab and take some photos, which I did. There is just a slight swelling noted on the edge of the battery nearest to the CPU. To my untrained eye it doesn't seem like much, but it may have been enough to crack the display. As in my original post, I offered to send the unit back to Pine64 for them to investigate further. I will post a follow up when there is news.
One difference is that I've mostly used the DC barrel jack and not the USB port.
Bare in mind that some cheap USB chargers can be wildly out of spec and it would depend on the device itself to handle that. I know the cheap LMS voltage regulators for example can behave real weird when overloaded, I overloaded a 500mA 5V chip with about 1.5A and it killed my device with 20V. I would test the phone charger under different loads if you're able to.
The swelling next to the CPU may indicate the CPU caused the problem. I guess one in ten thousand or so processors pass inspection but ultimately die after a little use, you may have been super unlucky.
When you were using the device as an e-reader, did you have it laying on your bed or something? When I'm using my PineTab it's always with the keyboard dock, so air is always getting to it. My friend once almost burned down our house by leaving his laptop on his bed... So I would take that quite seriously. In that case you *would* expect a thermal shutdown... But if it exists, who knows whether it's actually enabled or not.
Thank you for the post. I don't have a way to test the USB charger, but as stated I have used it with other devices without issue. When used, the Pinetab was in my hands not lying on the bed, so I I don't think air circulation was an issue. But as I said before this might be a one-off. However, I think EA Pinetab owners need to know what happened. As for Pine64, they have a full set of photos in the ticket system, but haven't replied as of yet as to what their thoughts are on the topic.
(11-28-2020, 06:51 AM)guenther Wrote: I use a dump power supply with 5V 10W, made for something else. I use the barrel connector, but usb also works. The charging current/voltage is handled by the internal power chip, not the charger. So if the "charger" can deliver 5V and minimum 2A, all is good.
But I would not trust a charger with USB-PD standard (what can deliver up to 20V) on the PineTab, although it should work.
There is a threat on swollen battery on the PinePhone, so I would guess it's battery related (or heat issue (design)).
Hope you find a good solution with Pine64
Thank you for the post. Yes, I had seen some of the posts about the PinePhone batteries in the forum. I realise that since this was an early batch, things can happen. I wanted to have a tablet that would last a while and could have updated software. Oh well, back to Android for now.
