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Return to Neo FreeRunner Battery.

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Neo FreeRunner


GTA02 1200 mAh Smart Battery

  • 1200mAh Smart Battery with Coulomb-counter and protection circuit
  • The Smart Battery keeps track of maximum and current capacity for precise prediction of remaining battery power and time until shutdown, based on actual power dissipation.

For more information, see the GTA01 battery info at Neo1973 Battery

Notes about expected battery life

Battery life is a work in progress. The power saving software is in a very rudimentary state. At the moment 12h is about the most (note though a recent result of at least 21h, mostly in suspend, with multiple short wakeups, on the predecessor device GTA01). A week standby and 6 hours talk, 20 hours mp3 might be attainable when power saving software is complete.

Make sure your battery never discharges completely.

This is an issue because the internal charging circuitry can not be turned on until the FreeRunner has booted, and booting through USB power alone does not work.

What to do if your battery has become completely discharged

See the workarounds for PMU/Charger Issue

More tricks

Q: Does anyone know WHY it don't charge when it is off? My logic says that it is very important to have the option charge the battery when it is flat.

A: I can't give you a simple answer. Charging is controlled by the PCF50633 chip, based on configuration values that are written to it by u-boot, Linux, and userspace programs. Some of these settings are preserved across a power-cycle (the PCF50633 has a small backup battery that's also used to keep the RTC running) so the behavior at startup depends on the software that you used during your last session.

Another complication is that some Freerunners are capable of starting up without a battery while others are not (possibly due to different capacitor values on the internal power rails).

I can give a few hints:

  • The current (Sep. 2nd, 2008) u-boot has a bug that means it will not properly charge from the wall charger. Try a USB cable into a PC instead.
  • Try booting through NOR u-boot instead (hold aux and then power) with both the wall charger or a 500mA USB connection, then try booting Linux.
  • Try to boot into the NAND u-boot menu (hold power and then aux) and then select "power off". This may leave the device in a state were it will charge. Wait 15 minutes and then try to boot Linux.
  • If the device shuts off during one of the above attempts, let it sit for a few minutes and then try that same item once again

Kudos to Mike Montour on the Community mailing list.

Compatible Replacement Batteries

Other known FreeRunner-compatible batteries include the BL-series (BL-4X, BL-5X) from Nokia, and their third-party equivalents. These may not work to revive a device and may not report charge information. It is probably a good idea to check that your battery is not greater than the stock battery's voltage of 3.7V (the above suggests that 4.5VDC should be fine) unless you know what you are doing.

Battery Model Capacity (mAh) Charge info reported Notes
NOKIA BL-4 no
NOKIA BL-4C 750 no Slightly thinner than original.
NOKIA BL-5B 760/890
NOKIA BL-5C 950 no
NOKIA BL-6C 1070 no

USB charger

For information about USB battery chargers that can be used with the Neo FreeRunner see

Main article: USB charger