One of the key features of a Digital Audio Player (DAP) is how long its battery can last. In the pursuit of extending the battery for DAP, I found out that some seller on Aliexpress sells high-capacity batteries that is 50% higher than the original batteries.
The 2 batteries that we will be studying today are:
YKaiserin 2100mAh Battery for Sony Walkman NW-A10x
Normally for Sony Walkman NW-A105 (the one I owned), the standard battery capacity is 1285mAh. The battery by YKaiserin is claimed to be 2100mAh, which is around 60% additional compared to the original one. You can refer to this post on how I add a 2nd battery to my NW-A105.
HSABAT 4800mAh Battery for Ibasso DX160
For Ibasso DX160, the standard battery capacity is 3200mAh. The battery by HSABAT is claimed to be 4800mAh, which is 50% more compared to the original one.
I’ve received both of the batteries after waiting for almost 2 months as I am using Sea Shipment for the batteries. In this article, I will be doing some testing using smart charger to measure the actual capacity of the battery.
The Setup & Testing Method
For the test, I am using iMAX B6 smart charger to charge and discharge the battery according to the specifications below:
| YKaiserin | HSABAT | |
| Rated Capacity | 2100mAh | 4800mAh |
| Charging Current (≈0.4C) | 0.8A | 1.9A |
| Discharging Current (≈0.4C) | 0.2A | 0.5A |
| Fully charged voltage | 4.2V | 4.2V |
| Fully discharged Voltage | 3.0V | 3.0V |
The setup of iMAX B6 smart charger. Battery +ve and -ve terminal connected to the output of iMAX B6 smart charger.
Charging:
Discharging:
For those who are not familiar with this type of smart charger, at the end of the discharging/charging cycle, the system will display the total time taken and the total charged/discharged mAh. I plan is to use these readings at the end of each discharging and charging cycle to estimate the actual capacity of the battery, and compare them against the rated capacity.
I will run a first discharge cycle to ensure that we start the test with a fully discharged battery, and run 2 x charge/discharge cycle to get the average capacity of the battery.
Weird Wiring Colour Configuration for HSABAT Battery
One thing I found weird about the HSABAT battery is that they use the wrong colour for the Battery wiring. The battery came with 3 wire, Red, Black and Yellow, and from my first guess, the +ve terminal should be red, -ve terminal black and the temperature sensor yellow. However, the actual one are:
- Red wire = negative terminal
- Black wire = temperature sensor
- Yellow wire = positive terminal
Luckily there are small label on the PCB that tells the actual terminal function:
For the charging/discharging setup for HSABAT battery, I have to connect my +ve terminal to yellow wire and -ve terminal to red wire. For me this is very wrong, RED wire for Negative terminal???
The good thing is that even though the wiring colour is wrong, but the battery work as it is.
The Result
YKaiserin
| Cycle 1 | Cycle 2 | |
| Charging Duration (min) | 131 | 140 |
| Charging Capacity (mAh) | 1127 | 1135 |
| Discharging Duration (min) | 304 | 305 |
| Discharging Capacity (mAh) | 1015 | 1009 |
Calculated YKaiserin battery capacity = (1127 + 1135 + 1015 + 1009) / 4 = 1072mAh
Actual Capacity / Claimed Capacity = 1072 / 2100 = 51.0%
HSABAT
| Cycle 1 | Cycle 2 | |
| Charging Duration (min) | 204 | 203 |
| Charging Capacity (mAh) | 2917 | 2897 |
| Discharging Duration (min) | 325 | 325 |
| Discharging Capacity (mAh) | 2712 | 2713 |
Calculated HSABAT actual capacity = (2917 + 2897 + 2712 + 2713) / 4 = 2810mAh
Actual Capacity / Claimed Capacity = 2810 / 4800 = 58.5%
The test result shows that the capacity is only 50-60% from its claimed capacity, which is quite disappointing.
However, I noticed that both the YKaiserin and HSABAT did labeled their battery Charge Limit to 4.4V. I wonder if it is possible that the claimed capacity can only be reached If the battery is charged to 4.4V? And because we are using 4.2V charger, then we only reach around 60% of its capacity?
After a quick googling, I do found this discussion here about the Lithium Ion Polymer battery with higher charging voltage, and maybe its true that the battery should have higher capacity if they are charged to 4.4V, but some replied that the estimated additional capacity from increasing the voltage to 4.4V should be around 5-15%?
So, for the conclusion, I think the experiment cannot fully conclude that the actual capacity is only 50-60%, but I still believed that the claimed capacity is a bit too high. Please give your comment if you have additional information about this and do take note when purchasing third party batteries form Aliexpress. My advise is still to go for the original battery from the DAP manufacture.
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