UNPLUG NO MORE: CHARGING STATION WITH TIMER

A Research
Presented to the
Zamboanga del Sur National High School
Senior High School Department
City of Pagadian, Zamboanga del Sur

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements of the subject
Research II
(Quantitative Research)

By:
Andagan, Vincent Guiller E.
Fernandez, Johnter Clint R.
Labaste, Krestel Grace M.
Lopez, Shanley May M.
Pableo, Mark Q.
Paet, Ranz Nikko N.
Paragas, Gene Kenneth B.
Santillan, Kaye Angelie S.
Velonta, Lynn Valerie B.

March 2019
 Introduction

Overcharging is something which has been bugging the smartphone users for a

long period of time now and there is a generic belief that overcharging somehow spoils

the battery life of the smartphones. This process of frequent and continuous charging

and discharging causes your smartphone to heat-up and thus hampering the strength of

the battery of your smartphone (Singh, 2014).

Shaligram (2015) stated that the battery charging process is divided into two

parts: constant current charging and constant voltage charging. Overcharging by means

of keeping the cell connected to the charger does not lead to gradual loss.  That

depends on the materials used to construct the cell and the cycle life of the cell. 

Overcharging also doesn't cause explosions in cells.  That is normally due to ill-

constructed or designed cells or due to spikes in charging current that the circuit can't

handle.  However, there is one failure mechanism affected by overcharging. That is

electrolyte degradation. The electrolyte used in cells has some degradation reactions at

high end of the voltage. However, since the cell isn't spending too long in the high

voltage zone in testing, the fraction of this parasitic reaction is very small. However, if the

trickle charging time is too long, the amount of parasitic electrolyte degradation reactions

increases. This mode of failure does not show up in performance initially at all. But

when a certain amount of electrolyte has undergone degradation, there is a drastic cell

failure.

Odom (2014) stated that overcharge is a serious concern for batteries connected

in series. It can lead to catastrophic failures in the form of fires and explosions. The

redox shuttle compounds being studied at UK prevent overcharge by transporting

electrons between battery electrodes when excessive current is applied to fully charged

batteries.
 According to Tardy (2015) that there is no impact on your smartphone battery

due to overcharging. This is primarily because your phone and its battery are incredibly

well acclimated to overcharging. Without knowing you, or even what brand and model of

smartphone you own, I can be 100% certain that overcharging has occurred

continuously since the day you obtained the phone. Your battery has not been affected

this far, so shall it remain the same in the future. Your battery isn't going to suddenly

develop a sensitivity to it.

As stated by Jones (2017) that overcharging used to be a major issue for cell

phones, but as technology has improved, it has become less of a problem. However,

that doesn’t mean you should leave your phone plugged in for long periods of time,

especially if your phone is older or if you’re using an off-brand or cheap phone charger.

Pay attention to how your phone responds to charging (with the assistance of Total

Charge). If it gets hot after reaching 100%, then you know you need to immediately

unplug your phone after its done charging to avoid immediate battery damage. An

overheating phone — whether caused by overcharging or a poor-quality charger —

could also spark or start a fire. Additionally, you should steer clear of “fast chargers,”

which can cause your phone to rapidly overheat, which will further damage your phone’s

battery life.

Overheating problems led to electronics retailer Challenger recalling 12,000 units

of its Valore portable power banks in April 2014. Nokia, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Panasonic,

Sharp, Toshiba, Hitachi and Fujitsu had also recalled products due to overheating

batteries. Lithium-ion batteries supply power to personal electronic devices such as

smartphones and tablets. These batteries are notorious for overheating, which could

lead to a fire or explosion (Chia, 2016).

 Parchani (2017) asserted that charging battery more than its capacity affects the

phone negatively. Overcharging leads to Overheat and you might be familiar that our

phone should be kept safe from overheating. This is because it reduces the life span of a

battery.

Moreover, running out of phone battery gives us serious anxiety. Our whole lives

are on there! It's the alarm clock, the way of communicating with the world. Overcharging

your phone can cause serious problems. If you have an older phone, or a counterfeit

device, overcharging can cause the phone to overheat and catch on fire - which is not

great if you're charging it under your pillow (Hamilton, 2017).

In today’s technology where almost every 6 months, we can see improvements

like batteries. But until now, we Filipinos seem to be stuck with precautionary practices

to protect our gadgets with standards we were following four years ago. Currently in the

market for gadgets, there are two types of batteries; Li-On (Lithium Ion) and Li-Polymer

(Lithium Polymer). Both batteries now have anti-overcharging features that cuts the

electricity to the battery to avoid any battery deterioration. The main difference of the two

is the lifespan of charging where Li-On can take around 300-400 charges before failing

and the Li-Polymer can take 500 to 800 charges before failing down its charge capacity.

Of course the Li-Polymer is more expensive to produce and must not be removed into

the gadget, thus why you see more devices now with non-removable batteries. This is

also a good reason why some brands can lower the prices as they use Li-On only (De

Guzman, 2014).

This study intends to investigate the effectiveness of the charging station with

timer in terms of accuracy and functionality. The study aims to produce a charging

station with timer in order to avoid overcharging and so the battery of your gadgets will

retain its capacity much longer.

Null Hypothesis

The hypothesis below will be tested at (α) 0.05 level of significance:

H01: There is no significant difference in the accuracy of charging station with timer in

terms of the preciseness of function and accuracy of voltage.

H02: There is no significant difference in the functionality of charging station with timer in

terms of its consistency and overloading capacity.

 Methodology

This study employed the randomized complete block design in which a group of

test of the charging station with timer extract is studied only once but subsequent

treatment having different replications is applied to determine the effectiveness of the

product in terms of accuracy and functionality. There is no restriction on the allocation of

the treatments to experimental units.

The researchers will use random sampling to determine the research subjects.

The said participants will be coming from the grade 12 students of Zamboanga del Sur

National High School - Senior High School Stand Alone. There are 10 out of

approximately 400 profiles will be used in the conduct of the study.

The subject of this study is the charging station with timer which purposely

charges your device safely within 0-24 hours timer set with fixed time charges which can

prevent your mobile phones from getting overcharged. This study was initiated to

improvise a charger that is great for devices so you won't have to worry about turning it

off or unplugging it. This equipment will be tested in terms of the accuracy and

functionality of the charging station with timer. Since it is improvised, the availability of

the materials for this product was never a problem. The materials needed are: timer,

charging station, and wires. These were commonly found in repair shops and is cheaper

compared to a brand new. With the help of some experts who will accommodate the

researchers in assembling the product, mechanical and electrical engineers in wiring the

connections on each parts and in order to avoid difficulties, the researchers will be able

to come up with the proper assembly of the product.

 In gathering necessary information from the identified students, the researchers

asked the school registrar of Zamboanga del Sur National High School – Senior High

Stand Alone to provide a copy of the names of the students under the academic track.

To determine the accuracy and functionality of the charging station with timer, the

researchers will gather the materials to be tested. A total of three mobile phones will be

charged in the charging station with timer. The adapter starts operating as soon as you

press the power button and shuts down automatically when time is up, or if you do not

wish to use timer settings, you can simply choose 0 for continuous power supply. It is a

great device which can be used to maintain the battery life of your phone and other

devices. After the timer deactivates, the accuracy and functionality of the product is

recorded. Each treatment was replicated three times during the conduct of the study.

The researchers recorded the data gathered in the study in a table manner.

Frequency count was used to find out the effectiveness of the product in each treatment

per replication. Mean is used to determine which of the three treatments has the higher

mortality rate.

To determine the significant difference between the three treatments in terms of

the accuracy and functionality of charging station with timer, One-way Analysis of

Variance is used.

Consequently, the decision rule states that if the test statistic from the table is

greater than the F critical value with k-1 numerator and N-k denominator degrees of

freedom, the null hypothesis is rejected yielding a significant result. Otherwise, the null

hypothesis is accepted. Furthermore, the hypothesis is tested at α = 0.05 level of

significance. To finally carry out all of these statistical analyses, the predictive analysis

software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics 20) is used.
 Power
Charging Source Station
with Timer Flowchart
Circuit Board

Selector

Switch

Charging

Off
(ring)