Topping G5 - Is the battery serviceable ?

[Rja4000]

I'm looking to purchase the Topping G5
I love the specs, the measurements, the functionalities.
That's the one I need for my work in the office.

BUT...

This is a battery powered device.
And we all know batteries have a limited life.

So my question to Topping (or anyone who knows):
Is the G5 internal battery serviceable/replaceable at all ?

I don't mind sending the device to the shop for a replacement,
but I won't spend 300€ on a throw-away device that will transform into a brick after 3-4 or even 5 years.

 

[Elitzur–Vaidman]

I'm looking to purchase the Topping G5
I love the specs, the measurements, the functionalities.
That's the one I need for my work in the office.

BUT...

This is a battery powered device.
And we all know batteries have a limited life.

So my question to Topping (or anyone who knows):
Is the G5 internal battery serviceable/replaceable at all ?

I don't mind sending the device to the shop for a replacement,
but I won't spend 300€ on a throw-away device that will transform into a brick after 3-4 or even 5 years.

I don't know, but I'd love to find out.

 

[Hatto]

I'm looking to purchase the Topping G5
I love the specs, the measurements, the functionalities.
That's the one I need for my work in the office.

BUT...

This is a battery powered device.
And we all know batteries have a limited life.

So my question to Topping (or anyone who knows):
Is the G5 internal battery serviceable/replaceable at all ?

I don't mind sending the device to the shop for a replacement,
but I won't spend 300€ on a throw-away device that will transform into a brick after 3-4 or even 5 years.

I believe your best bet would be to ask Topping, or open a service request on their RMA system for a G5 battery replacement and see where that leads you.

 

[notsodeadlizard]

You can always buy an any USB powered DAC and an any power bank, you will get the same, and most likely even better.
The case of this device clearly does not provide for battery replacement.
And listen to the feedback from the owners of this.
The money is not so big, but they are still a pity.

 

[Rja4000]

I believe your best bet would be to ask Topping,

I did already.
But got no answer so far.
And I'm not the only one.

 

[Rja4000]

@JohnYang1997
@TOPPING-Service

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I did already.
But got no answer so far.
And I'm not the only one.

That in itself should give you the answer.

 

[JeffS7444]

In my (admittedly limited) experience, the answer is probably "yes" if you are willing to do it on your own: The batteries are generally somewhat generic, though you may need to install the correct connector and deal with any adhesive holding it in place. But as far as official support is concerned, I'd be surprised if Topping had anyone handling out-of-warranty service.

 

[Svensson]

Considering risk iike buying a mobile phone, maybe similar price too. My phone is 3 years old and battery is still OK, but charge only lasts 70% as long. I recharge at 15-20% up to about 80%.

 

[Chuu]

The case of this device clearly does not provide for battery replacement.

I haven't been able to find anything closely resembling a teardown, but some pictures of the case make it appear that it's held together by screws under the leather near the perimiter of the case. The NX5 battery was connected by a large socketed connector, and hopefully they went with a similar design.

This would make it dead easy to replace in electronics terms. Assuming the leather part is easily peel-able and not a nightmare to deal with. And you can get the battery.

Unfortunately the NX5 battery appears to have no markings on the side photographed in the teardown, and in my 5 minutes of research I do not know if anyone was able to figure out what it was.

edit: Link to the only picture I could find of the case. I really wish it was taken at an angle to make it more obvious what height all those screw holes are at. I guess there is a chance the back-plate is attached with adhesive, but I still think it's much more likely than not to be hidden screws.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I'm looking to purchase the Topping G5
I love the specs, the measurements, the functionalities.
That's the one I need for my work in the office.

BUT...

This is a battery powered device.
And we all know batteries have a limited life.

So my question to Topping (or anyone who knows):
Is the G5 internal battery serviceable/replaceable at all ?

I don't mind sending the device to the shop for a replacement,
but I won't spend 300€ on a throw-away device that will transform into a brick after 3-4 or even 5 years.

I can replace just about any battery inside anything! but that's me.
One of the reasons why people buy the Mojo line , is this!
after sales service, parts, longevity .

 

[mike7877]

I can replace just about any battery inside anything! but that's me.
One of the reasons why people buy the Mojo line , is this!
after sales service, parts, longevity .

Bet you can't do my Microsoft Surface Laptop!!

I'm now looking for the answer to the question of this thread...

Check out what I say about battery longevity in my next post:

 

[Chuu]

Bet you can't do my Microsoft Surface Laptop!!

I'm now looking for the answer to the question of this thread...

Check out what I say about battery longevity in my next post:

I actually was specifically asking about the leather because those surface laptops with the felt palmrests famously got a 0/10 on the ifixit scale because they could not figure out a way to service them without destroying the felt.

 

[mike7877]

The G5 has been out for over a year now and nobody's really mad that their new $400CAD device needs a new battery and they can't get in to change it, so I'm leaning to the "it's replaceable" side, and in the manner described earlier: screws under the leather, it couldn't be anything else...

"But Mister... it's only been a year and it lasts 7-12 hours... how the heck could it be broken already?"

If you're thinking: "If someone, call him Larry, uses his G5 for 7 hours a day (eg. at work), consuming 100% in 7 hours with high gain "H", and work is about 250 days a year... the device should be well within the range of working"

I'd say you're right! If he goes home after work and charges his device for the next day, BUT

Say Larry is a bit obsessive. He doesn't like his device going all the way to 0%. Even though it always works right from 9:00:00AM and shuts off with 0% remaining at 4:59:59PM every day, he, being an obsessive weirdo, obsessively charges his G5 at lunch from 12:30:00 to 1:29:59, which brings his phone up to 100%.

Larry has effectively nearly doubled the damage done to his G5! More than 90% of the wear that occurs to lithium ion batteries, occurs above 50% charge. If Larry wasn't also stupid, his obsession could have resulted in a profound increase in his device's longevity, but alas, he is dumb and it did not. Larry's mom always used to tell him "only keep your devices with lithium batteries as charged as they need to be" every day as she passed him his lunch for school on the way out the door. "I will, mommy!"
The liar! (Larry is also a pathological liar, and it's obvious because his memory sucks). Anyway, forget about loser Larry, his obsession is responsible for additional child labour in cobalt mines to make new batteries, and pollution from the old lithium batteries he discards early and on the side of the road. The extra money it costs him is of little consequence.

Don't be like Larry! Keep your devices close to not "full" but "null!

Larry's device, instead of being half done at one year after enduring 250 full charges from 0% to 100% (charges like a normal person), he's completely consumed the battery.

In the parallel universe where Larry kept his device charged opposite (a.k.a as empty as possible vs. as full), two 0 to 50% charges would total 0.16 charges per day. Put another way, Good Larry would do the same damage in 25 days as normal person would do in 4 days. And his nemesis Bad Larry (a.k.a "Larry")? Good Larry's 25 days would be just two (2) TWO days with Bad Larry!!!


Moral of the story?
Don't be like Larry, keep your devices empty! They'll last until they're too slow to use anymore
You do have to do one other thing too, though - in order for your battery gauge to remain accurate over time, you do need to fill up your _____ to 100% once every 3000% or 30 days (whichever comes sooner). When your phone and similar devices start showing 100%, your device is most often somewhere between 88 and 94% full. Getting to 100% takes another 30 to 90 minutes (the more worn the battery, the longer this will take). Since you can't see the actual number, and depending on design, even new batteries can take over an hour to reach 100, it's best practice to wait at least two hours. There's no limit on how long you can leave it in, so I recommend just plugging it in overnight for this.

Anyone think I should make a thread with more details about this in a mobile section? Do you think more people would benefit from knowing to stay empty? Not empty lmao.. To stay under 85% so that they can get 1500 charges (of 0-85%) into their device instead of only 500 charges (of 0 to 100%)?! Think that'd make people happy? Wallets? Planet? Miners for rare earth metals in developing countries working like slavs?

 

[pukemon]

First we need a better battery gauge. Red, yellow and green do not tell us enough. Would rather have an easy to replace battery so the old ones can get recycled.

 

[Rja4000]

Anyway, we can suppose that will become a legal requirement in EU sooner or later.

 

[ReaderZ]

The G5 has been out for over a year now and nobody's really mad that their new $400CAD device needs a new battery and they can't get in to change it, so I'm leaning to the "it's replaceable" side, and in the manner described earlier: screws under the leather, it couldn't be anything else...

"But Mister... it's only been a year and it lasts 7-12 hours... how the heck could it be broken already?"

If you're thinking: "If someone, call him Larry, uses his G5 for 7 hours a day (eg. at work), consuming 100% in 7 hours with high gain "H", and work is about 250 days a year... the device should be well within the range of working"

I'd say you're right! If he goes home after work and charges his device for the next day, BUT

Say Larry is a bit obsessive. He doesn't like his device going all the way to 0%. Even though it always works right from 9:00:00AM and shuts off with 0% remaining at 4:59:59PM every day, he, being an obsessive weirdo, obsessively charges his G5 at lunch from 12:30:00 to 1:29:59, which brings his phone up to 100%.

Larry has effectively nearly doubled the damage done to his G5! More than 90% of the wear that occurs to lithium ion batteries, occurs above 50% charge. If Larry wasn't also stupid, his obsession could have resulted in a profound increase in his device's longevity, but alas, he is dumb and it did not. Larry's mom always used to tell him "only keep your devices with lithium batteries as charged as they need to be" every day as she passed him his lunch for school on the way out the door. "I will, mommy!"
The liar! (Larry is also a pathological liar, and it's obvious because his memory sucks). Anyway, forget about loser Larry, his obsession is responsible for additional child labour in cobalt mines to make new batteries, and pollution from the old lithium batteries he discards early and on the side of the road. The extra money it costs him is of little consequence.

Don't be like Larry! Keep your devices close to not "full" but "null!

Larry's device, instead of being half done at one year after enduring 250 full charges from 0% to 100% (charges like a normal person), he's completely consumed the battery.

In the parallel universe where Larry kept his device charged opposite (a.k.a as empty as possible vs. as full), two 0 to 50% charges would total 0.16 charges per day. Put another way, Good Larry would do the same damage in 25 days as normal person would do in 4 days. And his nemesis Bad Larry (a.k.a "Larry")? Good Larry's 25 days would be just two (2) TWO days with Bad Larry!!!


Moral of the story?
Don't be like Larry, keep your devices empty! They'll last until they're too slow to use anymore
You do have to do one other thing too, though - in order for your battery gauge to remain accurate over time, you do need to fill up your _____ to 100% once every 3000% or 30 days (whichever comes sooner). When your phone and similar devices start showing 100%, your device is most often somewhere between 88 and 94% full. Getting to 100% takes another 30 to 90 minutes (the more worn the battery, the longer this will take). Since you can't see the actual number, and depending on design, even new batteries can take over an hour to reach 100, it's best practice to wait at least two hours. There's no limit on how long you can leave it in, so I recommend just plugging it in overnight for this.

Anyone think I should make a thread with more details about this in a mobile section? Do you think more people would benefit from knowing to stay empty? Not empty lmao.. To stay under 85% so that they can get 1500 charges (of 0-85%) into their device instead of only 500 charges (of 0 to 100%)?! Think that'd make people happy? Wallets? Planet? Miners for rare earth metals in developing countries working like slavs?

What? Keep a battery at 0 is the fastest way to kill it, I forgot to charge an ipad once and when I tried again in 3 month, it's dead and would not charge. I also read in that case do not even try other way of charge the battery again, it's not safe anymore.

 

[mike7877]

What? Keep a battery at 0 is the fastest way to kill it, I forgot to charge an ipad once and when I tried again in 3 month, it's dead and would not charge. I also read in that case do not even try other way of charge the battery again, it's not safe anymore.

What are you confused about? I described battery longevity and how to maximize it...
If you have a phone with a battery that would last 500 charges of 0 to 100%
If you were to charge that phone to only 85% each time, you would then get >1,500 charges out of it (1,667 to be more precise).

Imagine that battery is 1000mAh in capacity. 100% would give you 1000mA for 1 hour. If you multiply that 1000mAh by the 500 charges you would get, the battery would store 500,000mAh over its lifetime being charged to 100%

If you were to charge that battery to only 85% each time and got 1,667 cycles, you would multiply 850mAh by the 1,667 cycles, and you'd get 1,416,950mAh

1,416,950 / 500,000 = 2.83

By charging to 85%, the battery will be able to store 2.83 times the energy over its lifespan, compared to being charged to 100%


Pretty great news, eh?`
Eh???!

It is! And it gets better! If you charge to only 75% (...continuing from the example above), which is 750mAh, the battery would be able to store 2,499,975 mAh over its lifetime!
This is because the damage (wear) done to a lithium battery when charged to 75%, is 0.15 that of a 100% charge.
1 / 0.15 * 500,000 gives the large number above. 1 / 0.15 can also be multiplied by the number of charges the battery is capable of when being charged to 100% (500) to give how many times it can be charged to only 75%.
The answer is 3,333 times.


Even though 3,333 / 500 is 6.67 times more charge cycles, because the capacity of each of those cycles is smaller, (75%), you only get ~ 5 times the capacity.

This is hardly a bad thing though... For charging 33% more often, you get a battery that will last you FIVE FLIPPIN TIMES LONGER!


And it doesn't stop there!!!

Lowering to 65% gives you about the same amount again!

But past that point, the wear is about the same - basically, the best target to charge devices to is the low 60% range. Unless you need more continuous runtime for some reason...

Here's the math for 65%

1 / 0.07 * 500,000 = 7,142,857mAh is the total amount of power you would store in the battery over its lifespan by charging it to only 65% capacity.

65%: 7,142,857mAh in 10,989 cycles
75%: 4,999,975mAh in 6,667 cycles
85%: 1,416,950mAh in 1,667 cycles
100%: 500,000mAh in 500 cycles

Charging to only 65% gives you 7,142,857 / 500,000, or 14.29 times more lifetime energy storage. 10,989 cycles / 500 cycles is 21.98 times more cycles.

21.98 / 14.29 = charging 1.54 times more often for 14.29 times more energy storage...

Charge to 65%!!!!!


About your comment:
Keeping a sealed lead acid (SLA) battery empty is the fastest way to kill it. SLA batteries are car batteries, UPS batteries, boat batteries, solar storage batteries, tractor batteries etc. etc.

Pretty much all other batteries (including lithium ion), do not suffer for being left partially charged. Or even empty...

 

[Mandar]

I emailed Topping last November and got the following response:

The battery of G5 is replaceable, but it is difficult for user to replace the battery, if the battery stops working in a few years, we recommend sending back the unit to China for the service.

I ended up not buying the product because of this.

 

[mike7877]

I emailed Topping last November and got the following response:


I ended up not buying the product because of this.

Thank you SO much for the answer! Welcome to the forums

I'm very happy to know that the G5 is user serviceable - I've had mine on for about 16 hours a day ever since it arrived on June 2. This is approaching 3 months! Most of the time it's been running on battery, too If I'm not listening to music, I'm listening to a radio show. If I'm not listening to a radio show, I'm watching YouTube or a non-politically-censored version of it (omg what kind of world is this turning into?!)

Pro-tip: If you only ever keep your device with a lithium rechargeable battery between 0% and 65%, its lifespan will be 10x (yes ten, 10, TEN !!! times) what would be possible normally (charging 0% to 100%). Now even worse than this (yes, it can be worse than 0 to 100%...), if you, instead of going from 0-100%, start from 50 and fill to 100%, you halve the total amount of energy the battery can store and release over its lifespan.

Armed with the above knowledge, you can make any device you use extensively last much longer than its intended life span (a very heavily used cell phone for 5-6 years on the same battery: no problemo!)

The way I charge and discharge the G5 is, when I see the power indicator turn red, that means there's 15-20 minutes of life left (~2-5%). I plug in the power and let the device charge for some time between one hour and two hours. Two hours (with the charger I use) brings the device to 55-60%. I use it from wherever I charged it to, back down to 2-5% when the red light comes on. This way, I avoid having to go to 100% (going to 100% vs 50% does 20x the damage. But going to 50% has to be done twice, so the number is actually 10x damage...

Battery wear is linear in the 0 to 65% range, and increases exponentially from there. So... if you still want a G5... and you're willing to charge to only 65% and under... you know what to do!

Btw, to figure out how long to charge your battery for with your charger, what you need to do is charge the device to 100% (completely full, so leave it charging for an hour or two after the charge light has gone from yellow to green. Then you measure how long it takes for the device to discharge completely. Eg. 14 hours. Voila! You're almost done. Now you charge your device for one hour and measure how long it takes to discharge completely (I recommend Samsung phone chargers, they charge the G5 at full speed (5V 2A). After charging, the G5 runs for 3.25 hours.

3.25/14 = 23.2%

Let's say we want to target 60% (to be safe and guarantee to stay under 65%)

(60 / 23.2) * 1 hour = 2.586 hours

You would round down to 2.5 hours!


I highly recommend getting the G5, it sounds great and it's powerful. Sooo powerful.
I really like how it can be charged by a separate power supply. You're not stuck slow charging when you want to listen and charge!

Everything about its functionality is perfect except one thing. I'm not saying it's a flawless design - I wish it had a few more features... But for the price point and performance, I'm overlooking what it doesn't have for what it does at the price it is. The one thing I wish was better is Bluetooth LDAC performance. It sounds good, but not great. For some reason, stuff seems to lack bass. There's not a lot missing at the top end... it's not as detailed as hard-wired, but that's obvious...
I used a proprietary software to peek into LDAC, and with my S22, with the G5 about a foot away with no obstructions from my S22, it stayed in 660kbps mode 95% of the time, and the lower mode the other 5%. I know it says 330, 660, 990kbps are the data rates, but there are intermediaries which are dropped to without having to drop alllll the way from 990 to 660, or 660 to 330... Those are big jumps!

Anywhey, hope you get and enjoy Mr. G5