Droid Battery cover plate!!!

[markusd1]

Ok, I've had my Droid for 1 week and the cover plate has fell off 3 times???? What the heck? I'm using a holster and I have noticed that it takes very little finger pressure to slide the cover down,  then it will just fall off! Anyone esle seen this?  I love the phone but I think this may be a deal breaker for me.

[willanaya]

you should take it in to where you purchased it and find out if other droids act the same way.  ask to see if you could place a new one in your holster and repeat the steps you perform that would cause the back to come off.

or

Verizon sells a holster/shell combo.  it has a "body glove" like shell that protects the back of the phone with a small border surrounding the face of the phone. then the shell slides into the holster, with the face of the phone pointed inwards.

i currently have the regular holster and the holster/shell combo and i love the combo.  the cover that protects the backside of the phone also removes easily (as oppose to the body glove shell) so i can put it in my car dock.  when i put it back on, it still fits very snug.

[steveindajeep]

I am one week into my droid ownership and it also comes off very easily (4 times now). I have seen protectors on ebay that would help this but I should not have to buy something additional for the darn thing to stay put.. This might also be a deal breaker for me as well. Plus the passion is supposedly coming out soon and HTC has a very good rep. for solid, quality, well thought out phones.

[Lightninrod]

Several owners with this problem have just 'tweaked'(form them very slightly and carefully) the two cover tabs to tighten it up.  No accidental removals then.

[alxnet]

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markusd1 wrote:

Ok, I've had my Droid for 1 week and the cover plate has fell off 3 times???? What the heck? I'm using a holster and I have noticed that it takes very little finger pressure to slide the cover down,  then it will just fall off! Anyone esle seen this?  I love the phone but I think this may be a deal breaker for me.

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No problem on my end.  You could try two things though:  1) A tiny dab of doublesided tape just under the trailing edge.  or  2) Ever so slightly bend out the hooks on the battery cover.  Either method will surely do a good job of securing your cover.

How did it get loose in the first place?  Whoever placed the battery cover initially probably placed too much force on the hooks.  This is why I mail order my phones from Verizon's website or at the very least insist that the hurried Verizon store clerk NOT take my phone out of the box.  Who's gonna take care of your phone better than you?

[neacr1]

There are definitely issues with the battery cover and there seem to be solutions being discussed at the Motorola Owners Forums. Sign up at Motorola and check it out,

[rsaritzky]

There are dozens of people on the Motorola forum who have complained about the same thing.  The Droid is a beautiful phone, but it's obvious that either manufacturing tolerances or a slight bending of the battery cover causing covers to fall off all over the place is a design flaw.

The "hooks" that go inside the phone to latch the battery cover closed don't have "detents", or notches in the locking part (or the detents are very shallow - can't look because I lost my cover too <grin>).  Motorola could design deeper detents into the cover. 

Also, some sort of "safety catch" could be designed, although this is a bit trickier because of the thinness of the phone.  A lot of phones with plastic battery covers have a button that you have to press in order to remove the battery cover.  The others have plastic tabs with little hooks or detents on them (not very doable with a metal cover.)  Or, what I've seen on a number of metal cases on computers and other electronics - a hole in the cover that a spring-loaded pin fits into.  You have to press a latch that pushes the pin downward and out of the hole for the cover to slide off.

So there are a lot of solutions that are possible.  The important thing is to contact Motorola or post a comment in their forum if your battery cover is loose - so they get a good sampling of the number of problem covers.

In the interim, a small piece of friction tape (I think duct tape would also work) inside the phone on the inside of the battery cover should do the trick.  You don't want to make the cover impossible to remove, so 1 or 2 small pieces (1/2-inch square or so) should do the trick.

Ron

[kurttrail]

One of the solutions from the Motorola forum is getting Motorola to replace the battery cover for FREE, but just this once.  If you lose it a second time they'll charge you.

I sent an email to support stating that I heard in their forum about this replacement solution and they repIied that I should get it in a week.

[LizzieG]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ-Kua5Lunk Saw this the other night.

[SSHGuru]

I filled out a form and they are sending me a replacement.

I watched that video a few times and couldn't figure out exactly what he was doing... give it a little bend where?  What direction?  Why does it help?  Where can I get a itty bitty flathead screwdriver. (why did I try to do it with a paperclip)

I'll wait for the replacement.

My first droid's cover was hard to get off.  The new one comes off too easily.

[rsaritzky]

There is a "slot" in the metal piece that the guy in the video is prying "upward" (towards you).  I don't have my battery cover yet, but apparently there is a piece on the battery cover that hits that slot, hopefully locking the cover in place.  If you pry the metal upwards a bit, then the piece on the battery cover will have a harder time slipping over it, thereby keeping it from slipping off.

Think of it like the concrete barriers at the front of a parking space.  If you roll your tires over it, it much more difficult to back up out of the spot.  But if the concrete barrier were only 2 inches high, there wouldn't be much resistance.

The video makes sense, but until I get my replacement battery cover, I can't confirm.

You can get a tiny screwdriver at almost any hardware store or electronics store.  If you don't have one nearby, and have a steak knife with a sharp tip, you could use that too.  But be careful - VERY gentle pressure upwards.  Try a little "tweak" then try the battery cover and see if it's tighter.

Ron

[SSHGuru]

Actually it doenst make sense.  If you have a concrete barrier the higher it is the harder it will be to roll your car on and off it.   By prying the metal up it's just making it easier for the cover to come off since it doesn't lock - it's a flat raised bar on the back of the battery cover.

I think it has to do more with the side locks to be honest.  They are what lock it in place.

[rsaritzky]

Hmm - I guess I wasn't clear.  You said " If you have a concrete barrier the higher it is the harder it will be to roll your car on and off it."  That's EXACTLY what we all want - to make it harder to slide the battery cover (on and) off.  The metal piece inside the phone acts as the "barrier."

You also said "By prying the metal up it's just making it easier for the cover to come off since it doesn't lock - it's a flat raised bar on the back of the battery cover."  What I meant to say is that there is - inside the phone - a metal piece that "rubs" into another piece on the inside of the battery cover.  Think of the battery cover as the "tire" in my example and the metal piece inside the phone as the "concrete barrier."  The battery cover slides over the metal piece inside the phone and is prevent from sliding back by the "height" of the metal piece.

Certainly the 4 hooks on the side of the battery cover help keep it in place, but after looking carefully, there does not appear to be any "pressure" on these hooks that keep the cover from sliding up or down.  It is in fact, the metal piece mentioned above that "clicks" the cover into its closed position and (is supposed to) prevent it from sliding open too easily.  People who have tried bending the hooks outward certainly get some help because now the hooks rub inside the groove that they fit into.  Any friction at all will help reduce the sliding of the cover - but there needs to be something stopping the cover from starting the "slide" from the locked position.

I'll post some still pictures here when I get my replacement cover, because the YouTube video doesn't give a real close-up picture of the parts.

Ron

[jshafer817]

https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/17811?start=15&tstart=0

Motorola is making new battery covers that wont fall off and is harder to take on and off....

http://www.store.motorola.com/mot/en/US/adirect/motorola?cmd=catProductDetail&_bcs_=200%08MOTA855%08...

I think we are all owed a better battery cover...

[jshafer817]

I called into verizon to attempt to get a credit, but they already gave me 10% off my bill for the next 6 months for my aggrevation with a verizon store. I guess I will just bite the bullet and buy it. Or spread our the hooks on mine ever so slightly.

[rsaritzky]

OK,

Here's some pictures of my newly-installed battery cover, with explanation of the technique the YouTube video demostrated to tighten the cover:

1.  Picture 1 shows the back of the battery cover.  At the top, there is an indentation, which is a "bump" on the inside of the cover:

2.  Picture 2 shows the inside of the battery cover, showing the "bump."

3.  Picture 3 shows the back of the Droid, and the "slot" where the "bump" fits into. 

4.  Picture 4 shows how to pry up the edge of the slot (VERY gentle pressure) with a small screwdriver.  This will require you to push a little harder so that the "bump" on the battery cover will go over that edge and settle into the slot.  This will also require more force to remove the battery cover.

Ron

[SSHGuru]

Pics didn't come through.

[rsaritzky]

Yes, I'm trying to figure out how to upload pictures.  Help says "Click the Insert Image icon (looks like a tree) in the editor's toolbar.  But I see no such icon.

As a workaround, I'm going to create a gallery under my user ID and post the link in a followup message in a few minutes.

Ron

[rsaritzky]

Well, although the online help for this forum states you can upload pictures to both messages AND via galleries, I have been unable to create either.  I've posted a message in the "Forum Tips" forum in hopes that someone will explain exactly how to do so.  So everyone, be patient and I'll post the pics if and when someone tells me if it can be done.

Ron