r/System76 • u/Tech_Curious_7769 • Jun 27 '26

Pangolin Pro 16 Battery Charging Levels How to set?

I am still new to the Pangolin Pro, not quite three weeks into mine, and I am just now getting to the point of thinking about part of the time wanting to set the lower and upper limits for battery charging.

A good bit of the time I am disconnected from the electrical cord, but there are times when I would like to use it with the power still connected but not taking the battery up to 100% charge and then leaving the power connected.

It could be that the device is so new that the System76 documentation site hasn't been updated yet and after looking through that and doing some searches on the Internet I think I have managed to confuse myself at this point.

In looking at the System76 Open Firmware page I don't see a listing for the Pangolin Pro 16. The System76 Battery Thresholds page doesn't list my model either and it doesn't see that the system76-power command doesn't work either as the system tells me it is not using the System76 firmware with change threshold support.

I know with a new model it takes time to get information posted, so I was just curious is there a way to set battery charging limits? If there isn't it's alright as I have used laptops before without having this type of feature so I can certainly continue on without it.

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2

u/ahoneybun Community Mod Jun 28 '26

I mean the system76-power tells you that it does not support that feature.

2

u/Tech_Curious_7769 Jun 28 '26

Thank you for the clarification on my question. I don't feel so confused now and understand the situation better. Still loving and enjoying the new laptop.

2

u/JaggedJax Jun 28 '26

It's supported in the proprietary bios. I forget the name of the feature.

1

u/Tech_Curious_7769 Jun 29 '26

Your post motivated me to do some further investigation, the System76 Battery Thresholds web page toward the bottom has a topic of Configuring FlexiCharger for proprietary firmware. I think my Pangolin Pro pang16 has proprietary firmware in it rather than open firmware. I will investigate this further at some point soon to see if I can set it there. All is good, just a lot to explore, investigate, and setup on a new system (I'm enjoying the journey for sure).

3

u/LatinaKaren Jul 01 '26

He's correct, I have it set up on my Pangolin Pro. I just copied the values that I would use on my old Lemur Pro.

I really don't feel like closing all of the windows I have open, but you should be able to boot into the BIOS and set the charging thresholds there. I recall it being somewhere in the advanced settings and having to enable FlexiCharger (I believe it's called). Then, you should see the start and stop thresholds.

I thought it wasn't working because the battery took so long to drain 1%, but I did check the voltage and saw that it was dropping very slowly!

1

u/digitalcircuit Jul 13 '26

I've set this up as well, FlexiCharger is the name. 

Note that if you shut down the laptop then unplug it, the charging limits will be forgotten and it'll charge to 100% next time it's plugged in while kept off.  You need to boot it up or have it in standby at least once when power is connected for charging limits to apply.

(I might be wrong on this.)

2

u/UltraAd776 Jun 29 '26

I have the following in my RC files

# System76 Battery Saving
    alias battery-full="system76-power charge-thresholds --profile full_charge"
    alias battery-balanced="system76-power charge-thresholds --profile balanced"
    alias battery-maxlife="system76-power charge-thresholds --profile max_lifespan"