TCL One Touch Pop D5 TLi018D1 Replacement Battery 3.8V 1800mAh

TCL One Touch Pop D5 / OT-5038 Series — 3.8V Li-ion Replacement Battery (TLi018D1)

This is a 3.8V, 1800mAh Li-ion replacement battery for the TCL One Touch Pop D5 and OT-5038 series smartphones. It fits OT-5038, OT-5038A, OT-5038E, and related variants sharing the TLi018D1 or TLi018D2 OEM part numbers. Physical dimensions are 58.00 × 52.00 × 5.00mm — confirm these against your existing cell before fitting.

• OT-5038 variant coverage: The OT-5038, OT-5038A, and OT-5038E all run the same battery connector and voltage rail, so one cell covers the full sub-series. The TLi018D2 is electrically equivalent to the TLi018D1 — same BMS handshake, same connector pinout.
• Bench tested on actual hardware: We ran this cell through a full charge cycle and monitored BMS communication with the charge IC. The protection circuit tripped correctly at the low-voltage cutoff and accepted charge current without fault flags on resume.
• Fuel gauge recalibration after swap: On first use after fitting this cell, run one complete discharge down to auto-shutdown, then charge to 100% without interruption. This gives the fuel gauge IC a full reference curve for the new cell and prevents erratic percentage readings in normal use.

Why the OT-5038 reports wrong battery percentage after a cell swap

The OT-5038 uses a coulomb-counting fuel gauge IC that builds its state-of-charge model from the previous cell's discharge curve. When a new cell goes in, that stored curve no longer matches the actual cell chemistry, so the IC reports inaccurate percentages — often reading full when the cell is not, or jumping suddenly to zero. A single full discharge-to-shutdown followed by an uninterrupted charge to 100% forces the IC to write a new baseline. After that one cycle, percentage readings stabilise.

Sudden shutdown at 20–30% on the replacement cell

This happens when the modem or display draws a current spike the cell cannot sustain at its present state of charge — voltage drops below the BMS cutoff threshold momentarily and the phone shuts off even though the reported percentage looks fine. It is most common in the first few cycles on a fresh cell before the fuel gauge IC has a calibrated curve. Run the full recalibration cycle first. If shutdowns continue past three full cycles, check that the resting voltage after a full charge reads at least 4.20V with a multimeter.