Battery Life

[PaulB2005]

i3 plus Brand New 2500 mAh Ni-MH.

Battery meter gets to 50% - shortly after that the system powers off. I got a good few hours out of it but annoying the set off with 50 % power and then have the unit power off after 5 minutes.

Measured the batteries on a Battery Meter and they had gone into the Weak zone (just). The unit is set to Battery Type Ni-MH but i would have preferred the meter to be more accurate regarding the levels. I know GPS and cameras need a higher charge unlike TV remotes but for the power meter to be this mis-leading.

Is it just that the batteries are new or does this affect all i3?

[Mr_Gonzales]

Are you sure the batteries were fully charged before use? 2500mAh batteries take several hours to charge unless you have a super-duper charger designed for them. Mine (2450 mAh) take over 4 hours to charge fully, but they go to 100% on the i3 bar and last about 7 hours with sound on.

I agree that battery meter isn't great in that once it senses low battery - 50% on the scale - you only have 5-10 mins before it loses sound and then shuts off entirely... it sounds like the batteries didn't have a full charge in the first place though?

[PaulB2005]

Full 10 hours as pe instrcutions.

The lights on the charger had switched from Charging to Maintaince Charge. The charger and the batteries came as a set together.

I've been told that they might not hold their full charge until they have been charged and discharged several times. Any truth?

[francisc]

[MaFt]

[PaulB2005]

[francisc]

Yes, three or four times.

Then is OK to repeat it once in while.
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[mikealder]

Once you have done this a few times, 4 or 5 will be sufficiant for the NI-MH type batteries that should be all you need to do, Batteries of this construction type do not suffer the same memory problems as the earlier NICAD devices. Further more the NI-MH batteries (as all rechargables) have a finite life discharge/ re-charge cycles) and continually discharging this type of cell to zero will consume more of its avail life.

Make sure you always use the correct charger for the type of battery employed or they can catch fire, (I use high speed chargers that replenish 4 off 2500mA cells in 15 mins, this way I can baby sit them - but they do get hot) -

I would never leave batteries on charge overnight as I do not consider this safe - Mike

[Ash10]

Yep, I agree with Mike above.

New NiMh's will develop full charge capacity after a couple of charge/discharge cycles - there's no point in explicitly cycling them after that.

[PaulB2005]

Thanks for the tips. I discharged them all last night - they'll charge up today and I'll charge / discharge them a couple more times and then just charge as needed.

I'm happy with my 10 hour charger as it sits on the landing overnight as is directly under a smoke alarm - bedroom door is always open, dog hates the smoke alarms going off, and we're both light sleepers. Never had a problem with charging my camera batteries overnight. My chargers never get warm and i time it so that they will end charging about the time i get up so they never stay plugged in more than 5-10 minutes after they stop charging.

I also only use UniRoss, always buy the charger and batteries as a set in a blister pack and only use the charger that came with the batteries.

I knew NiMh didn't have the memory problems of NiCd but wasn't aware that discharging to zero would damage the battery life.

Thanks all.

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