Ostc Plus. Which Battery option?

[RonMacRae]

Hi
While on a dive holiday my battery went down to less than 20% after 7 dives. I had expected it to last longer but I fitted a standard AA for the rest of the week.

Now I want to put my original Trustfire 14500 battery back in but I'm not sure which option I should choose. One of the options, 3.6V Saft shows as 100% charged. The other likely one, 3.6V Lion AA, shows as 0% charged.

Q1) Which option should I chose for the Trustfire 14500 battery provided with the computer?

Q2) Why do none of the options show the 20% full that it showed when I removed it?

Ron.

[heinrichsweikamp]

Hi Ron.

The Trustfire is 3.6V LiIon AA.

The charge status will be corrected but it can not perfectly know the status prior to a full charge. Hence please charge the reinstalled Trustfire for a proper working charge status indicator.

regards,
Christian

[RonMacRae]

Christian,
I charged my OSTC Plus to 100% and used it on 2 dives. I then washed it in warm fresh water and left it to dry for 24 hours. I then put it away in it's box. The last dive was on 8th October and the battery %age when I put it away on the 10th of October was over 60%, I think it was 67%

I just looked at the computer again today, 23rd, and it shows 0% battery in red.
It still seems to work.
How long should the battery last on a charge if not used?
60% in 13 days seems a bit short.
I'm worried if I leave it much longer I'll lose the settings.

I'm not too worried about it using 30% on the two dives as I have it on high brightness.

Could this be down to the fact I swapped the rechargeable battery out for a standard AA for a while when on holiday?
is it still recalculating stuff?
Should I leave it to discharge more before I re-charge?

Thanks,

Ron.

[heinrichsweikamp]

Hi Ron,

Make sure to have "T2" as the battery tyoe in front of the battery voltage in the main screen and then give the unit a recharge in order to calibrate the % display.

60% stand by in 2 weeks is not normal and either an issue with the battery defective or due to some other configuration issue. What's the firmware version?

With the latest firmware you can expect 2-3% discharge/week. If it's siginificantly more something's wrong.

Regards,
Matthias

[RonMacRae]

Matthias,
Thanks for the quick response.

Battery type shows as T2 and it's sitting on the charger now and shows yellow and 4% so it is charging.

The firmware is 10.39. I updated it when it came out.

I'll charge it to 100% and do a better check on how it goes down and keep notes.

It's obviously not completely zero as everything still works so it looks like some sort of reading error rather than a dead battery. Does it show zero if it drops below a certain %age? E.g. my car goes from 20 miles to fuel up to get fuel now, probably because it's not that accurate and wants to be on the safe side.

Ron.

[heinrichsweikamp]

The algorithm assumes 800mA for the battery while the manufacturer says 900mA. So there is some margin in the % display.

regards,
Matthias

[RonMacRae]

Matthais,
I watched my computer for a month and noted the battery level.

Between checks the computer was closed in it's bag on my desk.
The only time it was out of it's bag was for a single 30 min sea dive.
After the dive it was soaked in warm water for an hour and then left to dry for a day in a warm room.

As you can see from the table below all seemed fine up until 13th November. it lost 17% in 3 weeks, including one dive.
However sometime in the last 10 days it went to 0%.
I'm not sure when that happened as I didn't look.
The computer is still working well, despite it saying 0%, apart from the red battery warning.

24 oct Midn. 4.1v 100%
26 oct noon 4.1v 99%
30 Oct 18:15 4.1v 96%
03 Nov 17:15 4.0v 94%
04 Nov 09:00 30 min dive.
05 Nov 15:00 3.9v 88%
08 Nov 16:00 3.9v 86%
13 Nov 10:30 3.9v 83%
23 Nov 15:00 3.8v 0%

This doesn't seem normal?

Ron.

[heinrichsweikamp]

Hi Ron,

Indeed not normal. Can you email me? info@heinrichsweikamp.com

I would like to ship you a new battery since I assume your's is faulty in some way.

regards,
Matthias

[RonMacRae]

Matthias,
Thank you for the kind offer but to deliver the battery would cost more than it is worth. As you think the battery is faulty I'll go to my local electrical store and buy a new one.

Thanks for the support,

Ron.

[heinrichsweikamp]

Hi Ron,

It's really no big deal for us. We ship stuff here every day...

regards,
Matthias

[RonMacRae]

Matthias,
I think the new battery fixed the issue, I'm loosing about 0.8% per day. It would have been less if I'd not done a couple of dives.

Still at 64% after a couple of dives and 44 days.

Thank you for the support.

Ron.