OSCT3 - Battery Life (1.5v very short)

[Rougaille]

Dear All,

I've changed my battery (previoussly LS14500 3.6v) by a new AA Duracel Alkaline 1.5v

I'm very suprised to see that each new dive (of 1 hour) removes 20% of the battery.

Should i change my 1.5v battery every 5 dives ?

Best regards,

Rougaille.

[ClaudeDive]

hi,

- I think that 1.5V batteries must be regarded as spare battery or breakdown service,

- For me with the batteries 3.6v AA Saft LS14500 - 2600mah I have an autonomy from approximately 30 to 35 one hour divings, and battery lose 3 % for each dive, I think that's same for you,

- it is true that even 30 divings isn't too much, an objective of autonomy of 50 one hour divings would be more desirable,

[Rougaille]

Hello claude,

With 3.6v AA Saft LS14500 - 2600mah > 30 dives
With 1.5v AA Duracel Alkaline > 5 dives

Even if the Volts and M-AmperesH are different, something is wrong don't you think ?

[ClaudeDive]

Hi Rougaille,
- I am not astonished too much for the battery 1.5v Alkaline it's a battery with general public use, see attached file,

- The battery 3.6V Saft LS14500 Lithium can be considered with professional use, see attached file,

- The capacities of discharge and autonomy of these 2 batteries are thus very different,

- In addition I think that the autonomies announced by HW are very optimistic:
60 hours for 3.6V Lithium Saft LS14500 and 30 hours for 1.5V Alkaline Duracell Ultra Power perhaps under laoratory tests but surely not in cold water diving, it's similar to the cars consumption,

- I think that these autonomies can be divided by 2 for the batteries lithium and by 3 or 4 for the batteries alkaline vis-a-vis low consumption of display (éco) and processor but capacity of discharge of these batteries can only increase with the cold water diving,

- It's hope to wish an improvement of the capacity of batteries LS14500 but it's not for tomorrow and also an optimization by HW of the consumption of the processor and display, we can hope it more quickly,

[Rougaille]

Thanks Claude,

That's pretty clear ! I will buy some thousand LS14500 batteries

What is your advice for the best price ?

Bye,

Rougaille.

[ClaudeDive]

Hi Rougaille,
- Purchases batteries 3.6V SAFT LS 14500 - 2600mah:
http://www.innodive.com
or
Decreasing prices :
http://www.mega-piles.com/pile-ls14500- ... -lr06-p-59


- The problem it is the shipping costs,

- If you find less expensive everyone are interested,

[heinrichsweikamp]

1,5V battery percents are computed from the cell voltage only. A quick drop at the beginning indicates more battery drain.

At 1,5V the OSTC consumes about 60-80mA, with 2100mAh capacity and some cold-water safety margin you can expect 20-25hours of use.

regards,
Matthias

[ClaudeDive]

Matthias thank you for your answer and I want to say that I appreciate with the forum to be able to take part in the evolution and the life of product OSTC.
- I don't have experience with 1.5V battery, but we can see, on the diagrams or curves that the fall of 1.5V Alkaline batteries capacity is very fast,
- I have experience with the battery Saft 3.6V LS14500 in water with 15°C on the bottom and 22°C on surface over one hour of diving the average temperature must be approximately 18°C with 95% of 2600mah = 2470mah I have 31 divings one hour and I confirm that I did that with my OSTC3, displaying in eco mode,
- But I think that it would be well to improve, if possible, with an autonomy of 50 one hour divings as I say in my message of January 4th, 2014 “Improvement Low battery signal”.
- In addition, I do not think that we can have 60 hours a battery life with Saft LS14500 even in water with 25°C, but 40 hours autonomy should be a maximum and I think that user manual shouldn't indicate 60 hours but 40 hours, unless improving autonomy, to be closer to reality in diving and to not disappoint the users,

cordialy

[heinrichsweikamp]

Did you use the OSTC3 on the Saft LS14500 until it went out or until the battery percent display showed 0% (There is quite a lot of reserve built into the battery indicator)?

Matthias

[ClaudeDive]

Not, with my last Saft LS14500 at the end of battery life I began the diving with approximately 5% and I finished this diving from approximately 1 hour with a level of battery with 2% (for my personal test, with of course a backup computer!).
I changed the battery for the following diving,
However, I am interested to know if the calculation of the déco would have been stopped by OSTC3 software's safety measures during this personnal diving test if the level of the battery were gone down to 0%.
In addition I seen clearly that the tension of the battery is displayed in red when the level is below 10%.
But it should be known that if it is considered that the new battery is charged it with 95% and that we change it to 10% of load,
The life time will be of 85% of 2600mah with consumption of 80mah that will give us approximately a 27 one hour dives autonomy, what isn't too much.
Regards.

[heinrichsweikamp]

With 3,6V the current consumption is lower, of course. Same power, more voltage -> less current.

Matthias

[ClaudeDive]

It's true of course, but it's true also that with Saft LS14500 a real diving autonomy of 31 dives of one hours it's not much and that doesn't make the 60 hours of the user manual.
regards,

[Rob]

Hi,

i have the same problem with my OSTC3, last Year in decemer i gave it to a friend of mine for egypt hollidays.
He told me that the 3,6V battery, i gave hin the OSTC3 with 75% battery, lasts for 5 dives then he got 1,5V batteries and one batterie lasts for 3 or 4 dives.

I will test this with new 1,5V batteries and will show the results here.
What i can see is that the battery consumption is not only at the dive,
my friend told me that he changed the batteries immediately after returning from a dive and the next dive is next morning.

Here are the results from my OSTC3 DiveNo, Battery, Date, timein-out depth divetime (min:sec) divetime(sec) Temp, compl desat time, Battery gauge registers:

9 2840mV 29.10.2013 11:22:26-12:29:00 3,9m 54:35 3994sec 12,7° DesatTime: 227 2840mV 0x67 0xB3 0xB4 0x53 0x00 0x00 01100111 10110011 10110100 01010011 00000000 00000000
10 2930mV 30.10.2013 11:20:26-13:01:00 4,0m 91:46 6034sec 12,9° DesatTime: 368 2930mV 0xB0 0xDE 0x41 0x5A 0x00 0x00 10110000 11011110 01000001 01011010 00000000 00000000
Battery shows 75% now dives in egypt
11 3160mV 10.11.2013 10:12:33-11:03:00 38,5m 45:27 3027sec 25,4° DesatTime: 630 3160mV 0x38 0x91 0x53 0x61 0x00 0x00 00111000 10010001 01010011 01100001 00000000 00000000
12 3123mV 11.11.2013 10:26:38-11:19:00 28,1m 47:22 3142sec 26,1° DesatTime: 844 3123mV 0x0E 0x82 0xBB 0x66 0x00 0x00 00001110 10000010 10111011 01100110 00000000 00000000
13 3107mV 11.11.2013 11:23:50-11:35:00 8,5m 6:10 670sec 26,3° DesatTime: 837 3107mV 0xC1 0x65 0x80 0x67 0x00 0x00 11000001 01100101 10000000 01100111 00000000 00000000
14 3051mV 12.11.2013 09:52:13-11:01:00 20,0m 63:47 4127sec 26,1° DesatTime: 782 3051mV 0x86 0x6C 0xF0 0x6C 0x00 0x00 10000110 01101100 11110000 01101100 00000000 00000000
15 2916mV 13.11.2013 15:07:24-16:23:00 24,5m 69:01 4536sec 25,4° DesatTime: 886 2916mV 0x34 0xDB 0x71 0x72 0x00 0x00 00110100 11011011 01110001 01110010 00000000 00000000
battery change
16 1293mV 15.11.2013 09:55:44-11:26:00 23,5m 84:26 5416sec 26,4° DesatTime: 509 1293mV 0x07 0xB7 0x6A 0x06 0x00 0x00 00000111 10110111 01101010 00000110 00000000 00000000
17 1229mV 15.11.2013 14:33:30-16:00:00 22,5m 81:28 5190sec 25,1° DesatTime:1162 1229mV 0x1A 0xFC 0xC7 0x0B 0x00 0x00 00011010 11111100 11000111 00001011 00000000 00000000
18 1199mV 16.11.2013 10:08:50-11:24:00 27,6m 70:10 4510sec 25,1° DesatTime:1123 1199mV 0x56 0x4E 0x5D 0x11 0x00 0x00 01010110 01001110 01011101 00010001 00000000 00000000
battery change
19 1276mV 16.11.2013 17:18:40-19:00:00 20,9m 96:12 6080sec 23,5° DesatTime:1346 1276mV 0x70 0xF7 0xBE 0x13 0x00 0x00 01110000 11110111 10111110 00010011 00000000 00000000
20 1266mV 17.11.2013 17:10:14-18:57:00 21,1m 101:36 6406sec 23,6° DesatTime: 636 1266mV 0x6D 0xE2 0x6D 0x16 0x00 0x00 01101101 11100010 01101101 00010110 00000000 00000000
21 1151mV 18.11.2013 08:53:04-10:48:00 22,7m 106:12 6896sec 24,1° DesatTime: 821 1151mV 0x04 0x30 0x98 0x1D 0x00 0x00 00000100 00110000 10011000 00011101 00000000 00000000
battery change
22 1341mV 19.11.2013 08:53:50-10:31:00 27,8m 91:48 5830sec 24,1° DesatTime: 875 1341mV 0x0B 0x8D 0x14 0x06 0x00 0x00 00001011 10001101 00010100 00000110 00000000 00000000
23 1346mV 19.11.2013 17:03:54-18:56:00 13,8m 107:00 6726sec 23,2° DesatTime:1021 1346mV 0xED 0x8C 0x40 0x09 0x00 0x00 11101101 10001100 01000000 00001001 00000000 00000000
24 1192mV 20.11.2013 09:23:52-11:34:00 14,9m 124:54 7808sec 24,9° DesatTime: 770 1192mV 0x09 0x2E 0x5F 0x11 0x00 0x00 00001001 00101110 01011111 00010001 00000000 00000000
25 1219mV 21.11.2013 09:07:54-10:54:00 26,5m 101:00 6366sec 24,2° DesatTime: 738 1219mV 0x68 0xB9 0x2D 0x18 0x00 0x00 01101000 10111001 00101101 00011000 00000000 00000000

Hope this helps.
Regards
Rob

[heinrichsweikamp]

Hi Rob,

The 1,5V batteries used seems to be very lousy (1,3V after the first dive) but the drop with the original 3,6V battery is quite high, as well. I assume it wasn't a new battery (Which may be our fault).

Something to clarify: When using 3,6V batteries the OSTC3 computes the consumption based on the mode (Divemode, Sleemode, Surfacemode, Compass, IR-Receiver, USB ) and the actual screen brightness (Updated every second), all based on a Saft LS14500 AA cell. There are additional thresholds for 75% (3200mV), 50% (3100mV), 25% (2900mV) and 10% (2600mV) based on a 55mA load (Very high brightness/ambient light). These thresholds will be triggered to early in cold waters (Higher impedance of the battery).

1,5V battery percents are computed based on an Energizer 1,5V E2 AA (The manual recommends the use of quality brand batteries). When using 1,5V batteries the battery gauging does not work (Making the battery registers useless).

The percent value only decreases, the battery voltage stored for each dive is a value under load. We do a 100% test of all units for current consumption and tested the 60hours here several times with new Saft batteries. As said, this heavily depends on the ambient light /brightness setting as the display backlight is by far the most power consuming element in the computer.

Regards,
Matthias

[Rob]

Hi Matthias,

it was the original Saft Battery that came with my OSTC3, the 75% came from some dives i did in cold water and the developing usage of the OSTC3.

The 1,5V batteries, i dont know how old they are, they where bought in egypt.
He changed the batteries after the dive, the ostc connected to the usb port, as shown in the manual, so that he's not loosing the saturation data.

I can try it with a new 1,5v battery during my next dive, but i cannot do a series of dives to see the battery voltage in the profile.

Matthias, is there a way to read the latest battery voltage from ostc (not from a stored profile) the value shown on the screen has only one digit ( 1.2V ).
Than i can do a dive and after the dive i can read the battery data lets say every 2 hours.

As you say Matthias, also with the original battery, the drop from dive to dive is to high, but i have the feeling that the drop came not from the consumption during the dive, maybe it came from the consumption during the desaturation after the dive.

Regards
Rob

[heinrichsweikamp]

Rob Wrote:
> Matthias, is there a way to read the latest
> battery voltage from ostc (not from a stored
> profile) the value shown on the screen has only
> one digit ( 1.2V ).

No, but I can add such a command for the download mode. The battery voltage is sampled with 1mV resolution (And 1% accuracy +/- 0,5mV).

Regards,
Matthias

[ClaudeDive]

Hi Matthias and Rob,
Thank you for your information,
I give you my experiment, I checked exactly on my OSTC3 the parameters for the lifetime of my last Saft LS14500 for exactly 28 divings with one duration of total diving for these 28 divings: 26hours 42mn.
N° Diving - Battery Voltage - Dive time - Depth - Temperature.
01 - 3.357V - 33:49 - 42.02m - 15.0°C.
28 - 3.082V - 64:29 - 40.16m - 16.7°C.
This lifetime of the battery confirms what I told you previously,
Regards

[Rob]

heinrichsweikamp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> No, but I can add such a command for the download
> mode. The battery voltage is sampled with 1mV
> resolution (And 1% accuracy +/- 0,5mV).

Hi Matthias,

if this is not a big deal, do it.
Maybe it can help to find out what the problem is.

Another idea is to put the full value (3.521V) in the information screen (settings->information).

Regards
Rob

[heinrichsweikamp]

Here you go, this 1.11beta shows the battery voltage in the info menu.

Regards,
Matthias

[ClaudeDive]

Hi Matthias,
Thank you for voltage battery function (v1.11), I think that this function is interesting and should be kept,
I looked at my OSTC3 with a battery in end of life and the voltage was in "settings->information" of 3.319V for 8% of load factor
> You say in a message above “additional thresholds for 75% (3200mV), 50% (3100mV), 25% (2900mV) and 10% (2600mV)…”
I don't understand why I have 3.319V for 8%? that does not correspond to your values,
I made tests with 2 new batteries ever used and bought at Innodive:
1st battery: 3.484V - 100%
2nd battery: 3.498V - 100%
Note: none of these 2 batteries with 3.600V, therefore what corresponds exactly 100%? if 100% = 3.600V > 3.498V should not display 100%!
Then I go up my old battery with 3.319V - 8% and then surpris !
the Display indicated 3.471V - 0%! and after three hours again 3.464V - 0%
where are my precedent 8% ? And more voltage even after 3 hours!
Your data “75% - 3200mV” are very far away from the results on my OSTC3.
Could you explain these differences ?
End Febuary and beginning march I will to Asia for 27 dives approximately , I will note the parameters with one of my new battery: N° Diving - Battery Voltage - Dive time - Temperature ...
I will send you this data around on March 20th.

[Ludo]

Hi

Has anyone experience with rechargeable batteries and the OSTC3?

- Would NiMH fit or is the nominal voltage too low?

- What about those Lithium-Manganese (and cutting the lugs)
http://www.conrad.ch/ce/fr/product/2508 ... F?ref=list
They need a special charger.

Thanks for your feedback!

[DennisA]

Would anything stop us from using a rechargeable Li-Ion battery?
E.g. Panasonic Li-Ion battery, NCR18650B, 3,6V 3400mAh ??

They need a special charger and are a bit pricy, but it may be worth the investment in the long run.

/Dennis

[Ludo]

Hi Denis
That's also what I would like to do.
However the battery you suggest is bigger than a AA battery. Can it fit in the OSTC3?


Ludovic

[DennisA]

Ok, I didn't notice that. Thanks for pointing out.

I haven't been able to find any rechargeable AA Li-ion batteries with a reasonable capacity.

[ClaudeDive]

Hi Matthias,
[left][/left]
As agreed, I transmit to you the file attached of my informations concerning the battery of my OSTC3 after 21 divings made to Philippines,
[left][/left]
The Battery was bought at Innodive,
[left][/left]
With this new battery my OSTC3 display indicates 98% and 3.494 Volts,
[left][/left]
After 20.13 hours of diving my OSTC3 display indicates 42% and 3.403 Volts,
[left][/left]
We can roughly deduce from it that in 10 hours more display would be to 17% with 30 hours of diving and in more 17 hours the display would be to 0% for approximately with 37 hours of diving,
[left][/left]
We will certainly not reach 60 hours of diving as indicated in the user's manual but approximately 30 hours with 17% or if the alarm of security battery to less 25% is respected,
[left][/left]
Regards,
[left][/left]