Internal Battery Dead
Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2016 7:28 pm
Hey guys, just emailed BioSemi (then I saw this site) - we have a bit of a major issue and was hoping someone could help.
Currently, we are unable to send the equipment in question for repair/replace it - we will definitely be looking at doing this in the future.
So the basic issue is:
Our active two battery box is quite old now (it’s been here for a long time, well before I started).
So we believed the three sealed lead acid batteries had gone completely – a simple voltage test across the three was showing that they were no longer outputting anywhere near the required voltage. The charger wasn’t charging – it constantly had the green LED and the batteries weren’t retaining any charge. Believing this to be a battery issue (inside the battery box), we decided to order some 2V 4.5Ah batteries – the cyclon ones – now made by Enersys rather than Hawker. We couldn’t find a supplier that supplied a shrink wrap pack of three, so we three separate cells that we’ve connected with appropriately rated wire (16AWG) and are attempting to charge.
However, despite seeing that with a multimeter that the batteries are being charged (or I assume they are as their voltage is going up slightly), when we turn the battery box on, it does the same as it did with the old batteries – goes green for a few seconds with ‘Ready’ and then goes into ‘Shutdown’ - despite hours of charging the batteries.
The charger did recognise on the new batteries that they needed charge (it went immediately to the red ‘Full charge’ light and a parallel measure shows that it is charging).
We are midway through some EEG testing. I have verified that the charger is working fine - but both of our batteries seem to have gone within a few weeks of each other. Considering that they are strictly alternated and have been since they were bought many moons ago, it does make sense that their internal batteries have gone as the SLA batteries don't last forever and obviously get to a point where the chemical reaction can't be completed anymore - think we used up it's shelf life/battery cycles.
Have we missed anything obvious here?
I did a quick forum search and found a few similar topics but was hoping that someone may be able to help us with a temporary fix.
The replacement internal cells definitely did elicit a different reaction: when you plugged in the other cells, no matter how charged they were, it would stay with the green light on the charger and not charge at all. When we plugged the new cells into the circuit, it definitely came up with the red light and recognised that the new cells needed charging. Just been testing the charging today (had it on for two hours so not sure yet if it will hit that yellow light to recognise the 90% charge yet).
Many thanks,
Ferenc
Currently, we are unable to send the equipment in question for repair/replace it - we will definitely be looking at doing this in the future.
So the basic issue is:
Our active two battery box is quite old now (it’s been here for a long time, well before I started).
So we believed the three sealed lead acid batteries had gone completely – a simple voltage test across the three was showing that they were no longer outputting anywhere near the required voltage. The charger wasn’t charging – it constantly had the green LED and the batteries weren’t retaining any charge. Believing this to be a battery issue (inside the battery box), we decided to order some 2V 4.5Ah batteries – the cyclon ones – now made by Enersys rather than Hawker. We couldn’t find a supplier that supplied a shrink wrap pack of three, so we three separate cells that we’ve connected with appropriately rated wire (16AWG) and are attempting to charge.
However, despite seeing that with a multimeter that the batteries are being charged (or I assume they are as their voltage is going up slightly), when we turn the battery box on, it does the same as it did with the old batteries – goes green for a few seconds with ‘Ready’ and then goes into ‘Shutdown’ - despite hours of charging the batteries.
The charger did recognise on the new batteries that they needed charge (it went immediately to the red ‘Full charge’ light and a parallel measure shows that it is charging).
We are midway through some EEG testing. I have verified that the charger is working fine - but both of our batteries seem to have gone within a few weeks of each other. Considering that they are strictly alternated and have been since they were bought many moons ago, it does make sense that their internal batteries have gone as the SLA batteries don't last forever and obviously get to a point where the chemical reaction can't be completed anymore - think we used up it's shelf life/battery cycles.
Have we missed anything obvious here?
I did a quick forum search and found a few similar topics but was hoping that someone may be able to help us with a temporary fix.
The replacement internal cells definitely did elicit a different reaction: when you plugged in the other cells, no matter how charged they were, it would stay with the green light on the charger and not charge at all. When we plugged the new cells into the circuit, it definitely came up with the red light and recognised that the new cells needed charging. Just been testing the charging today (had it on for two hours so not sure yet if it will hit that yellow light to recognise the 90% charge yet).
Many thanks,
Ferenc