Perform a Battery Test

Perform a Battery Test

IMPORTANT:  Perform a battery test run to test for, and to remove, passivation of the lithium metal battery before starting a field deployment.

  1. Perform a test run of the battery. An effective test will record at least 128 Kbytes of data with the USB cable disconnected.  To perform this test quickly, set the logger to run at 64Hz as shown below and save the setup file:
      • Temperature Sensor enabled with 1 second sampling rate
      • Accelerometer/Magnetometer enabled. Burst interval at 1 second, Burst Rate at 64 Hz and Burst Duration at 1 second with the Continuous box checked
      • Start Immediately
  2. Start the logger, disconnect the USB cable, wait 2.5 minutes and then check to see if the red LED is on (firmware version 1.0.xx) or is blinking (firmware version 1.8.xx).
  3. If the red error LED is indicating, reconnect the USB cable, stop the logger, disconnect the USB cable and wait 5 minutes. Then repeat steps 1 and 2. Repeat up to three times as necessary until the red LED does not come on after 2.5 minutes at 64Hz.
  4. If only the green LED is blinking, reconnect the USB cable, save a new setup file with your desired deployment settings (MAT.cfg), and deploy your logger.
      • If after three attempts the red LED continues to indicate a problem, then something else is wrong. Contact technical support for advice.

Lithium batteries are affected by a phenomenon known as passivation. Passivation is a film of lithium chloride (LiCl) that forms on the surface of the lithium anode, and it serves to protect the lithium from discharging on its own when the load is removed from the cell. The film of LiCl, which is essentially a high resistance layer between the electrodes, is primarily responsible for the long shelf life (>10 years) of lithium cells.