How can I maximize the life of a TalentCell's, or generically, any Li-Ion backup battery?

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21

Hi.

What I settled on is this thread.

I shut it off for twelve hours, based on the AutoOn of the ZEN04.
I seem to get 3 (of 4) lights at the end of 12 hours.
Now, remember, I have a C8 hub and an old router with WiFi radio disabled, so low power.
So, the ZEN04 turns itself on after 12 hours (not dependent on the hub, and is set to power on after a power outage).
I set the ZEN04 on the device page to report power every minute.
The rule monitors the power going into the battery. It starts at, if I recall, maybe 29 watts. I arbitrarily have the rule shut off the power via the ZEN04 at 8 watts. It takes about an hour and a half to get to that point.
Then, the AutoOn timer of the ZEN04 starts again.
Thing is, I'm not sure how much you can trust those lights either, lol.
You could just run it and see how long it takes to get to three lights, and use that time.
If there was a power outage, you'd have a minimum of 3 lights worth of juice left, lol.

BTW, I have no idea what I'm doing. :slight_smile:
But, I was really disappointed when the thing only worked for a couple hours in a real outage.

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22

Sounds good. I will try that. Thanks

23

I suppose, now that I know it takes about 1.5 hrs to recharge to the 8 Watt level after a 12 hour rest, I could take the hub out of the loop and just use the ZEN04 and set AutoOn to 12 hours and AutoOff to 1.5 hours.

That wouldn't involve the hub at all, and how can that be bad in a power outage, lol. Although, with the device set to power on after a power interruption, the rule should be failsafe. LOL x2.

My thinking is, though, the rule, (involving the 8 Watt threshold), could be helpful if the duration changes, over time, with battery degradation. Just thinking out loud, I wonder if a rule could be made to test for the change in charge duration, and notify if it went out of bounds. Hmmmm.....

Otherwise, I suppose we'll have to test the batteries, like smoke detectors. You test your smoke detectors regularly like I do, right? LOL

That's probably best though. I have another TalentCell powering a gateway router, so I should be testing that.

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