G5 Battery went dead

[kruser]

I have a G5 with a battery that was sent me from Unication under the battery recall program some time back.
I charge it mostly in the amplified charging cradle and never had any issues with that.

The other day I was planning on being away for a week or more so I removed my G5 from the charging cradle. When I removed it, I noted the G5 and the charging cradle both had green led's as normal. The G5 was placed in the cradle maybe two days before I removed it.

After about 7 days, I did not go out of town. I went to turn on my G5 and it was dead as can be. I first stuck it on the charging cradle and no LED indicators on the G5 or cradle. Same with a USB connection, no charging indication on the G5.
I pulled the G5 battery and let the G5 site for about 30 minutes figuring maybe it had froze up or something. After 30 minutes, I placed the battery back in the G5. Still dead to the world!

A friend brought me his G5 battery and my G5 powered right up.
Then I put my battery on a clip charger. The kind of charger made for charging cell phone batteries when out of the phone. I think clip chargers will output charge voltage regardless if voltage is present in a connected battery. So this can often be used for jump starting a totally dead cell.
To my surprise, the LED in the clip charger lit when it made contact with the G5 battery. So that told me the battery did have some charge in it. I wish I'd have measured the voltage with a meter but I did not.
I plugged the clip charger into a USB port and let it charge the G5 battery for maybe 15 minutes. Not much at the low charge rate a clip charger puts out.
I then put the battery back into my G5 and the G5 screen instantly turned on with an Extremely Low Battery warning! It would not power on but I didn't expect it to.
I put the G5 into the charging cradle and this time the charging cradle and the G5 LED's both lit indicating charging. The G5's screen also lit with the charging graphic.

The G5 charged for several hours before the LED's turned green indicating a full charge. I ran the G5 for about 8 hours on the odd battery and it performed normally.

The only think I can think of is the G5 was still drawing a fair amount of current after I'd removed it from the charge cradle when I thought I'd be leaving town.
I've let this G5 sit without a charger hooked up for several weeks in the past and never had the battery go flat like happened this time.

So, has anyone else had this happen with the Lithium Ion battery or the recalled Lithium Polymer battery?

The other thing that came to mind as I was typing all this is the fact that this G5 is running the Beta 1.4 FreeScan beta firmware from the first beta release of the freescan firmware.
I'm scared to see if it will run the battery dead again if I test it as Lithium cells don't like going flat. Mine still had some voltage in it as it lit the clip charger LED but it sure would not trigger anything in the G5. I guess if it happens again, I'll make sure and measure the cells voltage before I jump start it again with the clip charger.

Anyway, I'm just looking to see if anyone else has had issues like I had above.

Thanks!

 

[IAmSixNine]

I have had my G4 go completely dead a time or two and one thing i learned from that experience is, when plugging the unit in, no lights or indicators come on. Just let the thing sit there and in about 30 minutes it will come to life and charge normally.

I used a USB voltage/current meter to test and when the battery is super dead the device will take a low current to try to recover the battery enough to begin to rapid charge. So after 30 minutes or so it perked right up and rapid charged. I say rapid charge as it was pulling close to 1 amp which is where it normally charges at.

 

[kruser]

Thanks for this info! It's good to know the battery will recover even though it seems dead. Many people would not have a clue about performing a "jump start" type trick if that was really needed!
I'm still kicking myself for not reading the voltage first. It would be nice to know just how low it gets.

I do still think something is odd with this G5 though. It should not deplete a fully charged battery in a weeks time when the G5 was powered off the entire time. I know today's electronic devices still draw a minuscule amount of power when off but my G5 seems like it must have been drawing a tad more than 'minuscule'!
I wish it were easier to get at the battery contacts so I could watch the current draw when the G5 is powered off. Maybe some other day I'll attempt that if it ever does this again!

Thanks again for your info.

 

[Hit_Factor]

I'm still kicking myself for not reading the voltage first. It would be nice to know just how low it gets.

Agreed, would have answered the question (not yet asked) is there low voltage protection built in? There probably is, too many fires in the news to ignore proper design.

Sounds like you need a spare battery to sort all of this out.

 

[kruser]

Sounds like you need a spare battery to sort all of this out.

Ha, I was just thinking the same and how it would have been nice had I kept the old recalled LiPo battery. It would have been just perfect for testing.
I could have kept it stored in an old steel ammo box or something! Oh well, better safe than sorry when it comes to lithium batteries.

 

[GTO_04]

Agreed, would have answered the question (not yet asked) is there low voltage protection built in? There probably is, too many fires in the news to ignore proper design.

Sounds like you need a spare battery to sort all of this out.

Is there a way to charge a spare battery out of the scanner, without having to buy the amplified charger? Once the 1.4 FW is out, I will probably using this full time and it would be nice to have a spare battery ready to go.

GTO_04