The battery was in very good condition before leaving for a week and was at 60% charge level. It had a hi IQ, showing very low internal resistance which is a very good indication of battery health. Also, the P3 was still functioning with the low battery light flash every few seconds on the button, and surprisingly... the screen still lit up showing the normal info screen including the batt Empty message. So the mod wouldn't fire, and low voltage protection for actually using the
device was working well. But the heartbeat during non-use continued to drain the battery even when the low voltage protection would not allow device use. This is where I feel improvement can be made to shut down the device when too low a voltage in non-use mode before critical discharge levels are reached. Maybe somewhere in the 2.8~2.9v range.
An interesting note though, it's surprising how low a voltage is needed to for the board and screen to function. In this case, 2.58v and the board, screen and menu system worked normally. I'm sure at some point the device would have turned off when the battery voltage level was under what was needed to keep the board alive, but I have no idea what that voltage level is. It does appear that it is well below safe voltage discharge level for a Li battery though.
It's also a bit surprising how much power is used in non-use mode. I really didn't consider 7 days an extended period of time to deplete over 60% of the battery charge when not being used, but I guess I will have to consider anything more than a couple of days an extended period of time now. But TBH, I would prefer that the P3 just managed the battery during non-use like it does during use.
