PCC Power Drain?? Anyone??

[markarich159]

I love my 510 PCC, don't get me wrong. I take it with me wherever I go. It has never failed me once since I've gotten it, however, I have noticed one thing that does bother me and may become an issue down the road.

The internal battery seems to drain regardless of whether your charging a battery or not. Say I place a drained 510 battery in it for charging, it charges it and then remains there waiting until I need it. If I leave that charged battery in the PCC for a prolonged time it seems to continually drain the PCC, even though it's charged. Once I was on vacation and hadn't needed to use the PCC for a few days, it had only charged one battery(which was in the PCC for those few days). When I went to get that battery and put a new drained one in to charge, the PCC was out of juice and the middle red light was on. So, in essence, the PCC(on a full charge itself) only charged one battery before needing to be charged again. If I use the PCC continously(one battery after another-I guess as it's meant to be used) it will charge 3 to 4 batteries before needed to be charged. So, it would seem to me, that the PCC itself is constantly discharging(whether you're charging a battery or just storing a charged battery in it). The way I've gotten around this is to just automatically recharge the PCC every 2 to 3 days whether it needs it or not. This works but, in my opinion, is seriously shortening the life of my PCC's internal battery.

Has anyone else experienced this or is it a failing of my particular unit. The way I undrstood it, the 510 batteries were protected, so it should not continually drain the PCC once charged. I've also noticed that PCC charged batteries last a noticeably shorter time then USB or Wall charged batteries. Not a considerably shorter time, but definitely noticeable.

Any comments???

 

[bearscreek]

I didn't reply when I first read your post because I can't give you any specific time frames, but I think my PCC drains somewhat by itself, with or without a charged battery in it. I can't tell you if it's faster with a charged battery in it or not, but I really don't think so. It may be that they just don't hold a charge long anyway, so I think you've got the right idea about charging it every few days no matter what. I think some people have thought that a charged battery was draining the PCC, and that may have simply been the PCC draining itself. I really don't think a charged battery is draining my PCC in the sense that it keeps trying to charge it or anything like that. I can't remember what kind of battery the PCC has, but if it's a Li-ion battery, charging it shouldn't matter anyway.

 

[Mo JJC]

Yea I had read on here somewhere about the charged battery draining the pcc before. I took the battery out then and charged up the PCC. I left it empty but charged in a 70-80 degree room for a week. When I needed it I am glad I checked it because it was dead. Same thing w/ my little Blu PCC.

 

[a2dcovert]

I am noticing that all my lithium batteries are draining on their own. Not just the PCC, my stock 510 bats and my trustfire 14500 drain down on their own. I believe the protection circuit is the culprit. The protection circuit does a regular test to determine what the battery's voltage is. This action would require a little bit of power and over time would drain the battery voltage. I have no proof of this but it seems like a reasonable assumption.

Kevin

 

[markarich159]

I am noticing that all my lithium batteries are draining on their own. Not just the PCC, my stock 510 bats and my trustfire 14500 drain down on their own. I believe the protection circuit is the culprit. The protection circuit does a regular test to determine what the battery's voltage is. This action would require a little bit of power and over time would drain the battery voltage. I have no proof of this but it seems like a reasonable assumption.

Kevin

I noticed that as well and I believe your assumption is correct. I think I read somewhere that the Protected batteries lose, on average, 20% of their charge a month(if let just sit, no activity). The PCC situation I'm referring to is much more dramatic, I'm talking complete drain in a week(again, if just let sitting).

 

[a2dcovert]

I am going to begin tracking my batteries voltage. What worries me is the "spare" batteries I have on hand. I made a effort to buy enough batteries to last for quite a while. I thought that the batteries would hold enough charge to keep in extended storage. Now it looks like I have new hobby, monitoring battery voltages.

I just put my PCC on charge and it took only 15 minutes to top it off. I haven't used it in 2 days. That's not too bad but I wish the draw would be very minimal. Looks like we are going to be wasting a lot of energy recharging batteries that are in storage. The 510 spares are what I am concerned about now.

Kevin

 

[markarich159]

I am going to begin tracking my batteries voltage. What worries me is the "spare" batteries I have on hand. I made a effort to buy enough batteries to last for quite a while. I thought that the batteries would hold enough charge to keep in extended storage. Now it looks like I have new hobby, monitoring battery voltages.

I just put my PCC on charge and it took only 15 minutes to top it off. I haven't used it in 2 days. That's not too bad but I wish the draw would be very minimal. Looks like we are going to be wasting a lot of energy recharging batteries that are in storage. The 510 spares are what I am concerned about now.

Kevin

I did the exact same thing, kind of stocked up on batteries anticipating difficulty in obtaining them in the future. In addition to topping off the PCC every 2-3 days, I also top off every spare(I have about 10) battery once a month(takes me about 2 hours every 4th sunday). The problem, from what I understand is, and correct me if I'm wrong, I've heard that it's not the recharge cycles per say that slowly kills the lithium batteries, but time itself. So, I guess the best thing to do would be NOT to stock up and just buy batteries new as you need them. Hopefully, they will always be available.

 

[a2dcovert]

I just checked my new batteries in storage. All but 1 had close to 3.8v and the one had been opened by the protection circuit. So it looks like they will keep reasonably well. I can live with what I found so it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Kevin

 

[bearscreek]

How long have you had them, and were they fully charged when you set them aside?

 

[a2dcovert]

How long have you had them, and were they fully charged when you set them aside?

The batteries I had in storage were received 2 months ago. They were fully charged at that time. I figure They may need recharging every month or so but this is just a guess at this point. I will check them every 2 weeks or so to see if they are holding up. It doesn't seem to be a big problem as long as they are not allowed to get too low. The real problem is that the protection circuit opens the circuit when the voltage reaches the lower limit and you will see a zero voltage reading on your volt meter.

Kevin

 

[TnA]

I have not noticed a "noticeable" charge loss in my PCC. Since I rarely use my 510, my PCC usually sits for weeks on end without being recharged. I did use it this past weekend to charge a friends battery (hadn't touched the PCC in weeks) and it had no problem charging his battery. You might have some type of parasitic drain from either your 510 battery or something internal in the PCC.

Sorry that this isn't very helpful, but just wanted to post my experience so that you would know this problem doesn't happen to everyone.