Product Satisfaction Update for Cordura Battery Cases with Buckle Tether Strap

Your battery softcase has been designed for ease of use and security in severe conditions. It is readily adaptable to most any mounting situations you are likely to encounter. When installing the redundant tether strap, gently snug it to the mounting appendage AFTER tightly attaching it with the hook-and-loop band. When unfastening the clip, use two hands to separate the superlight fastener--- with one thumb depressing the inset grooved tab as the other thumb and forefinger gently pull apart the strap fastener ends.

How to take Care of your LiIon-Batteries 101.

During the Season

The Do's and Dont's: WHAT TO DO

Store your battery in a cool place: Such a cool place could be the cellar or any other cool room. If there is no cool room available, you may also use the fridge to store your rechargeable batteries. In this case you will need an airtight box to protect your battery from condensed water.

Tap your battery’s full potential:: Charge your battery only when it is almost empty. Charging the battery after every short-time use will shorten its life span.

Charge your battery at room temperature: If your battery is „deep-frozen“ after the tour, give it some time to adapt to room temperature.

The Do's and Dont's: What NOT to do

Do not discharge your battery before charging:: In contrast to other types of batteries, the LiIon battery’s life span will not increase when being discharged before charging. Discharging the battery before charging is only useful in order to measure the remaining battery capacity.

Do not try to „push“ your battery (i.e. to connect it to the charger for some minutes before the tour when it is already charged).

Do not deep discharge your battery: In case the PCS has switched off the light bulb, please do not try to switch your lamp on again using the discharged battery. Please charge it or change it!

Do not charge your battery below 0°C: Give your battery some time to adapt to room temperature before charging.

Do not charge your battery aboth 40°C: Give your battery some time to adapt to room temperature before charging.

Do not expose your battery to enormous heat : For example, do not leave your battery exposed to direct sunlight or in a car in the blazing sun. Heat will cause a very rapid and irretrievable loss of capacity!

Do not use the wrong type of charger: Li-Ion batteries need a special charger which uses exactly the right charging current and the correct progress of stress. Lupine rechargeable batteries do have a protective circuit (PCB); however, for charging your battery you will always need a LiIon charger. For batteries without such a protective circuit, there is even fire and explosion hazard!

Short circuit: In case a short circuit occurs, unprotected LiIon cells will be irretievably damaged. Lupine rechargeable batteries, however, have a protective circuit (PCB) which turns off the electricity before the cells can be damaged. Then the battery needs to be “re-activated” (see “Lupine Tricks”).

Confusing the two pole plug connectors when connecting battery and charger: This may happen with the Twin Charger only. The protective circuit (PCB) will immediately deactivate the Lupine battery to prevent damage.

Storing the battery when not used

If you use your battery only at certain times and seasons, please make sure to store it according to the following hints. Then you can extend its life span and tap to its full potential!

A Li-Ion battery will irretrievably lose some of its capacity if it is not stored correctly (however, the loss of some of the charge is perfectly normal). The goal is to prevent battery damage and to be able to use the full capacity in the next season.

Storing the battery for a longer period of time: Store the battery at approx. 50% charge in a cool room (e.g. the cellar) or in an air-tight casing in the fridge (not the freezer!).

For a storage period of no more than 6 months, there is no danger of deep discharge. If you want to store your battery for a longer time, we recommend to charge it once a year. After the storage period, charge your battery as usual. It is then ready for use - no special treatments required. However, to measure the remaining capacity, you might want to do a complete charge cycle - i.e. to discharge and then completely charge your battery with the charger. The charger then shows the remaining capacity (only the Micro Charger is not able to show that).

By the way: Some say that any LiIon battery is dead after 3 years. This is not true! A Li-Ion battery does lose some of its capacity, but if treated correctly, it can last much longer than 3 years.

Regeneration

A Li-Ion battery does not need regereration after periods of storage. After charging, it is ready to use.

A weak LiIon battery cannot be regenerated. The loss of capacity is permanent. The battery needs to be exchanged.

Life Span

A LiIon battery which is always treated correctly has a life span of approx. 300-400 charge cycles. After that, the remaining capacity is only 80% (e.g. a 14.5 Ah battery has a remaining capacity of 11.6 Ah). The battery will still work, nonetheless it has already lost some qualities and will continue to do so.

Please care for your Lupine battery, otherwise you will shorten its life span. The protective circuit will prevent the most severe damages.

Even if you do not use your battery it will lose some of the capacity depending on the type of cells. The permanent capacity loss will be up to 10% per year when stored at full charge and approx. 3-5% when stored at 40% charge.

Activating a deactivated battery

Caution! ONLY LI-IONEN-BATTERYS produced before 04/2008 ! Please remember that on younger batterys this method will not work.

All Lupine batteries contain a protective circuit (PCB) which prevents the battery from damage such as incorrect charging, deep discharging, short circuit etc. In these cases, the PCB deactivates the battery.

The current versions of ChargerOne and MicroCharger will automatically re-activate such a deactivated battery. An older ChargerOne, however, will not be able to identify the battery and charge it.

But help is on the way: Use the 12V power supply to re-activate your battery. The power supply needs to be connected to the socket. Now connect the hollow plug to the positive pole within the male plug of the battery (the positive pole is the one beneath the “roof”). The outside of the hollow plug will then touch the negative pole within the male plug. After that, the battery can be charged as usual.

Older Lupine batteries without plug coating

Newer Lupine batteries with plug coating

Measuring the battery capacity

With the help of ChargerOne you can easily measure the remaining capacity of your battery by discharging it completely. The amount of charging shown on the display corresponds to the battery capacity.

Important hint: As regards LiIon batteries, you should not waste a whole charge cycle for measuring the capacity. It is sensible to measure the capacity when the battery is almost empty anyway (e.g. after a tour).

More interesting facts

In short, some additional facts that you maybe didn’t know or that were mentioned only briefly above:

• Li-Ion batteries are very cold-resistant, up to -10°C there is little loss of capacity (approx. 5% at 0°C) and very little self discharge (approx. 3% in the first month after charging).
• The more charging cycles a battery has experienced, the voltage level of the battery during discharge declines. Therefore, the yellow LED of the PCS of an older battery lights up earlier than that of a newer one.
• Li-Ion batteries do not suffer from the notorious memory effect.
• Lost capacity cannot be restored. It is even counterproductive to try to “reanimate” the battery by charging and discharging it. The battery will only lose more capacity.
• Li-Ion batteries keep losing some of their capacity continuously, even when they are not in use. This phenomenon is normal and cannot be prevented, only slowed down. There are some negative factors that impair the battery capacity, such as: heat, enormous discharging currents, storing the fully charged battery in too warm places. Deep discharging and overcharging will be prevented by the protective circuit (PCB).
• Fully discharging the LiIon battery with every cycle will shorten its life span a little. So if the battery was not fully discharged on the tour, you should not discharge it before charging.
• You should avoid discharging to less than 2,75V per cell (5,5V as regards the 2-cell Lupine), and you must not discharge a cell beneath 2,5V (5V as regards the 2-cell Lupine). Discharging beneath the advised voltages will shorten the battery’s life span. In addition, chargers have difficulties in charging a deep discharged LiIon battery. The protective circuit of the Lupine batteries deactivates the voltage from discharging beneath 5,5V.
• Some battery packs do not contain such protective circuits. This can be very dangerous since there is fire and explosion hazard. Be careful with such batteries!
• Li-Ion cells contain circuits which in case of short circuit and overpressure will disrupt the current and destroy the cells.
• Li-Ion batteries must not be overcharged. The charging voltage must be adhered to exactly.
• Efficiency of charging is nearly 100%. So the capacity charged into an empty battery amounts almost exactly to the remaining capacity.