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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: Humbug on October 23, 2015, 04:41:33 AM

Title: How would you test a Nomad JB3 battery?
Post by: Humbug on October 23, 2015, 04:41:33 AM

Yes, I still use a Creative Nomad JB3 to record, though always as a backup recorder. It works nicely with AT831s.

Recently however, the 10 year old batteries are showing signs of reduced life - with about 2.5 hour record time for two batteries installed. I own a multimeter, have a small stack of 5 batteries, and a friend has 8 more.

Is there any way of testing these batteries to figure out if any are still useable?

Or should I try and track down some (possibly non-genuine) new batteries on the web?

Title: Re: How would you test a Nomad JB3 battery?
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 23, 2015, 09:02:55 AM

Make a cable so you can use a USB phone charger battery.

Title: Re: How would you test a Nomad JB3 battery?
Post by: willndmb on October 23, 2015, 10:27:00 AM

Quote from: Life In Rewind on October 23, 2015, 09:02:55 AM

Make a cable so you can use a USB phone charger battery.

my thought too
you don't even need to make a cable though its a standard cable

Title: Re: How would you test a Nomad JB3 battery?
Post by: it-goes-to-eleven on October 25, 2015, 10:09:38 AM

Older lithium batteries often suffer from 'self discharge'. They discharge even when not used.

One way you could compare your batteries is to label them, charge them the same way. Then measure and record the initial voltage.  Wait a while, maybe a day or three, and record how much the voltage has decreased. If you see one that drops more quickly, it is likely a bad cell. One gotcha is you will see a high voltage right after charging that will quickly drop.  So probably don't put too much emphasis on that initial number unless it is particularly low.

On really bad cells, you might be able to just wait a week and see if the jb3 reports fewer battery status bars.

Another option would be to use each charged battery in exactly the same way and measure the voltage, or measure the number of battery status bars. So maybe that would be recording 30 minutes of the same content, or longer.

When measuring, don't short the batteries. They could explode.

Title: Re: How would you test a Nomad JB3 battery?
Post by: Humbug on October 25, 2015, 01:34:28 PM

Thanks for the reply above, much appreciated.

Title: Re: How would you test a Nomad JB3 battery?
Post by: jerryfreak on November 24, 2015, 12:35:07 AM

old cells will often discharge at the expected rate, and then 'fall off a cliff' at some voltage thats not the lowest

only way to do a real test is to do a repeatable runtime test (same charging and discharging regimen, ie same inputs same bitrate)

and measure the runtime you get.