Bitcraze Forums

Hi,

after having one year pretty much fun with my cf its not charing the lipo anymore.
If I connect the cf to usb with connected lipo it boots into normal mode (green led flashes during boot)
If I connect the cf to usb without connected lipo nothing happens.. I cannot switch it on
I tried re-flashing various versions of the firmware, which worked (the flashing) but didn't solve the problem.
I had this issue some time ago and solved it but unplugging the lipo for some hours.. did not help this time.
Meanwhile the lipo is so empty that it goes into shutdown-mode (constant red led) shortly after I press the boot button or connect the usb.

What can I do/test???

Hi TheFrog4u, great to hear from you again but sorry about the battery problem.

I'm guessing the battery has been depleted in some way and can potentially have been damaged. I'm guessing you don't have a spare to test with but what you can do is measure the voltage while you are charging. Either through the cfclient or with a multimeter.
If the voltage is below 3.0V it will go into pre-charge to slowly recover the battery. This could take a while.
If it is above 3.0V you should be able to see when the voltage increases and should stop at ~4.2V. If it goes really quick the battery has probably gone bad.

Hi Tobias,
I am not so sure if its the battery.
I tried charging when the battery was half full and now its at 3.4 V and slowly decreasing (measred with the cf-client). Any ideas?

Hmm, sounds like a problem with the charge chip then or that it has been disabled from the firmware. To investigate that you need to measure the pins on the charge chip. EN1, EN2 and CHG are the interesting pins.