Something Weird

I was going through my stuff making sure things would be workable for this upcoming Ice season.
Was checking the lights in my portable, found out the 7.5 Norsk battery went bad, it wont charge and had fully died somehow (???), so I tried my spare VEX SLA battery and had the same results, lights didn’t come on so I tried one of my Dakota lithium’s and the lights came on, was grateful the light bar was working… so I re-charged up the SLA battery and only the switch button lights came on, I got curious and tried the SLA on another small LED light I have and it worked fine, this makes me think the switch or light bar is not working properly but want to share this experience to get peoples thoughts, has this ever happened with your battery or battery driven products??

You need a volt meter to troubleshoot.

I’ll give that a try, inthe meantime, I contacted NORSK, they’re sending me a new charger for free… good CS…. so far!!

I’ve been watching videos on lithium ion and LifePo4 and learning a little. It does appear that charging them when super cold or frozen (winter) and the battery is made without the cold charging cutoff circuit can destroy the batteries ability to take a charge fairly fast. Even most of the reputable brands don’t have this yet. Do you charge it when cold in the winter in a cold storage building or garage? James is pretty up on all this, your thoughts Sir?

I always allow batteries to warm to room temp before charging and check them about every 3-4 months and charge them again if needed…
I do this with SLA and Lithium’s I own…
These NORSK batteries didn’t come with a manual and neither did the charger… so for me its live and learn…

That’s only something it could have been, you probably have a warranty claim.

3rdtryguy wrote:

Even most of the reputable brands don’t have this yet.

I have no knowledge of what other brands offer but the Norsk batteries I’ve used won’t charge when they’re cold. It’s ok to connect the charger. The battery won’t accept the charge until the cells have warmed. Once that happens the battery will take the charge and all is well.

I haven’t seen the inside of a Norsk so I’m not sure if it has the cold cutoff. James, it would be a question you might find the answer to easier than most of us. I was under the impression its the time the battery is on the charger while warming up is when the ability to charge is being compromised. The harm is gradual and happens over a period of time. These batteries are fairly new to most of us and with 5, 8, even 10 year warranties the problems may be just starting to come up. Some are hesitant to tear apart a lithium ion as they CAN be dangerous. These manufacturers all try to baffle us with BS, so it’s a yes or no question, Norsk, do you have the cold cutoff circuit? It’s a very inexpensive add on and a couple $50 cheapies actually have it. Amped, Marcum, DL, or Vex do not unless it just happened this year. Again, I’m just learning like most of us and not 100% certain. What James stated is what the cold circuit should do, so if they do have it that would be a great selling point, or his battery life is also being compromised.

3rdtryguy wrote:

Some are hesitant to tear apart a lithium ion as they CAN be dangerous.

You wouldn’t be able to tell if a battery had cold temperature charging protection by tearing it apart. Or at least I couldn’t. Once you got it apart you’d be staring at some busted up circuit boards, sensors you would recognize and a small jumble of wires…and a trashed battery. However, you can tell if a battery has cold temperature protection by connecting it to a charger when you know it’s too cold to take a charge, as would be the case when you come off the ice on a bitter cold day. If the battery does not take a charge until it warms, it has cold temperature protection. Norsk has this feature as do most of the lithium ion batteries I use on the ice…Strikemaster batteries, DeWalt / Milwaukee batteries, and Sony camera batteries to name a few.

I have no idea what other lithium sonar batteries are or aren’t offering as features in their batteries but I do know Norsk is doing it right based on my experience charging my 15 and 20.8 ah batteries after coming off the ice.

The new charger arrived and so I am charging the 7.5, I will report back the outcome… Thanks for all the informative reply’s!!

One other thing, I did find everything I needed to know on the NORSK website under the blog drop down… It will take approximately 8 hours to charge since it was fully drained…

Im impressed, it took under 6 hours to reach fully charged..

Well guys, here’s the answer from Norsk. Now I’m sure, none of the top batteries have the cold charging cutoff circuit. I bought a Norsk, and not sorry I did, but there’s going to be some warranty issues as time goes on. I bet they all have that circuit very soon.

Thanks for reaching out. Lithium batteries should not be charged while the internal cell temperature is below freezing temps. Doing so will not necessarily destroy the battery, but rather shorten the overall life. I would recommend allowing the battery to warm up a bit prior to plugging it in.

All the best,
Derek

From the Norsk Website:

Quality batteries, like the batteries offered by Norsk Lithium, have a Battery Management System (BMS) in place that stops our batteries from receiving a charge when the cells are too cold.

Essentially the BMS monitors internal cell temperature and interrupts the charge cycle if the internal cell temperature is too low.

Again, I’m not an expert and I’m suprised it says that. All have the BMS, lithium and LiFepo4, most have the low voltage cutoff, some have the hi temp protection (to keep them from burning up or exploding from fast discharge or shorting out) but not an actual cold charge cutoff protection. This sure seems contradictory to what Norsk responded to me with in their answer. But I’m just learning from all this too as we go through it and finding it very interesting. No wonder everyone gets confused. Thanks Ice.

Yup, I hear ya!!

Head over to ice hole powers YouTube site, he’s torn apart and tested a ton of batteries. Pretty in depth honest reviews.

iceager01 wrote:

I was going through my stuff making sure things would be workable for this upcoming Ice season

Big-time props to you, that’s the level of preparedness I used to try and be at before I had my two young boys. Kudos to you, I don’t even have all my bowhunting stuff ready and today was opener.

Cam White wrote:

Head over to ice hole powers YouTube site, he’s torn apart and tested a ton of batteries. Pretty in depth honest reviews.

Great videos, I’ve watched his and others. Lots of interesting stuff.