Originally posted by William Brillinger on the RailPro Users Yahoo! Group on Jun 15, 2015
I received the following reply to my question [about Battery Life] from Ring:
Hi Bill,
"Can the software be changed to allow charging during use"
I am not sure. It is unlikely on a HC-1 but may be possible on a HC-2.
We do not give out specifics that may pertain to product design. Sorry about that. If there is a problem with your HC or the PA-1 we would be happy to help you resolve it.
Please do the charge discharge cycle describe below and report to us your run time on a charge. So far every HC we received back has run over 8 hours on a single charge and we know that we tested some that were used significantly and were over three years old.
The battery indicator is an approximate reading of actual battery charge. When the battery indicator reads full it is accurate and when it reads empty it is also accurate. In between full and empty it should be close. When the battery indicator turns red you have about one hour left. When battery indicator starts to flash you have exactly two minutes before it will turn itself off. The only way to be sure the HC-2 is charging correctly is to put it through a full discharge and full charge cycle and time it. So you should turn the HC-2 on and go to the adjustment and disable the Auto Power off feature. Then wait until it runs the batteries down and turns it self off. Then plug in the charger and note the time. When the charging is done it should be about 3 hours later. Then turn the HC-2 on and once again disable the Auto Power off feature and set the screen brightness to 50%. Also be sure to note the time. Check it about once an hour. When the battery indicator turns red it will turn off in about one hour. The HC-2 should run for over 8 hours when new. If the screen brightness is set to its lowest value the HC-2 should run over 12 hours from a full charge.
Things to remember about charging a HC.
If the HC is left off for a long period of time it looses about 10% of the charge per week. Even from a full charge if left unused for about 2.5 months it will be dead.
When you first turn on a HC, it takes about 1 minute to correct the battery gauge to close to the actual charge. If left not used from full charge for 5 weeks than when you turn it on it will first display fully charged. Then about 1 minute later the charge will quickly go down to about 1/2 charge.
If you press the reset button on the back of the HC the HC will loose its current charge state and default to nearly fully charged. The batteries may be dead and it will improperly display the charge level for several minutes. To recover to proper state you need to let the HC batteries drain to 20% or less and charge the HC. It should then display a proper charge level and run as expected. If you press the reset button and try to charge a HC shortly after pressing the reset, the HC will not charge properly. It will display "Done" charging and the battery charge indicator will show a full charge but it will drain quickly. Since the reset causes the HC to display nearly fully charged it will only allow a short charge and turn off (This is a safety feature to prevent resets and over charging).
When charging the HC it can not be charged near a heat or cool source. The HC should not be placed on electronics that produce heat or near a heater or cooling vent. The HC uses a more advanced method to detect full charge than the typical electronics. This increases the usable life of the batteries. The HC uses a temperature method to detect full charge and external heat and cool sources can cause the charger to terminate prematurely.
The ambient temperature needs to be in the acceptable range that is in the Handheld controller user manual. Charging outside of the acceptable range can cause early termination and proper charging will not be achieved.
Please let us know if you have any more questions.
Thank you for contacting Ring Engineering!
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Cheers,
- Bill
