Petzl NAO Battery Problem

My 2 year old Petzl NAO seems to have developed a problem. The low battery warning flash, which is supposed to be at about 25%, which is then very (too!!) quickly followed by a second flash and then a fade to the emergency level keeps coming on after about ten minutes use, despite the battery indicating all three green bars charged. Plugging it into the PC shows 70% charge remaining, even after a 50 minute run of faffing around switching it on and off to reset the low battery indicator!

Anyone else had this problem, and ideally found a solution? I'm loathe to buy a new battery as they are £50+ and its only been recharged a maximum of 20-30 times.

thanks!

Contact the dealer. I've had issues with a myo rxp which was well out of warranty and they just swapped it.

Cheers Matthew - sent Petzl and email, so will see what they say...don't want to throw the old one away though.

Hmm. They want me to send it to them for checking. Fair enough, but I'll have no head torch while it's gone so won't be able to run home from work!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stumpy

Hmm. They want me to send it to them for checking. Fair enough, but I'll have no head torch while it's gone so won't be able to run home from work!

---

Headtorches are getting like modern cars, far too much fancy, unnecessary electronics. WRT the Nao, why is it necessary that a headtorch has the ability to automatically dip the beam? Surely most competent human beings know when to turn down the wick and are capable of doing that?

I thought that at first, but it actually works quite well. The focussed long beam only comes on when you look up to see where you are going, whereas the flood is on most of the time, lighting where you need to see close up and are just about to put your feet. I'm presuming it saves battery life, but given the issues above I can't vouch for that - I've certainly never managed to get anything like the claimed 6.5 hours on the highest "reactive" setting.

Had a Myo some years back - after sales service was excellent but was needed too often - problems with breaking connections being the recurring problem. It may be that the Nao is more robust.

Up date on this issue....

After a full discharge and re-charge it started working again, but in the past few weeks, the ridiculous low-battery function started kicking in after about half hour, meaning constantly switching it off and back on to get home. When connected to the OS software, it would still show over 70% battery life! Even after leaving it on for 24 hours, it was showing 46%. Petzl said I needed to send it back, but that would leave me with no head torch in January!

They also said it was probably the battery, but I pointed out that it had only gone through about 50 charging cycles compared to the 500 claimed by Petzl. At £50+ for a new battery, I wasn't going to try that on a whim. It's just a 18065 battery with a soldered plastic connector after all!

Anyhow, came across a Nao "compatible" battery on Amazon yesterday for £17.60, so ordered that in charging it up. It's not only a 1/3 price, but is a higher capacity. Worth a gamble - I'll post what happens (if anyone is interested!).

Either way, I don't know why it has the low battery function - switching to low power when the battery hits 25%, with just one warning and then another minute or so of high power is no use to man nor beast!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stumpy

Up date on this issue....

After a full discharge and re-charge it started working again, but in the past few weeks, the ridiculous low-battery function started kicking in after about half hour, meaning constantly switching it off and back on to get home. When connected to the OS software, it would still show over 70% battery life! Even after leaving it on for 24 hours, it was showing 46%. Petzl said I needed to send it back, but that would leave me with no head torch in January!

They also said it was probably the battery, but I pointed out that it had only gone through about 50 charging cycles compared to the 500 claimed by Petzl. At £50+ for a new battery, I wasn't going to try that on a whim. It's just a 18065 battery with a soldered plastic connector after all!

Anyhow, came across a Nao "compatible" battery on Amazon yesterday for £17.60, so ordered that in charging it up. It's not only a 1/3 price, but is a higher capacity. Worth a gamble - I'll post what happens (if anyone is interested!).

Either way, I don't know why it has the low battery function - switching to low power when the battery hits 25%, with just one warning and then another minute or so of high power is no use to man nor beast!

---

Stumpy, would be interested to hear how the 'cheapo' battery fares. I'm currently in a similar predicament with my Aldi (Crane) GPS watch. When I bought it, it was discounted from £69.99 to £19.99. Currently 25 months into a 36 month warranty. With a fully charged lithium polymer battery showing 16 hours of battery life for GPS mode, when switching to GPS mode the battery goes flat in 1.5 - 2.0 hours. In pure time mode the charge should be good for one year, but goes flat in around 2 months. I'm guessing that the battery is shot? Turns out that 'expendables' such as the re-chargeable battery are only covered for 6 months. Plus I get NU tone when dialing their service agent (Kripple Watches, London).

I'll let you know WD. If I was any use with a soldering iron I'd have got a 18065 battery and connector of e-bay for around a fiver and done it myself, but I'm not!
Li-ion batteries in watches are not always replaceable I believe, but not sure about yours specifically.

Quick update.

Two runs done with the new much, much cheaper battery. First run on medium reactive setting, second on full beans and both around an hour. All good so far. Plugged back into Petzl OS and reading around 56% left, whihc is what I expected, so should get around 2.5 - 3 hours of decent light output before the stoopid low battery warning kicks in.