xpr7550 connect plus and batteries

[darnalljason]

7 channel connect plus running on r2.6

all radios have been firmware updated to r2.6.5 and are working just fine on the system with GPS.

The only complaint we are getting from the customer is battery life they say it has went from 15 hrs when on analog to around 5 to 6 hrs on connect plus.

we opened a case with "M" and so far there response was thats normal

any suggestions or anyone else experiencing this issue

 

[phonebuff]

Sounds right, you have the GPS receiver active, you are sending data to the GPS application and you are listening / decoding the control channel now.

How old are the batteries, and are you conditioning them. Make sure you have the blue tooth radio off if you are not using it as well as the wifi radio if they are e models.

Might also look at how often you are sending GPS updates ?

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[darnalljason]

batteries

batteries are around 12 to 18 months old.

where would i look for the GPS update time not seeing that in the codeplug

I will turn off bluetooth and the batteries are left in impress rack chargers over night now wheter they let them run the condition cycle i cant say for sure

Sounds right, you have the GPS receiver active, you are sending data to the GPS application and you are listening / decoding the control channel now.

How old are the batteries, and are you conditioning them. Make sure you have the blue tooth radio off if you are not using it as well as the wifi radio if they are e models.

Might also look at how often you are sending GPS updates ?

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[phonebuff]

batteries are around 12 to 18 months old.

where would i look for the GPS update time not seeing that in the codeplug

I will turn off bluetooth and the batteries are left in impress rack chargers over night now wheter they let them run the condition cycle i cant say for sure

The GPS polling / reporting frequency is set by your application not in the code plug.

Maybe get a copy of the Battery Service application and connect it to the charger to see what they look like, I don't think it works with over the air on Connect Plus -

Check out Wayne's blog post on the subject -- http://cwh050.blogspot.com/2014/12/over-air-impres-battery-management.html

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[darnalljason]

battery

Yeah the GPS is turned on the radio but the client application is not installed yet as we are waiting on the devices from neoterra so they are perse being polled yet

yeah i have looked at a few batteries on the battery data reader some showed they needed reconditioning and some show they are good. I just cant beleive with minimal talking we cant get 8 hours out of a battery

 

[phonebuff]

Yeah the GPS is turned on the radio but the client application is not installed yet as we are waiting on the devices from neoterra so they are perse being polled yet

You will have to ask Neoterra or Motorola what impact enabling GPS but not enabling reporting has on battery.

Sorry, I can't offer any other advice, maybe someone else will pop in here -

 

[IAmSixNIne]

ON my Hytera PD682G and XPR7550 i accidently left GPS on in the codeplug with out actually using it for any applications and i saw a noticeable battery drain on both radios. The Hytera had more significant battery drain. By disabling GPS in both i almost doubled battery life.
However my radio usage is no where near normal. I use mine mainly for monitoring and very little talking. This is how i noticed the poor battery life in the first place. Through trial and error i narrowed it down to having GPS enabled.
Take 1 user unit and disable GPS in the codeplug and run it for a few days and you should see a big improvement in battery life. That wont help in the long run especially if the customer wants GPS but its a start.

 

[Ice-T]

You will have to ask Neoterra or Motorola what impact enabling GPS but not enabling reporting has on battery.

Sorry, I can't offer any other advice, maybe someone else will pop in here -

This is a big part of the battery issue, guaranteed. Enabling GPS without having an ARS (automatic registration server) to respond will cause the radio to constantly send out ARS registration requests, randomly 5 times over a 15 second period, every minute I believe.

 

[darnalljason]

ARS

Hmm but with connect plus i dont have a ARS server it pickes the gps up from the XRC so would that still be causing the issue?

This is a big part of the battery issue, guaranteed. Enabling GPS without having an ARS (automatic registration server) to respond will cause the radio to constantly send out ARS registration requests, randomly 5 times over a 15 second period, every minute I believe.

 

[phonebuff]

Hmm but with connect plus i dont have a ARS server it pickes the gps up from the XRC so would that still be causing the issue?

Yes, for Connect Plus the ARS & TMS settings do not play you have to setup that in Option Board Connect Plus part of the firmware and the user Application then
gets it's data from the XRC / XRT depending on the data stream and what's needed.

Wayne's entry might help you some -- http://cwh050.blogspot.com/2013/10/connect-plus-cheat-sheet-sample.html

But Again --

You will have to ask Neoterra or Motorola what impact enabling GPS but not enabling reporting has on battery.

 

[thassler]

We used Neoterra for some time and saw battery life degrade if the subscriber units couldn't register ARS.

 

[acc]

Another factor that is easily overlooked but could affect your battery life is the backlight. I noticed that when I left my backlight off, the radio would last about four hours longer than when I left my backlight permanently on with max brightness.

 

[darnalljason]

We used Neoterra for some time and saw battery life degrade if the subscriber units couldn't register ARS.

DId neoterra have a soultion?

 

[darnalljason]

Another factor that is easily overlooked but could affect your battery life is the backlight. I noticed that when I left my backlight off, the radio would last about four hours longer than when I left my backlight permanently on with max brightness.

Yeah backlight is off

 

[darnalljason]

One thing we have found out is that the 2.6 firmware draws about 2.5ma more power from the radio than 2.4 or 2.5 firmware.

r2.4 with analog, connect plus and gps enabled is 5.4 ma

r2.6 with analog, connect plus and gps is 7.8 ma