Prentke Romich Company
http://www.prentrom.com/support/article/888

Battery Information about the DeltaTalker - Calibrating your Batteries.

DeltaTalker Battery information.

Summary:  Charge the device every night if the unit is used every day.

The DeltaTalker will run for about 10 hours of normal use before you need to recharge it. You will hear a warning beep when the batteries are low. You will see BAT in the lower right corner of the display. When batteries are low, you will not be able to store or erase until you plug in the battery charger. The DeltaTalker will not lose its memory, even if the batteries go dead.

When the battery charger is plugged in, the battery charging LED flashes to indicate one of two battery states: when the LED is flashing rapidly, the batteries are fast-charging; when the LED is flashing slowly, the batteries are trickle-charging. This means the

batteries are full but they can continue to be charged. If the batteries go completely dead, charge them until the trickle-charge light flashes. This way you know you have a full charge. (You can use the DeltaTalker after about 15 minutes of charging.)

To find out how much capacity the batteries have left activate the BATT. STATUS tool in the Toolbox. You will see a battery gauge that goes from EMPTY to FULL (like a gas gauge). If a charger is plugged in, you will see either FAST-CHARGE or TRKL CHARGE. If the batteries are low and a charger is not plugged in you will see MEM. PROTECT. This means you cannot store or erase. When you see this warning, plug in a charger.

You may hear a strange beep and see B*T on the display instead of BAT. If you activate BATT. STATUS, the battery gauge is full of question marks and dashes. This means the DeltaTalker can no longer accurately gauge the battery capacity. RE-CALIBRATE

appears in the lower right corner of the display. When this happens, you must put your batteries through a full charge and full discharge cycle. This can take awhile, but you should plan to calibrate the batteries soon after you get the B*T warning.

 

How to Calibrate your Batteries:

When you see B*T on the display, plan to calibrate your batteries. The calibration cycle takes up to 24 hours. You cannot use the DeltaTalker while calibrating.

 

To begin the calibration cycle, you must have at least 50%  battery charge. Your device cannot be used or charger unplugged during the calibration cycle, so you will want to calibrate the DeltaTalker where it will not be tampered with.

 

  1. Find a secluded location for the calibration to take place and remove the keyguard and overlay from the device.
  2. Plug in the BCPS-1 charger into the wall and the device.
  3. With the device OFF and the Control Panel door up, press and hold the TOOLS and RECORD button at the same time.  While still holding, press the ON/OFF button also, then release all 3 buttons. Your screen should now read DEBUGGING MENU.  If not, turn the device OFF and try this again.
  4. In the DEBUGGING MENU select the NEXT MENU ITEM button on the top row of your keyboard, 7 times until the display reads CALIBRATE BATTERIES <NO>. 
  5. Select the CHANGE  ITEM key on the top of your keyboard.  All your lights should be on, on the keyboard below.  Your charging LED will not be flashing at this time and your display will read BATTERY CALIBRATION  DISCHARGING TO FIND END OF BATTERY.
  6. This process can take up to 24 hours to perform.  You will notice that the DeltaTalker will go through 3 series of charging and discharging the batteries.  The Calibration cycle will be completed when you see the slow trickle charging LED on the back of the unit.

 

The other possibility is that the DeltaTalker batteries may ask to be calibrated on their own without forcing the calibration. That's OK. Just plug the charger in. The DeltaTalker will beep and you will see "Calibrating may add 4 hours to charging. Press STORE to calibrate or OFF to skip." When you press STORE, all the LEDs will light and the display will read, BATTERY CALIBRATION  DISCHARGING TO FIND END OF BATTERY.  Step 6 above will be followed from here.

 

With regular DeltaTalker use, you will probably be warned to calibrate the batteries around every 64 days.