Dead Battery questions

[pete_c]

I have a computer that had a dead battery; specfically it was an LR2032 (3.6VDC) battery for the RTC. 

I did not have any spares so I went to using a CR2032 battery (3.0VDC).

The battery is inside an external holder using two wires (negative and positive) and only used for the RTC.
 
Will this harm the LR2032 battery protection circuit on the computer board? 

Am I OK with the substitution of the LR battery with the CR battery?

 

[mikefamig]

Pete
 
I think it is difficult for anyone to answer that question without knowing the circuit but the first thing that comes to my mind is why not just get the correct battery? Why mess around with something that is so cheap and easy to get?

EDIT

Generally speaking, using a lower voltage battery will cause the amperage to go higher than the circuit is designed for when under a load and that is not a good thing.

 

[mikefamig]

My guess is that it will work but the battery will have a shorter life than the original.

 

[pete_c]

Yes it is a Pine64 2Gb computer and the battery holder is a typically or same as you would see on a computer motherboard or laptop motherboard.
 
Randomly today decided to remove and check the battery and noticed it was at zero volts (dead) and I have had an issue with the RTC clock resetting itself when the computer was not powered.
 
I do not know why I had an LR2032 battery in place when it is a CR2032 that is recommended.  I was concerned relating to the battery charging circuit.  Then realized in order to use the circuit it is typically a 3 wire connection to the motherboard and not a 2 wire connection.  Well and it's been fine for 3 years now.
 
Both batteries are similiarly priced which was of no concern...it was the difference in voltage that was of concern and the battery charging circuit piece.

 

[mikefamig]

Some charging circuits are smarter than others. I would think that the charging circuit would overcharge the 3v battery in an attempt to maintain a healthy 3.6v battery voltage shortening it's life. A smart charger monitors the battery voltage as it charges it and will regulate the charging cycle on and off until the battery can maintain an acceptable voltage without the aid of the charger. The 3v batt may never reach that point and so the charger keeps trying and overheats and damages the 3v batt.
 
On the other hand it could be smart enough to deal with the 3v battery and treat it as a weak 3.6 volt battery. I did a lot of reading on charging in the past and forget much of what I read but i do know that all charging circuits are not created equal. Maybe someone here can offer more. RAL is my goto electronic expert here.
 
Mike.

 

[pete_c]

Thank you Mike.  Thinking I just originally used the wrong battery as there are only two leads plugged in to the motherboard.   They do sell a rechargable battery pack with three wires for use without the wall power supply.
 
The RTC appears to be working fine with the CR2032 battery.  IE: disconnect the power and reconnect the power and the RTC time remains correct.

 

[LarrylLix]

Thank you Mike.  Thinking I just originally used the wrong battery as there are only two leads plugged in to the motherboard.   They do sell a rechargable battery pack with three wires for use without the wall power supply.
 
The RTC appears to be working fine with the CR3032 battery.  IE: disconnect the power and reconnect the power and the RTC time remains correct.

Pete
You switched the discussion from '2032 types to '3032 types and repeated the latter several times.
 
The CR2032 is a non-rechargeable lithium  battery. If you attempt to use it in a 3.6V charger you could cause a nasty explosion. This was one of the reasons they were not released into the wild for 20-30 years.

 

[pete_c]

Yes it was a dead LR2032 and I replaced it with a CR2032.  The instructions call for a CR2032.  I corrected the switch over to the mention of a CR3032.
 
hxxps://www.pine64.org/?product=rtc-backup-battery-cr-battery
 
hxxp://files.pine64.org/doc/guide/PINE64_RTC_Backup_Battery_CR2032_Installation_Guide.pdf
 
I do not know why I used an LR2032 and it probably did die an early death way long time ago.
 
Here is the rechargable battery sold with 3.7 volts and 3 wires to charging circuit.
 
hxxps://www.pine64.org/?product=lithium-polymer-battery-us-only

 

[LarrylLix]

You likely changed it over to a rechargeable type during the era with the big push to save the world by using recyclable batteries and not fill our landfill sites with things that came from the earth in the first place.
 
Like most of the other urgencies, there was a hidden sales motive  and they never lasted as long as the disposable ones.

 

[pete_c]

Thank you Larry.
 
Yes the device has been fine ticking along since first using it ~ 3-4 years ago.  Never did bother to check the hardware clock until recently and noticed that battery was dead. 
 
I have updated it hardware wise installing passive heat sinks above and below the board (never really did get hot) and powering the board up via the Euler bus rather the the mini USB port. Software / OS wise updated the board to using Armbian (18.04 Ubuntu) with a single ext4 boot partition and OS which works better for me than the FAT16 boot / Ext4 OS partioning mechanisms (RPi like).
 
 

 ____  _             __   _  _   
|  _ \(_)_ __   ___ / /_ | || |  
| |_) | | '_ \ / _ \ '_ \| || |_
|  __/| | | | |  __/ (_) |__   _|
|_|   |_|_| |_|\___|\___/   |_|  
                                 

Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.73 stable Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS 4.19.25-sunxi64   
System load:   0.27 0.29 0.27      Up time:       14:41 hours        
Memory usage:  34 % of 2001MB     IP:            192.168.244.149
CPU temp:      40°C               
Usage of /:    21% of 30G        

[ General system configuration (beta): armbian-config ]

Pine64:~# date
Wed Apr 17 07:52:41 CDT 2019
Pine64:~# hwclock
2019-04-17 07:52:45.424000-0500
root@ICS-Pine64:~#
 
It is hardly working today.
 

 
Anyhow moving to the Octocore ARM and smaller footprint computer nowadays.