Argon Battery Not Charging

Troubleshooting
1

Hello All,

My Argon was charging it’s battery last week, but after breaking and replacing the battery it won’t charge when connected to the Argon. The same thing is happening with three different Adafruit 3.7V LiPo batteries.

The yellow charge light does not turn on and I am not seeing a noticeable change in voltage when I check the battery in my application. My Argon is running 0.9.0

I haven’t found anything in the documentation or this wonderful community about battery charging issues.

Any help is appreciated!

2

@ParticleD, or @mstanley are you able to assist?

3

How did you break the battery?
Could this have also blown the charging circuitry?

4

One of the leads popped off while moving the device. I wondered the same about frying circuitry. Everything else seems to work normally.

Any idea how I might check that? Does that sound like something covered by a warranty? I didn’t catch anything that seemed relevant in Terms and Conditions.

Thanks for the help!

(I will pick up a LiPo charger in the meantime, since they’re so cheap.)

5

You can always file a support ticket at support.particle.io

6

@ScruffR, I did that too. I was just hoping maybe one of the wizards in here had a magical insight for me.

Thanks for your time.

1 Like
7

Can you post a photo of the loose lead? I assume you mean that a wire came loose from the battery’s JST connector? Could the loose wire have made contact with some part of the Argon and caused a short?

8

Hey Andy,

Thanks for reaching out. I believe we have your support ticket in the queue.

In addition, I do agree with @dougal that a picture of the loose lead would be helpful.

9

Sorry for the delay. Here is a picture. Both leads are loose, because while I inspected the first one the second popped loose.

LooseLeadLiPo
LooseLeadLiPo3258×2443 1.95 MB
It was connected to the Argon at the time so a short seems quite possible. I picked up a MicroLipo battery charger and my other batteries are able to charge, so it still appears that the Argon is the culprit.

Is it safe to assume that trying to solder something back on to a LiPo is a dangerous endeavor? They do have a bit of a reputation for 'sploding.

Thanks again for the help.

10

yeah, probably not a good idea to try to solder the wire leads to the battery leads. many hobbyists these days use a micro spot welder to work with batteries. the wire leads are first soldered to a piece nickel alloy and then that nickel piece is spot welded to the battery lead.

11

Hey Andy,

A couple of quick questions here:

  • Was the original battery that caused difficulties with the Argon a LiPo battery from a Particle product (as part of a kit or other Particle device)? If not, could you provide the battery model?

and

  • Just to confirm, no batteries are charging now with the Argon (including known good ones)?
12

Sorry, I was trying to show the broken leads but a label would be more helpful. The battery was purchased from Adafruit. It’s recommended for their Feather boards.

Also, the Argon has failed to charge two other batteries that successfully charge with an Adafruit MicroLipo charger.

Thank you again for your help.

battery_label
battery_label2443×3258 2.71 MB

13

Hey Andy,

Great info, thank you! I believe my associate @ParticleD picked up your ticket in our queue and will be assisting you further. He will be able to use all the information here. :slight_smile:

Thanks!