Solar Electron on lithium at -43C

Sad to report that Spudnik-09, running on an electron and lithium battery (Water Monitoring in cold, remote locations with a solar Electron) died in the latest arctic assault on Minnesota. When the temperature got to -43C Spudnik-09 in the Minnesota Iron Range winked out. After running independently for more than 2.5 years and 2.5 winters, the extreme cold was too much for her. The lithium battery supplied with the standard electron kit worked through several bouts of -30C but the latest -43C temperature was too much. When I can recover the unit in spring I’ll be able do a more complete diagnosis. RIP :frowning:

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:trumpet:

I’ve been using these cold weather LiPo’s with great success up in Northern Canada. 2-3 times more $$$ than the Particle LiPo.

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Thank You! @magchecks I’ve been looking for real low temperature LiPo’s for a while. There are some advertised out there that, when you read the fine print, are good only down to -20C. Can you tell me how low these have worked for you?
It was -50F(-45C) in Minnesota the other week. I’ve used standard LiPo’s to -30C so I’m hoping that these -40F(-40C) batteries would survive occasional temps below -40 .
thanks, john

It was that cold here here too last few weeks and they performed well.

Here is a link to a PCB mounted battery holder that I use which can handled these protected 18650’s that are a bit longer than the traditional 18650 cell.

https://www.batteryholders.com/part.php?pn=BK-18650-PC2&original=Li-ion%2018650&override=Li-ion%2018650

That’s great ! thank you , they are tight in standard holders.

This looks like maybe the same battery at a better price.

both appear to be based on a panasonic battery

Flashlight World ( Canadian Company ) has several cold weather batteries . I think just grabbed the link to first one in search results.

is specifically the one I use.

Klarus is a good battery though.

With exchange it would cost me $32 plus shipping here

There are all sorts of shipping restrictions on Li-Po batteries too. Almost always have to be shipped by ground

After over a month off-line Spudnik finally came back today (March 22) to report twice. It’s still reporting a low battery but now with just enough charge to connect to the particle server every 7 hours.
The weather has been well above 0C and sunny for many days in the last month but apparently the battery needed a long time to recover from the -43C in February. Keeping my fingers crossed that battery improvement will continue or at least stay steady 'till I can get up there to do a replacement.

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