How to decrease the battery consumption on the rMS
(Shearwater 3.6V battery and external 9V battery)
Some information on power consumption in your rebreather:
- All electronics in the rMS consume battery power also during ‘sleep-mode’: the Predator, the battery box, the O2 sensing board and the Solenoid board, because they are not really ‘off’, but only sleeping in ‘low power’
- The Predator’s internal 3.6V battery consumption is highly dependent on the brightness of the OLED display: when set to ‘high’ the consumption is twice the consumption of setting ‘low’
- In ‘surface mode’ the rMS consumes more power then in ‘dive mode’, because it scans the temperature probes far more often, as there is more temperature variation during the warming-up of the scrubber
- When the canisters are not installed, in surface mode, the consumption of the rMS is much higher then when the canisters installed, as the rMS will try to make contact all the time with the temperature probes.
- When the 9V is not installed, all the boards will take power from the internal 3.6V battery.
- Solenoid firing is the highest current drain from the 9V battery: if the solenoid is continuously firing at the maximum duration (for example at the surface, O2 tank closed, set-point higher then actual PPO2), the 9V battery will be drained in less then 4 hours! So the less the solenoid has to fire, the longer the 9V battery lasts.
All this leads us to the following recommendations:
If you want to save battery power:
- make sure you have the latest software installed on all electronics
- only use high quality 9V batteries
- if you’re not diving for > 1 month, remove both the Shearwater battery and 9V battery (if you only remove the 9V battery, the rMS boards consume power from the Shearwater battery, and that one will even drain faster!)
- set the display brightness to ‘auto’ or ‘low/medium’
- do not leave the Predator ‘ON’ at surface for no reason, especially not when the canisters are not installed
- at the surface, when working on your unit, set the set-point to .19
- dive in hCCR mode, and be pro-active during ascent: inject O2 yourself before the rMS wants to inject (it is even much more easy to control your buoyancy this way)
Remember: change the Predator battery when the Voltage shows < 3.3V
PS: if despite these recommendations, you have excessive battery consumption (like multiple 3.6V batteries over a few months, without much diving), contact rEvo HQ or service center: there might be a specific problem.
If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact us
