5
The product consumes about 10 to 20 mA when on, depending on the battery
voltage and whether it is beeping. This could be used to estimate run times on
rechargeable NiMh battery packs.
The “Battery Status” LED shows green for the first half of the battery life. As the
battery becomes weaker, the LED will gradually change to orange, and then to red
when it is at 6 V. From 6 V to 5 V, the LED will slowly flash red as there is only
about one hour of life left. A good quality alkaline battery could last around 28
hours or even longer. Below 5 V, the product will play a tune and turn off.
Make sure that the Potentiometer (Pot) Zero Calibration is correct. Perform a
sample reading. The product should beep as you lift the plate meter off
the pasture, registering the reading. The
Bluetooth®
link does not need to be
active to do this test. If the Phone App is connected, the “Wireless/Error” LED
should be blue and will flicker briefly as data is being sent to the Phone App.
If there is no beep and you continue to perform three sample readings in a row,
the product will likely play a warning alarm sound, and the Wireless/Error” LED
will blink four times red: “Ze-ro-Er-ror”. This means that the potentiometer has
not returned to “Zero” between each reading. No data is sent to the phone in this
condition. (Although the Phone App is notified of the error condition, so could be
enhanced to instruct the user to perform a zero-calibration procedure on the plate
meter). Every 20 seconds, the warning alarm will be heard until the product is
turned off, or a screwdriver is used to zero out the potentiometer.
