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Changing Lithium Battery on RF500 Series Transmitters

Battery Reordering
RF512, RF513, RF515 & RF516 transmitters are fitted as standard with a high power 3.6V Primary lithium-thionyl chloride C-size cell. Manufacturers part number Saft LSH14 LIGHT or Saft LS26500. The Saft LS26500 battery can only be used in transmitters manufactured after April-2009. The date-of-manufacture is encoded in the serial number. The serial number has the format MMYYxxxx where MM represents the 2-digit month and YY represents the 2-digit year in which the transmitter was manufactured.

Comark recommend that only the Saft LSH14 LIGHT be used in powered transmitters. The Saft LS26500 battery can suffer from short lifetime when installed in powered transmitters.

Only use Saft LSH14 LIGHT or Saft LS26500 as replacements. Use Comark part number: ‘RFBATT’ to order a replacement battery.

RF542 transmitters use a 3.6V AA lithium thionyl chloride battery; this can be replaced by any brand of 3.6V AA lithium battery.



Battery Change Procedure

The transmitter latches any low battery condition and must be powered off fully for it to clear. Waiting for the display to go blank ensures that the low battery status is cleared.








1. Disconnect all plugs from the transmitter and remove it from its mounting bracket by sliding it upwards.
2. Using a Philips No 0 or flat-blade screwdriver undo the two retaining screws and remove the battery cover.
3. Remove the exhausted battery and wait a few seconds for the display to blank.
4. Replace with a fresh one ensuring the polarity is correct and taking care to snap the new battery in cleanly without making and breaking the contacts repeatedly.
5. Replace the battery cover and do up the two screws taking care not to overtighten them.
6. Observe any local restrictions on disposal of the used cell.


Check for Transmitter Errors

The removal of the battery will cause the internal clock on the transmitter to reset and so generate a Code-100 condition. This will be cleared automatically by the Gateway, see “Transmitter Fault Codes” {Page 56} for details. Verify that the transmitter display shows either “No Code”, “No Fault” or “Code-100” only. Should a “Code-400” or “Code-500” occur after battery change on a previously working transmitter try removing and reinserting the battery, taking care to snap the new battery in cleanly without making and breaking the contacts repeatedly.

Gateway Indication of Low Battery

Once a transmitter shows “low battery” the radio is disabled, monitoring and data logging however will continue until the battery becomes completely exhausted. If a transmitter is left in a state of low battery for a long period, there may be many logged records awaiting transmission to the Gateway. On changing the battery the transmitter logs a “battery good” record but due to Automatic Data Retrieval (ADR) {see below} this record is only transmitted to the Gateway after any previously logged temperature records have been transmitted. Therefore it may take several hours before the “battery good” record is received by the Gateway which in turn clears the indication of Low Battery for the transmitter.


Automatic Data Retrieval (ADR)

The fact that transmissions between transmitters and the RF500 Gateway are acknowledged ensures that the transmitters know exactly which data records have been successfully transferred to the Gateway and those which must be re-transmitted. Therefore if the Gateway is temporarily unable to receive or transmit messages for whatever reason, data will not be lost during this period. When the Gateway is again able to receive and transmit properly the transmitters will re-transmit those records which were unable to be transmitted during the period of outage. This re-transmission of data happens automatically without user intervention and results in seamless graphical and tabular data with no gaps.













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