topic Re: Battery Light Red/Fault in Full Fibre

Battery Light Red/Fault

David_W — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 21:12:20 GMT

I have no idea why, but the battery pack which is plugged into the ONT shows a red light under Fault, Google suggests you need to change the batteries which doesn't seem right, it's not exactly old enough to wear the rechargeable batteries out. I know the battery is really just for the ability to use a phone line in case of power outage where you use a Fibre phone, so can I just ignore it?

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

SpendLessTime — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 07:59:44 GMT

I know this might sound stupid but has the lead from the mains adaptor plug become loose at either the mains socket or the battery pack so giving an intermittent connection?
If not, I would log a fault as I have no idea of which type of batteries are in the pack and some of the chemicals involved in rechargeable batteries can become unstable under fault conditions.
I would also directly connect the mains adaptor to the ONT while waiting for the battery pack to be sorted out. It is only a requirement for people who have FVA (Fibre Voice Access aka phone via the fibre) which is a BT Retail only product.

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

jim1985 — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 08:12:24 GMT

FWIW, the backup battery also keeps the data connection alive during a power outage, not just the FVA side of things.

I have had a couple of power outages since having FTTP installed and I can confirm 100% that my Internet access did not go down during the power outage

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

beeceegee — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 08:29:16 GMT

Quote from: jim1985
FWIW, the backup battery also keeps the data connection alive during a power outage, not just the FVA side of things.

It's not supposed to keep the data connection alive, just the FVA (as per the ONT manual!) but it seems to for most people. When first installed we had big problems and initially suspected the battery backup so with the engineer's blessing we bypassed it and ran the ONT straight into my own UPS. Opening the battery unit revealed just a few rechargeable AAs, as I recall. At the moment the unit is back in the loop, but any problems I will take it out altogether again.

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

RobPN — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 08:55:14 GMT

Quote
.... Opening the battery unit revealed just a few rechargeable AAs, as I recall. ...

I just checked mine which is sat on a shelf still in its box. It's an ECI type and the box contains 4 x AA NiMh cells. The battery cover is removed by sliding the left portion of the front cover to the left.
Photo for comparison:

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

David_W — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:06:50 GMT

Mine is all plugged in properly, no lose connections. I'm pretty sure that if there were a lose connection my Fibre would keep going down as the battery pack holds the power for the ONT. Being less than a year old, I can't imagine the batteries are worn out, and yeah, as said, if we have a power cut it'll kill power to the ONT which may not be a "good thing". Still got no idea if it's okay to Ignore or if a replacement should be sent out? Though as it's BT gear would it need an engineer, that'll be interesting.

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

RobPN — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 13:14:23 GMT

I don't know about you, but I know what I'd do. Assuming your unit is loaded with AA cells, I'd swap them for a known good set just to find out whether that solved the problem. If so, being in possession of an 'intelligent' battery charger/analyser, out of curiosity I'd then test the removed cells.

Re: Battery Light Red/Fault

beeceegee — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:23:56 GMT

Quote from: RobPN
Photo for comparison:

different one here...