Steve Jobs from Apple was a true visionary. Having developed the personal computer, he hired John Sculley in 1983 to help run the newly created company. With limited technical knowledge, however, internal disagreements arose and Sculley kicked Jobs out of Apple in 1985.

At first, Apple did well under Sculley, but Bill Gates from Microsoft saw an opportunity and developed Windows with the graphics features that Jobs had developed. In time, Apple sales began to drop and in 1997 the board called Jobs back. It was then that Jobs noticed in dismay that Apple had milked the cow without feeding. None of the CEOs were visionaries. Milking without investment lasted 12 years and the company could have gone under without Jobs returning. They lost money and had a working capital for only three more months. Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple built the hugely successful iBook, iPod, iPhone and the iPad.

Cows need food to produce milk

Focusing on Diagnostic Battery Management (DBM), Cadex follows a similar path to Apple by designing innovative battery care devices. After a long sabbatical serving OEM in healthcare and defense, a new culture began with Management 2020 offering products that read the Reminding Useful Life (RUL) of batteries. RUL is the ultimate validation users want to assure system reliability. The Universal Supervisor Charger (USC) becoming available provides battery diagnostics with RUL.

Building a new Battery Culture is not new for Cadex. The C7 battery analyzer with the SnapLock™ battery adaptors and the Target Selector also created a new standard. Our new Cadex line products now feature AirShip and QuickTest in chargers and next-gen battery analyzers. New is Cloud Analytics that displays battery state-of-function (SoF) by Fishbowl icon and Battery History in a graph on a PC as shown below.

The Fishbowl appears when inserting a smart battery into a charger. The outer green ring reveals state-of-charge; capacity loss is revealed by the black ceiling gradually dropping to the Target Selector line with capacity fade.

Battery History discloses RUL by the angle of capacity decline towards the Target Selector line as a function of cycle count. Performance data are taken from the smart battery displaying a recorded digital capacity is 90% at a cycle count is 500. Meeting the Target Selector line, the USC prompts calibration, a service that can be done in-unit. Calibration brings the digital capacity in line with the real capacity. An increase will give added RUL; falling below the Target Selector calls for replacement. With CadexCloud, RUL estimates can be presented in years.

Data from smart battery draws the RUL chart

Additional features of the USC are the Batch Test to perform quality control of incoming batteries. AirShip prepares Li-ion for shipment and Calibration to align the digital capacity of a smart battery with the real capacity. The Validation Test checks battery performance in 30-seconds to prepare for field use, while the Endurance Loop automates field replacement as batteries fade. All test data is captured by the CadexCloud for record keeping and analysis.

Battery maintenance with Cadex devices ushers in Reliability-centered Maintenance (RCM) in batteries, a safety standard originally designed for the Boeing 747 aircraft and adapted by nuclear, defense and railway industries. Battery diagnostics has been lagging in reliability assurance, a standard that should be equal or better than other power sources.

Statistics reveal that half of equipment failures are caused by the battery. At Cadex we make all effort to strengthen the weakest link. We do this by embedding battery diagnostics in devices that run in the background with minimal supervision. The result is full use of each battery with prompt to replace before failure. Improved battery maintenance lowers the cost of total inventory, strengthens system reliability and protects the environment.