The NiMH battery provides enough power for this, immediately recharging when power is restored. If a power outage lasts longer than its defined “shutdown delay” time, the NiMH battery allows sufficient time for the JACE to perform an “orderly shutdown”, including saving the station’s database (config.bog) and all recorded alarm and history records.

However, a JACE without SRAM but with a weak NiMH battery is exposed to a different power outage issue—where the potential exists for data loss (since the last station save), due to insufficient battery power to complete an orderly shutdown. Potentially, this could also occur if enough power outages occur in rapid succession—draining the controller’s battery to a low level.

A battery-less JACE solves that problem, as all station-generated data (changed from that stored in its non-volatile flash memory at the time of power loss) is always preserved in SRAM. Upon power restoration, this data is “played back” in the station during startup, then saved in its non-volatile flash memory.