yeah you can. but i must say, having had this pump for 36 hrs, i have already fallen in love with the suspend. during the day, it alarms me when it suspends, during the night it does it on its own. you can all set this in the settings, you have various options:
alarm before low/high
alam when low/high
suspend before low
alarm when insulin delivery is continued
thanks. Iāve never felt that basal was going to kill me during a low. when Iām low I eat. when Iām asleep and I get low itās just an annoyanceāitās not life-threatening, unlike back in my bad old MDI-no carb countingāR insulin-no meter days. 
And like I said, the most likely time a sensor will show low erroneously is when we are in bed. I donāt want to get high because the pump has decided on itās own to stop my basal, as that WILL cause me to elevate prior to getting up in the morning as I have DP.
How is the battery life? How many days have you gone on an either an alkaline or rechargeable? When I use CGM on my 530G, battery life is quite short. The worst is under 8 days and the best is a couple of weeks. Without CGM, I can get more than 3 weeks. I hope its not much shorter on the 640G!
1 Like
Yes, a good question that I donāt recall seeing anyone ask before now.
For whatever itās worth, I do know that the 640G probably requires more power since it uses an AA cell versus the AAA cell for the earlier pumps. My guess is this is at least partly due to the color screen.
Could you also let us know if Medtronic is still ultra finicky about which batteries we āneedā to use, @swisschocolate ?
In the past the company has always (strongly) suggested that we use Energizer alkaline batteries. It has to be alkaline. Not carbon-zinc or lithium, and definitely never a rechargeable. I think I once saw an assertion from Medtronic that their electronics is somehow tuned to the voltage of that brand. That sounds preposterous to me, but ā¦ what ya gonna do?
I once argued with MM tech support about batteries. Turns out the lady was 100% correctāthe MM pumps donāt like Duracells. They will fail in a couple of days OR LESS. And when they fail, they fail without warning, which is a real bummer as the pump stops altogether. Therefore, we only use Energizers which work fine.
no idea yet. after 4 days, the battery is already a bit decharged (screen of pump tells me that). but i will be able to tell the first time i have to change it.
new pump works with AA batteries. Rep told me to use lithium ones, they would work best. but she has told me (as far as i can remember) that basically every battery should work, (also rechargeable) BUT the pump can always refuse the battery if it is not fully charged or for other reasons.
the pump does need more energy, since it has a color screen, also with the transmitter/ CGM, which uses also a lot of energy. pump rep told me batteries should work approx. 2 weeks.
Weāll see.
anyone know a good place to buy lithiums? I get 24 Energizers for roughly $17 and each one lasts about 2 weeks or a bit more. Thatās about 35 cents per week.
Sheās not supposed to say that! 
Let us know if the MMIB (Medtronic Men In Black) show up and ādisappearā your rep for not sticking to the company script.
On the other hand, maybe something actually changed with the 640G and the battery policy is no longer quite so, uh, ludicrous & asinine? If so, that would be nice. Be still my beating heart ā¦ 
yes, it would be nice to use the very cheaply priced Duracells at Costco.
Actually, my understanding of the Medtronic company talking points on batteries is that you are completely free to use Duracells right now with your 530G. Itās just that you will get the extremely poor results you described earlier.
I was thinking more about her rep asserting that @swisschocolate is free to use lithium batteries with her 640G. I believe that lithium batteries are explicitly not allowed for the earlier model Medtronic pumps.
I have considered ignoring that warning and trying out lithium anyway. However, I vaguely remember reading some cryptic company assertion that the firmware in the Medtronic pumps is somehow tuned to the typical discharge characteristics of (the Energizer ?) alkaline batteries. I got the ā¦ possibly mistaken ā¦ impression that using lithium with the (pre-640G ?) pumps could confuse the firmware. Heaven forfend!
I sometimes wonder if Medtronic asserted that I needed to touch my nose at least once every 30 minutes for my pump to work well whether I would do it or not. I suspect I would try to. 
So I am also not convinced yet that this rep is correct in saying that using a lithium 1.5 volt AA battery with a 640G is endorsed by Medtronic. I actually donāt know one way or another, of course. But using a lithium battery seems to make so much more sense to me that Iām immediately suspicious of the suggestion Medtronic would allow it. If feels so out of corporate character for them. 
from what i understood, you can use any AA battery, but the pump can refuse it right after change if it is not happy with it or you get a shorter pump life. this is the battery i got WITH my pump FROM my pump rep and it is the recommended one they tell you would get best results with:
1 Like
Well, to repeat myself, be still my beating heart! 
Wow! This does appear to be what Medtronic is saying in their training material (screenshot below).
On the other hand, if you are only expecting to get two weeks from a lithium battery, that sucker is definitely not a low power device. 
I look forward to hearing what the actual battery life turns out to be.
How have you and your Enlite been getting along. Hope itās all still mostly good. 
I know you werenāt asking me, but Iām on day 14 of my Enlite. Sometimes they are good for 10-12 days and other sensors arenāt worth squat. I get bummed when I hear people canāt get any good data from their Enlite sensors, not that mine always work, but at least MM replaces them for free.
swisschocolate, do you have to unlock it every time you wake up the pump? Is it mandatory?
Yay Medtronic for successfully copying Tandem with a color screen and Home Screen displaying Active Insulin. There are sensible feature additions such as being able to cancel an ongoing bolus right from the bolus screen vs suspending. Looks like bolusing is 6 steps vs 4 on prior models due to a mandatory (?) unlock process and no dedicated Express Bolus button. Amazing that Super Boluses and Super Corrections are still not offered by any pump company. I like seeing the current basal rate when setting up a temp basal which saves a few button presses when doing Super Bolus/Super Corrections or activity offsets. Good to see presets for Temp Basals and Boluses (including Square/Dual boluses). The lock feature is a downer.
The fastest way I see my IOB on my MM Paradigm, or Revel, is to hit the UP arrow once (that programs the first step of an Easy Bolus). If I hit no other buttons, it will time out, therefore not giving me a bolus.
I complained to MM many years ago that they didnāt place IOB on the home screen. Iām sure it irritates all of us MM users.
I hadnāt noticed this before. It appears to be an additional āsafety featureā which Medtronic has added to the 640G. Possibly it is a consequence of the slightly different ābuttonsā on the 640G. The stated purpose of it is to prevent accidentally activating (aka ābutt dialingā) your pump.
Unlocking is supposedly only needed when waking the pump from āsleep modeā. If the pump has not gone into sleep mode and has only turned off the screen backlight to save power, then unlocking does not appear to be needed. I have no idea if one can change the period of inactivity before the pump goes into sleep mode. Probably?
The procedure to unlock the pump appears to be just pressing a single button which is called out on the display. (See screenshot below) While potentially annoying, my gut feeling is that this is something I would soon do āon autopilotā shortly after starting to actually use this pump.
Note: I stepped through the āStarting Your Pumpā section of the āLearning Modules for the 640Gā on the Medtronic Australasia site, www.medtronic-diabetes.com.au/. Thatās where I obtained the screenshot above.
Huh. Thanks. I never activated Easy Bolus on my pump since it didnāt seem like anything I would ever use so I never knew about that. FWIW, instead of waiting for it to ātime outā you can also just press either Escape or Down arrow 
to cancel and exit the Easy Bolus.
Tx John for your reply. Locking the buttons against accidental butt-bolusing is not the worst idea but if it were possible to disable the feature, I would.
NOt sure why medtronic claims that there is less button pushing on the 640 than previous models. It takes 2 button presses just to wake it up. With my 530 I can give a one increment easy bolus in 3 clicks. It takes more on the 640.
holy moly so many questionsā¦ 
first of all, yes, you need to unlock, and afaik there is no possibility to shut it off.
BUT there is still an easy bolus, so you can still bolus with the same amount of ckicks as before without unlocking.
the unlocking can be a bit a pain in the ā ā ā at times, especially if i want to just check my graphs from the CGM.
the color screen seems to be quite battery draining, but hey, i charge my phone every night, so 2 weeks is still a lot compared to other tech devices 
CGM so far so good, had a bummer on monday when the sensor just decided to stop working, but my pump rep is sending me another one. still not sure why exactly it quit, but i hope it was a one time only.
2 Likes
how come a pump rep is sending a sensor? Iāve not heard of that. I call MM support and they send me replacements. btw, Iām on day 15 (it will be day 16 in 3 hours) of my current most-awesome-sensor-ever.