Hello,

I have a pretty general question about the drainage of a 3V button cell battery (CR2032) when powering a 3V DC motor (I sadly haven't got documentation of the current drain of the motor but this might be something to do with the answer).

When first switching on the circuit (simply the battery leading to the motor's terminals) the motor spins at a high RPM. However, after about a minute it's evident that the motor is getting weaker and slower, until about 10 minutes later when it is barely switched on. I've tested this, and if I give the battery a break for a couple of hours and try again, the motor is powered up at a high RPM again, and the same thing happens.

I was wondering what the cause of this drainage is, when it makes more sense to me that the drainage of the battery should be more consistent and not 'power-up' again after a short break.

This might be a really silly question but you are all so helpful on this forum that I feel comfortable enough asking. It would also be great if there was a solution I can do some research into so that the battery remains consistent when powering the motor.

Thank you very much!

 

Unless I am way off, it looks to me like you are seeing a normal effect. The motor RPM decreases after about a min because the battery is draining and the voltage is falling. Then, you give the battery a break and you see some charge recovery - that is the voltage increases a bit. This is known to occur:

See here "When power is extracted continuously voltage decreases in a smooth curve, but the recovery effect can result in the voltage partially increasing if the current is interrupted."

This will not, apparently help the battery life with regard to how much total charge you can remove see Fig 11 here

The solution is to use a battery with a higher capacity. Those little coin cell batteries like CR2032 do not have much capacity measured in mAh.
Look at the capacities of these coin cells vs others.