Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Two weeks ago I installed a fresh set of Energizer Lithium batteries, and used it for about a min or two. Today I updated the firmware, and after a few test shots, batteries are dead already. Total "screen on time" probably less than 60 seconds. We are talking a total of 10 or 15 pictures!

This is insane. I have stuff with way larger screens, speakers even, that use a similar battery setup, and will run for hours and hours. At this rate the CC will use more dollars in batteries every year than it cost.

I wonder if this thing is pulling current 24/7, screen on time being a non issue. Maybe an off switch aint such a bad idea?

Brian

Sounds like a flaw. I've run Lithiums for 12 hours of continuous screen-on and months of standby.

I'll keep a close eye on how this set lasts and let tech know the results. If she's out of spec I'll send her in.

Brian

Have you tested teh batteries to see if they are low on voltage, or is the CC non-responsive?

When I get home, I'll put them on the meter. I might even have the prior set sitting there. Other than voltage, is there anything else I can test for with a standard multimeter?

Brian

Not that would be helpful here.

I presume since you will be putting them on a meter, you have not yet? If that is the case, remove teh SD card and see what happens.

You could interrupt one of the battery connections and place a microamp meter in series, let the unit go to sleep and see what the current draw is. Don't quote me exactly, but I believe the sleep current is on the order of 35uA.

Metered the voltage on the "dead" AAA's, all read between 1.6 and 1.7V. Doesn't sound very dead to me! I was assuming the batteries were dead when it would go black and not respond, the only thing that would wake it up was a new set of batts. (really glad I wasn't tossing the old ones)

The next time (if it does) this happens, what else should I try to wake it up? Card doesn't seem to be corrupt, I used it for the software update, and seems to work fine.

Now about the meter in series thing Paul, I'm kind of a tard when it comes to electronics, dumb it down a notch so I know where to put the probes.

Brian

Paul beat me to the current measurement idea :-)

What he meant by "in series" was, if your meter can measure currents of the milliamp/microamp range, devise a way to connect one of the battery contacts and its CyberCommander terminal through the meter rather than directly, while leaving all other connections as normal.

The most straightforward way of doing this that I can think of is take a couple of inches of the double-sided Scotch tape and paste a strip of aluminum foil (Renold's Wrap, etc.) almost as wide on each side of the tape. This would form a 1/2" x 2" sandwich of two pieces of foil and the double-sticky tape in between.

Now take out one of the batteries from the CC and put it back in such that one tip of your foil sandwich is jammed between one of the terminals of the battery and the appropriate CC terminal (which, if the battery is inserted normally and the aluminum sandwich strip weren't there, would make contact directly). It does not matter which battery or which terminal - just make sure the two pieces of foil do not become unstuck and touch each other in the process. You can confirm it's fine if the resistance between the two pieces of foil is very high (over a million ohm) or your meter shows a broken circuit. Now you can use any non-metallic or insulated clamp to get the two probes of your meter touch the two respective sides of the aluminum sandwich strip you've made.

If the connection is secure and your meter is switched to the current / milliampere metering mode, you can try turning on the CyberCommander. If the CyberCommander works but your meter is showing 0, try switching to micro-ampere range if you have it.

Please note that I am just a fellow forum participant (albeit with an EE degree) so unless Paul or TS approves please proceed at your own risk.

Also if it is confirmed that the batteries that CC considers drained, are in fact nearly full (a high open-circuit voltage alone is not enough to confirm that this is the case), the culprit must be not the high drain current but an unusually high minimal usable battery voltage requirement of the particular CC unit in question.

Good luck
Alex

Thanks Alex,

I have two small humans (children) tormenting me right now, so I will have to try this tomorrow. My engineering education leans more towards the construction end of the stick. EE classes 25 years ago made my skull hurt. Electrons smectrons, I've never seen them varmits, how do I know they're real. ;)