W8681 type batteries

[apenwith]

Hi
My station stopped transmitting a few days ago so I suspected the batteries. Actually the DCF clock stopped working some time back as did the humidity (stuck at 99%). The batteries I took out seemed to be OK at 1.46V (I use remote D cells so they should have lasted longer) so I suspect the contacts were duff and putting in the new was enough to clean them. The point of this is wondering if the erratic behaviour was a clue to battery performance. Anyone else noticed this ?? It might point to changing the batteries BEFORE the data is lost.
Regards
Alan

[6719jason]

Funny you should mention that Alan.

I think I may of had a similar experience last week as it happens, I awoke to find the Humidity down to -- (0%) and All the outside data sensors appeared to be giving values simply not possible for the conditions.
So, I hobbled outside, broke out the ladder and changed the Batteries in both the console and transmitter unit.
After around 1hr, it seemed to make a difference, figures returned to normal, everything appeared okay. DCF came back online and touch wood ( Knock Knock on Forehead), everything is now okay.

This did happen once before, I used some outdated battery type and ended up putting back in the manufacturers batteries, they are now replaced.

Jason

[apenwith]

Hi
I noticed something else when I changed the batteries. For ages now I've had a false reading on the rain counter of 16000 odd giving 5000 mm of rain. Previously taking the batteries out didn't clear this memory (there must be some sort of semipermanent memory) - this time because of time and bad weather it was several days before I could get out to change the batteries and the rain counter had reset to zero.
Regards
Alan

[Repairman77]

Hi, as a retired radio and electronics engineer I can tell you that the apparent failure of good batteries in any unit is nearly always down to poor battery contacts. If you are using remote D cells instead of the standard AA cells the best thing would be to hard wire them in by soldering wires to the actual battery contacts and then soldering these to the battery box if possible.
As the batteries usually last a year or two this would not need to be done that often so should not prove too tiresome.

Any unit with batteries that is outside and subject to the elements is likely to have this problem.
I had to do this with my Thermo-Hydrograph which kept stopping for no apparent reason.

Hope that helps,

Mike.