Low Battery Notification Gremlin

That last para could explain why newer batteries and Lithium batteries appear to suffer less from this bug. Like I said, I am on no batteries and still see it. So whatever you do, its not going away any time soon.

Like how the CS92A issue has hijacked my thread :rolleyes:

So far no more battery warnings yet (Been a few days now), just awaiting the next one and i'll have a mess about with the suggestions of DBMandrake.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DBMandrake

What is the voltage of the Alkalines you had in stock ? New they should be 1.61 volts. They don't have to fall too far below this before they'll report 2 bars, so its pretty normal for them to drop from 3 bars to 2 after just a few months but then they will stay on 2 bars for a year and a half or so.

I only use Alkalines on my system, previously I've used mainly GP Ultra from batterystation.co.uk as they're available in 40 packs at a good price, but recently I bought Varta as they were out of stock of the others.

I tend to have a 40 pack on hand not just for the heating but for the numerous toy cars etc our 4 year old has, so the packs of cells only stay in the house for maybe 6 months. Buying them a couple of years before you need them probably isn't a good idea.

I would be checking the battery contacts on yours, intermittent low battery alerts long before you're expecting them or with newish cells is usually due to poor connection with the battery contacts.

They're soft as butter so tend to sag over time. To test them I hold the HR92 with one hand and swing it down to thump it in my other hand - if the contacts are marginal it will usually cause the device to black out and reboot, if so the contacts need attention as you should be able to thump it down into your hand with moderate force without it rebooting.

With the batteries removed I use a small jewlers screwdriver through the bottom to bend the middle section of the two bottom battery contacts up a bit. It takes a little care but its easy when you've done it a few times. As mentioned in my previous post sometimes even the top shorting bar can bend out of shape as its so soft.

Yeah it's pretty poor that the battery contacts on the HR92 are so unreliable, but it is what it is and I've come to terms with it. I've had to retension the contacts on all my HR92's over the nearly 5 years I've had them to keep them working properly - some more than once now.

One new HR92 needed contact tensioning right out of the box as it was only reporting 2 bars on brand new batteries when I first tried to install it. Sure enough after tensioning the contacts it started reporting 3 bars.

Honeywell please take note and redesign your battery contacts using proper spring steel...

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Hi

I apologise for my late response but have taken the time to be away with others while I can. From memory, the batteries were typically reading around 1.54v under no load.
We returned yesterday to a cold living room so will follow your very detailed advice to try to fix things. It's the first big problem we've had with the system but I agree the hardware is sub-standard.

Swapped my batteries to Lithiums as and when required but have had 2 instances now of low battery warnings which were due to early "failure" of one of the installed batteries. Wonder whether the Lithium Energizers were genuine !!
Pity the Hub battery warnings seem to bear little relationship to the battery display on the HR92s.

If you have changed from Alkaline to Lithium, you need to tell the HR92 unit that you have done so as the voltages are different throughout the life of the battery...

Its parameter 9 you need to change

0 = Alkaline
1 = Lithium
2 = NiMH

Lithium batteries have a higher initial voltage and less voltage sag as they discharge compared to Alkaline.

So while you should indeed change the battery setting on the HR92 when using Lithium, failing to do so will actually cause the opposite effect - the HR92 will think it has more life left than it really does. It wouldn't cause a premature low battery warning.

Regardless, as in the original post I stated I've changed it to this.

Your thoughts confirmed what I though DBMandrake, about the opposite effect.

Still got the issue, but life has got in the way and i've still not got round to looking at it. Maybe i'll have a look tonight now this has prompted me :p