Vantage Vue battery dead already?

If everything else is fine it should run for months even without any sun on the solar panel.

aardvark, just curious, what type of “fancier new battery” did you get?

Aardvark
Is it a fuel cell type of battery? That would indeed be fancy :smiley:

I have 7 stations and the non -solar grind through the batteries. I had been putting in a standard battery that I got from the Battery Station in Missouri, they have a lithium that I have been using and I got to the end of my supply and decided to give BatteryJunction a shot as someone mentioned it here.

I opted for tht Titanium Innovations CR123A 3V Lithium Photo Battery 1400mah, http://www.batteryjunction.com/tpen-tcr123a-.html
I read the test results on the site as well as others and considering the fast drop out rate, I will give them a try anyway and see . I am home for the year, I think and if the battery is a bust, I can always upgrade.

I think it is the type or brand or country of manufacture that seems to have something to do with how quickly these batteries deplete and of course on a station that can produce interesting questions.

Thanks for the info. It’ll be interesting to hear how it goes. It’s always hard to know how those high discharge current ratings relate to lifetime in a very low discharge application like the Davis sensors. I generally use the Panasonic ones.

Do the stand alone sensors use supercaps like the ISS etc?

no, they pull off the battery. Unless they have a solar panel like the wireless anenometer transmitter or the soil moisture sensor, they run off the battery.

I did have each of those solar panel units need new batteries, but considering that they have a super cap in them and the battery is for low solar days, and we have had them last month with 23 days of rain…I would guess that I will be replacing their batteries before long.

OK, I wondered if they still had a cap so that the battery doesn’t see a pulse of current when it transmits, but I guess even that pulse is a very small current for these lithiums.

My ISS here faces west, and is shaded by a building, so it only rarely gets a direct view of the sun. Even so the battery usually goes a year or more.

I had to replace my ISS battery last winter and it went several winters… but it was colder than most and more snow and stuff, so the battery just wore out. not worried.,

I have run a cable out to my ISS and supply it with 4 volts of DC power

no more problems to worry about
(unless you get a power cut…which I dont anymore :slight_smile: )

That does solve a big problem, but with my case of the dreaded “Techno-Envy” with all the other stations I have running, that would be a lot of cables to send out.

IF the batteries are a bust, I can go back to others, but the cost was about right. If you buy a cr123A at Wall mart… it is over $5.00 per battery… so the bulk is cheaper for me.

Here is what Davis has asked me to do…THIS DID NOT RESOLVE THE PROBELM.

Please do the following steps below.

  1. Dismount ISS and take indoors where it is out of any sunlight.

  2. Remove 3 volt Lithium battery,

  3. Leave it in the dark overnight.

  4. Power up on sunshine with a “good” Lithium battery, press the button to check if you see the led lit up.

  5. Wait an appropriate time for reception to resume (5, 10, 15 minutes)

5a. Checking ID#s if necessary.

  1. If you still do not see the led lit up when you push the button then I suggest contacting our Tech Support@ 510-732-7814.

when the vp1 came out there were problems with the ISS board and they used a single wire for an antenna. They replaced in time the antenna and the iss board and how it was mounted. They also had problems with the uv sensor showing 0.3 units in the dark. They came up with all sorts of ideas,such as it was bounced radiation from a shopping mall miles away. Someone in germany figurd it out, it was a pin hole in the outer case. At night it drew in moisture as the sensor cooled and shorted the terminals. Davis corrected that by a software correction, modified the iss and so forth.

The VP2 needed a new solar panel on some units.

Over the years they have had issues with the ISS and I am certain the Vantage Vue might have been tested, but they might have faulty boards and solar panels.

I have a relative who worked for a leading radio communications equipment company (won’t mention the name). They developed it in the US, but it was manufactured in England. He spent many years of his life going over to the plant in England checking on quality control (His team developed the item and he is an engineer by the way). He said he found out the issue, the standards in manufacturing and quality control in the US was not the same as at that plant. Although it was monthly trips, he enjoyed that he got to keep his air miles and was able to send his parents and wife to a vacation far away fromwhere they lived . Africa? and that he found several pubs and eating places that were delightful. He also mastered driving on the wrong side of the road and feeling comfortable about it.

I am certain that you are blessed with one of the boards that the plant where they are made are not keen on quality control and there is a flaw. I would not only have them send you the ISS boards, but a new solar panel as well… The whole guts of the thing.

Thanks. They are sending me an entirely new ISS replacement. Lets hope this one is manufactured in the right place.

regardless of the unit,Vantage Vue or Pro… you have to keep in mind when mounting the battery end… that it is such you can easily take it down for repair.

My ISS is mounted about 5 feet off the ground, something I can get down with no problem, but mounting things on roofs or tall masts (such as my anenometer) can provide great data but getting them down for repair can be a bear.

My Amenometer sits 30 feet off the ground on a tall mast. As time progresses, I find my self unable to get the thing down, so I installed a second one closer to the ground so I can deal with it, should the other one break.

Where I am going with this , is that when you mount the Vantage Vue, one needs to think ahead, how hard will it be should I have to take it down several times, should things not go well… #-o

I already learned that one. Up and down the roof a dozen times this past weekend and am very frustrated now. I now have a 10’ mast that I am planning to use at the highest point of my property until I get this thing working properly. If the data reads well I may just leave it there so I am not going up and down the roof risking my life.

Glad it’s Davis owners and not me. Maybe it’s the fact the sheer number of Davis owners vs other brands on this forum, but I still see this nagging problem with this brand of station that makes me avoid it. Sounds like for some owners it becomes a headache and a huge money pit.

I’m not trying to troll; my opinions have been made clear in here regarding my criticisms of Davis. I also think they make the best units with the best resolution. The problem I see is the reliability doesn’t appear to reflect that.

I’m curious to know if I’m in the minority on that opinion. And wonder if I’m not, why it seems Davis has a hard time with station reliability.

I have to admit that I’m watching this thread with some alarm. I bought a Vantage Vue just over a month ago and, so far, batterywise it’s performing flawlessly (early days I know!). However, having had to mount the ISS on our roof, I’m sure not looking forward to multiple trips up and down should something happen :slight_smile:

Sorry to sound the alarm. I mounted mine on the roof in May 2010 and by July 1, 2010 had to remove it and am waiting for a new ISS from Davis. However, I have a friend who mounted his (Vue) on the roof in November 2009 and he has had no issues. Keep your fingers crossed, this has not been a pleasant experience. By the way this is not the only issue i have had. Bought the USB data logger and that did not work and they had to swap it out for the serial port data logger and there have been zero issues connecting to my computer now.

Fortunately, that’s a problem I’ve not had. I bought the serial port logger and connected it via a Serial-USB convertor and had no problems.

slightly miffed. You remember the titanium battery I put in that station? I see it is about a week to the day and I got a low battery on station 4 . So I went out and replaced it. I am hoping that the battery was a little defective and that is why I got the reading that I did. IF not , I am going back to the brand that i used to use. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that transmitter. It was free of critters and is just running a temperature station . so we’ll see. It would suck to have a herd of crappy batteries. Of course I can use them in my flashlights that run them.

That makes no sense, the current drain of those stations is very low so even if it was the world’s worst performing battery it should have lasted longer than that :?