Senator module issue with battery
 

Hello again everyone.

Now it was my Senator modules turn to develop an issue.

I noticed the CR2032 battery was almost dead 0.6v so I replaced it. (19 year old original)
The senator module will not boot with new battery.
I did try another brand thinking there may be something wrong with the first battery.
Same result. LCD frozen with some lights coming on the board.

Installed with correct polarity of course and pressed reset button just in case.

I see the new battery dropped voltage from 3.2v to 2.6 within minutes hinting something is draining it fast.

1 - The senator boots and works perfectly with no battery installed.
2 - The senator boots and works perfectly with the 19 year old battery which has 0.6v left.
3 - Senator fails every time with brand new battery installed.

I love to get advice from members.

Thank you
Murat

AW: Senator module issue with battery
 

Hello Murat,

The CR2032 battery must be a rechargeable battery and not a normal battery.
I hope this hepl you

Many greetings
Markus

Re: Senator module issue with battery
 

Hello Markus.

The manual says to replace the battery every 12 months.
I did assume it is a normal lithium 3volt CR2032.

So I did replace it with those.

Are you suggesting I should use rechargeable?

Sorry about the confusion.

Murat

AW: Senator module issue with battery
 

This is not right - Magellan has a normal CR2032 battery - why should Senator have a different one?!
Same module without the memory which makes it a Magellan.
I use normal ones in my Magellan without any problems.
Sometimes a reset is needed..

Re: Senator module issue with battery
 

I discovered this thread from 2 years ago.

https://www.schachcomputer.info/foru...hlight=battery

I wonder if my senator came with a dead battery when I bought it brand new. Since it was unused for 19 years until recently.

Maybe I am one of the unlucky ones with bad circuit.

I will purchase a third brand so far I tried Panasonic and Energizer.

I suspect faulty circuit. But luckily the module works perfectly with no or dead battery.

Still learning :)

Murat

AW: Senator module issue with battery
 

Have you tried to reset (ACL) several times? I experienced to do this several times when
Magellan is not responding, then suddenly it works again.

Hope you put in the battery the right orientation ;)

Re: AW: Senator module issue with battery
 

Yes to both questions :D

AW: Senator module issue with battery
 

Hi Dizzy,

I had a Magellan module until about 1 year ago. It had a rechargeable CR2032 installed. The module worked perfectly with it. Perhaps this battery was installed by the previous owner?

best regarts
Markus

AW: Senator module issue with battery
 

Thanks for your information - I have a Magellan since I bought it in 1998.
This had a normal battery from the beginning. As far I remember there are no
information in the manual about a rechargeable battery being in it.
if there had been one, it would have been mentioned, I guess.

These whole information leeds to the conclusion, that Murat has a defect in his Senator.
I won‘t hope so, but it seems to be very probable.

Maybe there is a problem with the battery circuit because Murat said, that without a battery it works fine… very strange.

@Murat: maybe you try to press and hold reset for a while and
press ‚go-button‘ and or ‚ENT CL‘ buttons as well - but I guess you tried it already :)

People, have a nice Sunday!
Tom(my)

Re: Senator module issue with battery
 

Hello,

I'm not an electronics engineer, but if you look at the diagram (http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/Mephisto_Senator.pdf),
you can see that the battery feeds capacitors C5 to C10,
but these are the components that age the worst, by changing capacity but also by increasing their leakage current...
Page 2 indicates the current consumption of the stop mode, from 2 to 10 µA maximum: you could check this with a multimeter
the value consumed by the battery in this stop mode.
If it's over 10 µA, change the capacitors, starting with C5, which is electrolytic and has a high capacitance (and also C3).

Cordially.

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