Empty battery - No LED - No start - Advice needed

[WizardStan]

The voltage coming off the charger isn't necessarily an indicator of success. I just learned this first hand (anecdote: had an external hard drive plugged in, LED turns on, but the hard drive refused to spin up and USB connection failed. The charger was returning full 9 volts, but it turns out it just couldn't provide the necessary amps anymore for some reason. New adapter, all good).


That being said, it does sound like something in the board has borked. It wouldn't hurt to find some other adapter (any old PSP adapter will work, if you can borrow one) to try, but I'm not holding my breath.


The battery showing 0V is probably the internal cutoff circuit hard wired to just stop flow when it drops too low to keep the lithium from crystallizing. It should still be possible to charge it, but that should be a few minutes to an hour or so to bring it back to life: charging overnight and getting nothing is a bad sign.

 

[jamesgood72]

Thanks for all the input, all.


I know load on the power supply is important, but I don't have another 5V supply to use. And it sounds like my unit generated way more heat than you guys have had.


I've sent an email to Jacqueline, who's forwarded it to Craig. We'll see what he says. I wonder how long a replacement board would take...


SladeCraven: What happened to yours?


-James.

 

[craigix]

I think it's probably dead. It will have to go back to GC in Germany to be checked out.


Sorry about that, we can replace it pretty quick though.

 

[EvilDragon]

Hm, that would be the first out of 500 PCBs from GC with such an issue.


Could also be the battery - it's probably cheaper to send you a new one first and then see if that's the issue.


It COULD be the AC Adaptor as well. I know I had two broken ones so far.


It could very well be that it can't provide the power, so it might break down as soon as you put a load on it.


Can you check whether it keeps 5V when you connect it to the Pandora?


If you got a powerful AC USB Adaptor, you could also try if it works with that one.

 

[jamesgood72]

Thank you all for the replies... I am very special, it seems! Just my luck.


I've put it plugged it into an iPad charger (10W, that seems pretty powerful), with a mini USB lead attached. No life yet, but I'll leave it a little longer. Will the USB port charge exactly the same as the normal power plug, even if the battery has gone to 'safe' mode right now?


The AC adapter is sealed, so I didn't really want to break into it or the cable to check the voltage. I can if you think it would help though... Let me know.


The heat that the unit generated initially sounds bad though, doesn't it? Others have said that their pandy's done really get very warm at all.


Cheers,


-James.

 

[craigix]

It's the heat issue that makes me suspect it's dead.

 

[jamesgood72]

OK, Got the new battery, thank you very much. I didn't think I'd see any life out of my pandora again... But I did! It fired up perfectly, and I had about an hour of use from it. All seemed perfect, although the device was hot towards the rear center. I even saw the red light on for a while (charging?). But then the battery died, and no more power on. So I think the power management / charging part of my board is bad.


I took some pictures of it running some C64 and spectrum software, just to prove it was working, but my home broadband is down (yes, it's a bad week!) so I'm not able to upload to the forum.


I'll send the unit back to you Craig.


Thanks to all for the help.


-James.

 

[craigix]

This is what I suspected, the heat was a fault of some sort and it looks like it's the charging area.

 

[jamesgood72]

Thank you for all the support, Craig, ED and Jacqueline. All sorted now, and I have a Pandora to play around with this weekend. Very good service!