I just bought a used transponder and it appears to not be charging. Its a 7 year old transponder but the guy I bought it off of says he charged it recently and it gave him 3 blinks (for 3 days charge). It came in the mail yesterday and I stuck it on the charger overnight for about 12 hours. This morning there was neither a red flashing light or a green light saying it was done. When I pull it off the charger there are no lights. When I put it back on the charger it blinks for about 2 minutes and stops. Tested the charger with no load and its putting out 18 volts, and when the transponder is in the charger its putting out 15 volts. Transponder is showing 0 volts across the terminals off the charger. I also unplugged it and replugged it in about 20 times like I read to do on a thread here. Mylaps wasn't a huge help either and just said the battery is dead. I just want to make sure I'm not wrong in assuming this thing is shot.
Sounds shot to me. Get your money back or a large discount and send it in to get repaired. http://www.transponderservices.com/ I've heard good things about these guys in Australia.
sorry to say it is dead. Same thing happened to my old one. i was able to get a discount on a new one through mylaps with the trade in of the old unit. you need to charge them at least once a month to keep the battery good.
Yea its dead, seller agreed to give me my money back. Am I wrong to ask for the refund first or should that be given after I send it back to him and he receives the transponder?
seriously? you are worried about risking the loss of a transponder/paperweight? If he's offering money back I would have overnighted it to him yesterday. worst case you are out.... ummmmm nothing unless you collect paperweights
Well Id have the battery replaced by the guy in australia. Losing $100 is better than losing $300 IMHO. Thats what im worried about. Source: http://forums.13x.com/showthread.php?t=192817&highlight=transponder+battery
Anyone ever open it up, ditch the battery all together and just wire it to the motorcycle for power? Might need some kind of voltage converter but I doubt it if the charger puts out 18V from OP. No clue if this would work or what voltage the transponder works off but seems like it would cost less than the $100 to replace the battery and prevent dead batteries in the future too? BTW, mines dead too so I do have a stake in finding a fix, if there is one, besides Australia for crying out loud?:down:
Yep. I really did do a lot of research before going with the AMB peeps - especially given how much the initial cost was for us and all of you. However, it's worth it.
I wonder if you wired to the charge terminals? Would the current traverse the dead battery? Does the transponder function when it thinks it's on the charger? I'm guessing: won't work, no, and no Maybe I'm just out $100
it's supposed to go into "sleep" mode when it's on the charger, but not being charged. That lengthens the battery life to something like 8 days instead of the standard 3. I'm not sure if that actually works or not though... I had mine in the charger on the dash of my car for 80% of the weekend, and it still crapped out a day or two after I got back from the track.
I'm not sure how that works either. Ours don't go to sleep in the charging bays we have when there is no power to the bays. If there is power then of course they're charging. FWIW the charge time to use time ratio is about 1 to 3 or 4, so for every hour in the charger you'll get 3 or 4 hours of use before it's dead.
One thought: While the red blinking lights are very easy to see, the green ones, indicating days of charge remaining, are very hard to see. Try looking at it under very low light (like i a closet or something) to be sure it isn't taking a charge.
Is there a reason more people don't buy the direct powered unit (or maybe they do and I just screwed up)? 260DP? WERA compatible? As far as I can tell from a quick search they're the same price or cheaper. Pros/Cons?? Only Con I can think of is not as easily moved from bike to bike if you run more than one? Last time I posted about my dead Transponder I had at least one person offer to buy it as is. Could take that money, the $100 that I'd have to pay to fix it, and get pretty close to buying a new direct power unit. Then no more battery issues.
There are different versions out there... mine is pretty new and it does indeed go in to "sleep" mode... no lights at all... but it always works..! Ron
