How's your Minimote battery life?

Yes, it’s tough for sure. I broke the tiny little stub off one of the two posts but it went back together pretty tight okay.

EDIT: Well, it got me thinking again. I just discovered you can slide the sliding door on the front right off if you work it good. The posts on the bottom are then revealed! Doh! It looks like it may still be tricky to free them but it may help.

Yup, remove the sliding door by moving from side to side, LOL! Can see both posts now! Got the 2nd off easier. Have to work one of the post off using a tiny screwdriver, pushing screwdriver in from the side while putting pressure on the halves to separate. Once you got one post off just wiggle gently to get the other side off.

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I received my batteries on Monday. Haven’t had a chance to switch them out yet, but I’m encouraged by your experience :slight_smile: Maybe tonight…

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Replaced mine two nights ago, new one seems to be good. Took a charge and lasted more than 2 button presses anyway. Was your old battery swollen up pretty good? My new one is nice and flat but my old one was really swollen.

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No, the old one wasn’t swollen.

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I’m done with minimotes!! Just received my 3rd dead one in a row from Amazon/BuyDig/Beach Camera.

I just ordered the Remote ZRC-90. It has more buttons too.

@destructure00, let us know long term how your minimote surgery works. I have 3 minimotes that Amazon/Buydig/Beach Camera didn’t want me to return. Maybe I’ll try replacing the batteries some day.

I’m good one week later on a Minimote that previously did not charge at all.

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How is your charge doing on your battery replacement minimote?

I’m waiting for my batteries to ship from China as well. I’m hesitantly looking forward to doing this project. As I have no clue how to Solder, but I feel that I must " give it to the man" as buydig.com has let me keep their minimotes but have still given me a refund.

If you’re buying generation one minimotes ( they have numbers on the buttons), then they’re old. Way out of their expected lifecycle. If they’ve been sitting around in the back of a warehouse for three years it’s not surprising if the batteries have gone bad.

If you’re buying from an authorized seller (which buydig is not, nor, I think, is Beach Camera), then Aeon Labs should honor the warranty based on the date that you bought it.

Otherwise, you have to go back to the seller.

Just out of curiosity, Has anyone had battery problems with generation one minimotes from www.zwaveproducts.com ?

I think it’s despicable that beach cam/buydig still sell these…I think that they know these are bad. I’ve bought 3 in august of this year. they refunded me for all three, but didn’t ask me to return them

For what it’s worth, in the last 8 months I’ve bought 2 from Beach Camera via Newegg, and 2 from Buydig via eBay, all v1. All work well and hold their charges for 2-5 months based on usage. Never had one miss a press all these months. I love them.

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Eric, I have not had to recharge the one I replaced the battery in since the first charge. It gets about a dozen or more button presses a day (it’s used as a tester for various things) and it’s still going strong

Just as a refresher on my experience so far with these old ones from buydig … I have been lucky as only 1 had a charging issue. Above I said I had 5 others that were iffy but after a few charge cycles they now last several weeks to a month, sometimes longer (not as good as they could be of course). I will eventually replace the batteries in all of them. $11 for 5 batteries still makes them a better deal that buying the new version.

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I got my batteries in from China a few days ago. The original V1 Minimote battery is 100 mAH, the replacements are 120 mAH. I soldered up 2 sofar and they charge up fine. We’ll see how long the charge last with the new battery

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Just curious as to how you stripped the coating off of the existing wires before you soldered them. I’d be afraid that I would destroy it using regular wire strippers.??

Thanks

They are very thin. I used a sharp box cutter to trim the sheathing - very carefully. The wire is so thin it’s easy to cut in to the actual wire strands.

I use a box cutter to strip all wiring jobs. I always have trouble with actual wire strippers.

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Alright thanks.

I used a very sharp pocket knife using very little pressure, just soldered up #3, 2 more to go!

So I soldered in two new batteries to two bad minimotes. So far so good. I’m just wondering for those if you that have already done it- did you guys wrap a tiny piece of electrical tape around the Soldered part? So that it does not come in contact with the rest of the circuitboard?

Thanks, eric

Indeed I did. I forgot to mention that in my posts above.

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Yes I taped it up with electric tape. The new batteries are 100 mAh not 125 like I posted earlier.