How's your Minimote battery life?

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 wasnā€™t swollen.

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Iā€™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 didnā€™t want me to return. Maybe Iā€™ll try replacing the batteries some day.

Iā€™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?

Iā€™m waiting for my batteries to ship from China as well. Iā€™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 youā€™re buying generation one minimotes ( they have numbers on the buttons), then theyā€™re old. Way out of their expected lifecycle. If theyā€™ve been sitting around in the back of a warehouse for three years itā€™s not surprising if the batteries have gone bad.

If youā€™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 itā€™s despicable that beach cam/buydig still sell theseā€¦I think that they know these are bad. Iā€™ve bought 3 in august of this year. they refunded me for all three, but didnā€™t ask me to return them

For what itā€™s worth, in the last 8 months Iā€™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 (itā€™s used as a tester for various things) and itā€™s still going strong

Just as a refresher on my experience so far with these old ones from buydig ā€¦ 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. Weā€™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. Iā€™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 itā€™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. Iā€™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.

Mine isnā€™t used much but goes dead about once a month. Is there a way to see battery level?

Fantastic. I have a few of these batteries, I think they go up to 500mah, but Iā€™ll have to check on the size.

Batteries arrived, first one connected (quick and dirty twisting of board/battery wires to confirm itā€™s working before I finalize and close it up) and itā€™s charging showing a red light. Gonna let it run for a while and confirm it charges and then start doing the rest (I have five to do the battery swap on!).

At a total cost of about $5 for minimote and replacement battery (and the fun of doing the battery swap in front of my family -ā€œHey, look, arenā€™t I amazing!?ā€) I feel like I made out like a thief! :D]

@destructure00 - many thanks for your info and pics!

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