@#$%^$ cycle computer

After my training\commuting bike was pinched last week I decided to dust off
the mountain bike which has remained dormant in the shed for that last few
years.
Put slicks and some spare clipless pedals on it, removed a few layers of
dust and cobwebs and regreased and lubricated all the moving bits. Looks
pretty shmick now.

The last task was to replace the batteries in the wireless computer.
Simple, just unscrew the back, take out the old battery and put in a new one
.. . . . . . if only!
The old battery still had enough life in it to make the display work so I
knew that the computer still worked, but when I put in the new battery . . .
.. . nothing, the screen just stared blankly at me or gave a brief whimper of
life then faded out. I pulled it apart and cleaned all the contacts to
within an inch of their life, but still nothing! It sprang into life twice,
but of course that was while I had it pulled apart. When I put it back
together, just the same. Two hours later I had even less hair than normal
(which doesn't leave alot left!), and then I remembered those sage words
"google is your friend". On the Cateye site I found that to fix this
problem you need to put the battery in back to front (ie reverse the poles)
then take it out and put it in the correct way, something I never would have
thought of doing. Tried this and what do you know, it works!!! So it's
working now, but at what cost to my sanity?

Bruce(aaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhhh)A

On 2005-09-13, BruceA (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
"google is your friend". On the Cateye site I found that to fix this
problem you need to put the battery in back to front (ie reverse the poles)
then take it out and put it in the correct way, something I never would have
thought of doing. Tried this and what do you know, it works!!! So it's
working now, but at what cost to my sanity?

You can usually press the correct two buttons to reset it too.

It's just that it got into an invalid state by having an out-of-spec
voltage put into it. Reversing the battery would reset it by
discharging all the capacitors (but I would imagine could be quite
risky), and pressing the two reset buttons would do the reseting
electronically.

--
TimC
Look - a diversion! It's shiny! -- Daniel Stone

"TimC" wrote

You can usually press the correct two buttons to reset it too.

It's just that it got into an invalid state by having an out-of-spec
voltage put into it. Reversing the battery would reset it by
discharging all the capacitors (but I would imagine could be quite
risky), and pressing the two reset buttons would do the reseting
electronically.

Hmmm, good point. I was trying to reset it, but I didn't have the manual
either. It wasn't until after I had done the battery reversing thing that I
also found the manual online and discovered that I needed to press 3 buttons
to reset it! I had been pressing every combination of 2 buttons possible,
but to no avail!!

BruceA

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:53:45 +1000, TimC wrote:

It's just that it got into an invalid state by having an out-of-spec
voltage put into it. Reversing the battery would reset it by discharging
all the capacitors (but I would imagine could be quite risky), and
pressing the two reset buttons would do the reseting electronically.

Aaah. Now I've got a better idea of just what's getting fscked up in my
HRM's chest strap. Fairly regularly I need to pull the battery out and
reseat it to make it work.

Of course, I should just get it replaced under warranty, but that'd entail
actually doing something about it...

--
Dave Hughes |
"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs." -- Robert Firth

On 2005-09-13, Random Data (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:53:45 +1000, TimC wrote:

It's just that it got into an invalid state by having an out-of-spec
voltage put into it. Reversing the battery would reset it by discharging
all the capacitors (but I would imagine could be quite risky), and
pressing the two reset buttons would do the reseting electronically.

Aaah. Now I've got a better idea of just what's getting fscked up in my
HRM's chest strap. Fairly regularly I need to pull the battery out and
reseat it to make it work.

Of course, I should just get it replaced under warranty, but that'd entail
actually doing something about it...

If warranty doesn't fix it, I wonder if there is room in the case for
a really tiny capacitor across the power supply lines?

--
TimC
Speaker: They used an alcohol fog to visualize what's happening.
From the audience: That's always worked for me. -- From an astronomy talk