GC2 Charging/Battery issue

[farley]

Recently I bought a used GC2. Used it for a couple of days with out plugging it in charge. The GC2 was working perfectly fine. It appeared the battery died so I plugged it into the charger. I see on the fourms everyone says when you plug it into AC power it should show 8.5v at start up. When mine loads it shows 5.6-6.6v. It will turn on, then shut off after a few seconds. Even when plugged into AC power the unit will shut off in the same manor. I bought a new charging cable to make sure that was not the issue and nothing changed. Any ideas on a fix?

[wjf67]

Hi, similar scenario for me with regards to the battery, although I didn’t have the same issue when I kept the unit plugged-in to the mains.

Still, I wanted a fully-operational battery, just in case. £100 from Foresight UK but I found a company in the UK who rebuild batteries (£40 inc postage), so I sent them mine and it came back within a week. Works well.

sales@countybattery.co.uk

I hope this helps.

[gohandbz8]

If you are located in the US, you can go to any batteries plus to have the battery replaced. I would suggest you take it out of the GC2 and take it to them. There are youtube videos of how to take it out of the unit.

[Ronsc1985]

You may or may not need need a new battery. If you are using a Foresight supplied battery charger or surely some other brands, when you completely discharge the battery i.e. well below the normal voltage level, these type chargers will not initiate a new charge cycle. They require some minimal battery voltage to initiate a charge cycle I suppose so the charger does not attempt to charge a pure short to ground.

You can jump start the battery by connecting it to an old style battery charger thru a resistor of 100 ohms or by connecting a current limiting power supply. Places like Battery Plus in the USA will check the battery pack and rebuild it if required for about 30 bucks

[farley]

Ok I have a Battery Plus store close by me so ill have them rebuild it. Another question is if you remove the battery and plug in the gc2 should it still be able to turn on? If so mine does not with 2 different power cable adapters

[Ronsc1985]

It's been awhile but if I remember correctly the unit will operate with a dead battery and plugged in but not with the battery disconnected.

[farley]

Ill plug it in with the battery and it will still only show the 5.6 to 6.8v and turn off within a couple of seconds of being on

[wjf67]

Yes, it will work with the battery removed, whilst plugged to the mains.

[Ronsc1985]

Ill plug it in with the battery and it will still only show the 5.6 to 6.8v and turn off within a couple of seconds of being on

That is the typical behavior when the battery is discharged. The same thing happens to me when after doing the monthly battery drain I turn the machine on without reconnecting the charger. It would seem your battery charger is not working or the connection to the machine is malfunctioning. My suggestion would be to take the battery to Batteries Plus and have it checked and fixed if required. If that doesn't fix it then you have either a malfunctioning battery charger or the internal regulator that takes the battery charger output and regulates it down to charge the battery quit working.

When this is all resolved always run the unit with the battery connected even if you have it hooked up to the battery charger. Doing this provides some insurance to suppress any transient voltages on the ac line getting into the unit and taking out chips in the rest of the GC2.