Bought a used GC2 a couple months ago. It's an older unit, serial# 3xxx that had the battery replaced within the last couple years. Started it up tonight and after about 5 minutes a message displayed 'shutting down low battery'. I leave it plugged in 24x7 and have never used it on battery. I tried starting it up again and it goes through the bootup and then shuts down. I unplugged the ac adapter and checked the voltage at the charging plug and it was 15 volts so I think that's good. The green light on the plug was on when unplugged from the gc2 but when I plug it back in the green light changes to a very dim pulsing - I barely noticed it. I took the case off and disconnected the battery and tried to power on but no luck(I thought I had read somewhere that the GC2 doesn't need a battery). Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
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In order to keep the battery alive you need to completely discharge it once a month by leaving the unit on until it stops working on battery only.
Sounds like your battery died and can't be recharged. Once they go below about 2 volts or so the charger will not charge it. These small chargers are switcher types and won't turn on if the voltage is less then about 2 volts. This is done to keep the charger from trying to charge a short to ground and burning itself out. While the GC2 will operate using the charger the battery has to be plugged in. You will note there are three wires connected to the battery. One is a sense wire to shut things off if the battery overheats.
You can check to see what voltage the battery actually has by probing two pins in the connector when it is disconnected from the unit. If it is below the minimum voltage the charger will tolerate you can charge the battery by connecting to a linear charger. These type chargers are current limited and can be spotted by their much larger size vs the same current rated switcher type
All that said there may be something else wrong but trying the above is free except for the time required. -
Thanks for the info. I got 7 volts from the battery so that appears to be ok. The low battery message when it originally shut down seems odd if it's 7 volts. Also strange that the green light on the charger turns off(or almost off) when plugged into the unit. I did order another 15V/3A charger from Amazon that was linked in another thread. If that doesn't work I'm not sure what my options are.Comment
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I don't remember what the battery voltage is when the unit shuts down. Normally with the charger plugged in the startup screen reads something like 8.5 volts. 7 volts may be the turn off point. You might want to contact forum member andygg1986. He fixes these units and probably has seen your problem before.
BTW if you get it running and choose to discharge the battery don't leave it disconnected from the charger forever. I did this for about 3 months and the battery went below 2 v and the charger wouldn't recharge it for the previously stated reason. luckily I had just had the battery rebuilt in that year and Batteries Plus honored their 1 year warranty even though I caused the problem.. Actually they just recharged it with a linear charger and replaced the shrink wrap which I had removed trying to figure out what had gone wrong.Comment
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