Battery Life Warning

[MechanizedMayem]

I'd read about this and it has happened to me. The internal battery on the unit failed. I installed the unit at the beginning of December, 2008 so I got about two and half months.

You'll know your battery has died when you power on the unit and you're greeted by the alarm constantly sounding. Press the reset button and your unit will work as per normal in Auto mode. All your settings however for date, time, alarm thresholds and manual fan settings will be gone.

Here's some advice.

1)Leave room on all the units connectors to pull the unit out of the front of the chassis so you can change the battery (which you will do every two to three months. Please recycle the battery :thumbsup:

2) Record your alarm and manual fan settings. Will save you from having to start from scratch.

[ivybat]

Mayhem, I have had a Sentry since late August 2008 and have not had to change batteries. You should not have to change as often as 2-3 months.

[MechanizedMayem]

That's good to know. I'll try a fresh battery and report back.

[MechanizedMayem]

Update, new high end battery installed 01 March 2009. Battery failed on 31 May 2009. Four months from an $8.00 battery is pretty poor. This unit tears through batteries like nothing else I own.:mad:

[-h4ck-]

Hi,

I have a similiar problem.

I have to change the battery about every two months. It is very time-consuming to open the case every time and swarming from the back to the battery socket (I can not pull out the Sentry to the front due to fixed cables etc.). This is very tricky work. Why does the Sentry wastes so much batteries? Does it practise the whole Sentry unit including the fans by battery power or where does the wastage come from?? Saving only the user-settings and the time can't impossibly waste so much battery power.

Replacing the Sentry at my retailer with a new one will not bring any improvement, won't it?

Note: I do not use any standby modes. I completely shut down my pc, including cutting the power supply.
Sometimes my Sentry shows cryptic symbols on the display (reset-button of the Sentry fixes this problem, but logically with losing my settings) and sometimes it just refuses launching the fans (this is very critical as the warning beep does not work either!) and whereas it sometimes only resets the time and my settings.

I already changed the batteries for three times within a half year. All batteries where checke before installation. This is already my second Sentry, the first one had a faulty fan channel after some days but with only a few days running the Sentry I did not come to the point where the batteries are starting to get killed.

Is there a solution for this problem? Do I really have to do the tricky steps to change the battery every several months? Is there only a specific series with this "bug" or is the whole series bugge?!

Thanks for any replies =)

[MechanizedMayem]

I think there are some quality control issues and design problems with this model. Even in standby mode, the battery should last at least a year. Better yet, they should have included a rechargeable battery that recharges when the system is on.

I will likely be pulling the unit and replacing it with something else. Too bad, it has a lot of really good features.

[ivybat]

Sentry 2 just announced? hehe