Bob the Pleo Forums

Pleo Stuff => Pleo Problems => Topic started by: DoctorMikeReddy on March 18, 2019, 05:04:15 AM

Title: Was I sold a dud?
Post by: DoctorMikeReddy on March 18, 2019, 05:04:15 AM

I bought an original Pleo off eBay - it had skin damage, (see pics)but was otherwise described as working - but, after charging the battery for quite a while, I got it to 58% (as reported by StatsRB on a Pleo RB), but it had enough juice to run the Rb OK. However, putting it into the original pleo, I get a short bleat every few seconds (see video), but nothing else. Added to that, the neck is hanging down, is floppy, and appears broken :-(

Was I sold a dud?
Pleo neck 1 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/kg7xdtct6id09kj/Pleo1.jpg)
Pleo neck 2 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/jlbun3xcwuavhu6/Pleo2.jpg)
Pleo bleating video (https://www.dropbox.com/s/pf7q58aw6izi5h7/Pleo3.MOV)

Title: Re: Was I sold a dud?
Post by: pnhicks on March 18, 2019, 06:19:30 AM

Hi Dr. Mike,


I reply here in the forum for the benefit of others(?).  It looks as if the up down cable may have snapped with poor Pleo permanently staring at the floor.  The repeated bleating with no further attempt to start up sounds like an update gone very wrong, common problems like the former owner tried an to update with a dead battery, or tried to update with RB software (ouch)!


The usual recovery attempts are try a low level reset. The software for this is available in the downloads section, then try to apply a proper ugobe software os (also available here).


Make sure you battery will last long enough for the update to complete!


Cheers!


Peter

Title: Re: Was I sold a dud?
Post by: DoctorMikeReddy on March 18, 2019, 07:02:20 AM

Thanks. I am trying to do the battery refurbishment - charging it up, then letting it run down, before charging it up again - and it appears to be slowly getting more charge; I couldn't run it at all in the known working RB (green batteries work in these, but brown don't work in the originals) at first, but it is now taking some charge at least. Hopefully, this will get good enough to do a reset. How long will it need to run for, do you think?

Mike

Title: Re: Was I sold a dud?
Post by: pnhicks on March 19, 2019, 10:52:57 AM

Hi Dr Mike
I misunderstood what you said about putting the results from ProbeRB from your Ugobe into your RB with a good battery!  Say that three times fast!


I run a mixed (both Ugobes and RBs) fleet of Pleos with (humph) poor performing batteries.  I saw off the polarity tab on brown batteries to use them in Ugobies. Yeah I know, I live on the edge.


On the restoring Ugobe battery front, the camera battery forum people swear by freezing (24-48 hours) the battery pack, (defrost at room temp), before the drain and recharge cycle to recover NiMH batteries (they go through boatloads in their flash gear).

Oh, yeah, I've seen updates take 10 minutes, so I would allow double that of battery time to avoid low voltage (brown out) during the update.

Cheers,


Peter