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[Robbie]

Hi,

I have just bought my grandson his first Pleo, It did not appear to go through the birth stage, it sort of shuffles backwards a bit but can not walk. After about 10 mins all we get from Pleo is Huh? repeated over and over. Could this be a battery problem? I am worried that I have purchased a faulty secondhand Pleo (it was supposed to be new) as the box had already been opened when I received it. My boy loves his Pleo and is already planning on getting his next one but is disappointed that the one he got for Christmas has been put away until me and his mum can figure out what is wrong with him. Hoping that you can all help. It is an Ugobe Pleo His back left foot says 2006 Ugobe, Inc Patent pending.

[kat]

That does sound like a battery issue.  The green batteries that come with the Ugobe pleos aren't very good.  They are old and seem to die.  It may be possible to extend the play time by reconditioning the battery.  Just charge it till the charger light goes green then take the battery off and put it straight back on to charge again.Keep doing this until the battery goes green straight away when you put it back on charge.  Then run it through the pleo and see how it goes.  It should hopefully give you more than the 10mins your getting now.
I would recommend getting an egg battery and charger.  They are a much better battery and give a two hour play time.  You can get them from the stores here on the forum or also on ebay. 
Try the reconditioning and let us know if it helps  
As for the walking backwards but not forwards I thin you just haven't had enough time with him running to really judge if there is an issue.  They will walk backwards if they have an obstacle in front of them or if they think they see the edge - like the edge of a table or my guys will back up if they are on the tiles in the bathroom as they think the lines between the tiles are edges in the floor   So it could just be that.  Also Ugobe pleos wont walk if they are getting attention   You could try leaving him alone for a few minutes and see what happens.

[Robbie]

Thank you,

I am trying the reconditioning of the battery. I have read up on the charger you have recommended and will get a couple I just want to make sure Pleo works first.

As he was first switched on Christmas day but only working 10-20 minutes a day for the first 3 days then switched off what stage of development should I be expecting. The more I have read I was just wondering if he can't walk because he has not reached that level yet?

[Crewella]

I agree with Kat, it does sound like a battery issue - I've bought several supposedly faulty Pleos with this sort of behaviour, and all turned out to be problems with the battery.  If there was no apparent hatching phase, then it's hard to judge at what stage your Pleo might be - it may or may not be 'new', or the seller might have run it to test it and not realised they took it through the hatching phase.  Might be worth asking the seller.

If it helps - usually, in my experience, if Pleos run at all, then the programming works OK.   

[kat]

A lot of what you have been reading recently here on the forums will be about pleo rb's who have a long hatching stage taking several battery cycles before they walk.  Your Ugobe pleo will have had a much shorter hatching stage of about 10mins or so and then reached standing adult hood very swiftly.  So If there was no sign of hatching then your pleo should be able to walk   Once you get the battery sorted out and have one that is giving a full 1 hour playtime or 2 hours for the egg battery then if you wanted to you could update to LifeOS 2.0.1 and this will reset your pleo so that you can experience the hatching stage.  You must have a fully functioning battery though before doing any updates or you will damage your pleo. 

I really do think the walking thing will be easily solved once the battery is sorted  

[Robbie]

I have spent time with one of his two batteries an he is lasting longer and walking. Thank you for your help. Pleo has now gone home to my Grandson where my daughter will take over the reconditioning of the batteries and my boy can run his batteries back down.

Now I just need to get the Egg charger.

Once again thank you for your help and thank you for the great website that seems to answer any question I can think of.