Gaming Is it possible to repair a Pokewalker that needs battery changed after two days?

[LVG]

I have just got a Pokewalker that has not been not used for several years.
The battery was dead of course, so I changed it.

I started a game of Pokemon Heartgold to try and send a Pokemon to the Pokewalker. It all went ok until I noticed something strange : after two days, the Pokewalker won't turn on again.

With a new battery, the Pokewalker is back... for two more days, then it dies again. For about a week now I have tried five different batteries, the cycle repeats every time ( batteries are still good, checked with a multimeter). With a new battery the steps are back to zero, but the watts and items are still there.

Has anyone encountered this strange behaviour with a Pokewalker? Is there anything I can do? I can open it up (tri-wing screwdriver) but not sure what to look for.

 

[tech3475]

To be clear, are the batteries actually drained after the 2 days?

Are these the same brand/model batteries? I had a remote once which use cr20xx, put a fresh one in which didn’t work but a different one did work.

 

[FAST6191]

Looked things up.
It is indeed a standard drain it and chuck it one time use cell (some of these styles of devices will have a rechargeable one in, some of which you could put a one time one in and have it drain in short order if it was normally otherwise recharged).

If it is indeed dying after a couple of days I would check two things

1) That you are using a reasonable battery. I see these things nowadays in massive blister packs in cheap shops going for next to nothing where they used to be a fairly expensive hobby. The trouble with those blister packs though is they are usually ones coming to the end of life and might sit in those shops for years as well. Check it is not that.

2) There might be something wrong inside the device. Button always pressed, backlight always on, auto turn off not working, someone spilled something (or a battery leaked) and is shorting something out.

 

[LVG]

Thanks for your answers.

When the Pokewalker does not turn on again after two days, I check the battery, and the multimeter says it is around 4 volts. The batteries I used so far all came from a cheap pack of all types of flat batteries like that. I know it's not great, so I ordered a reputable brand of batteries. But, what makes me wonder, is that the batteries still have lots of power, because they're supposed to be 3 volts, so I'm still puzzled and that's why I thought there might be something wrong with the device itself.

Now I'll try with another battery, supposedly a good one, and I'll report later.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

They may have a really terrible voltage sag and as soon as a load is put on them the voltage drops down by 1V. The measured voltage with a multimeter is always going to be higher than the actual voltage under load. One thing is for sure, cheap noname button cell batteries, no matter how cheap they are, are not worth your money. It's not like AA/AAAs where even the cheap ones last you a good while if you're not using them for high drain applications. The battery life on cheap button cell batteries might be only 1% of an actual good quality button cell. Take an ordinary kitchen scale for example, they are probably not used terribly often and decent quality button cells might last you years, put some cheap batteries in and it only lasts a few weeks, if that. They just don't last at all. Even if you get 200 button cells from China for the price of 1 decent one in a local store that's a 50% savings in return for you having to change the batteries constantly. Not worth it. IKEA ones are supposedly decent though.

 

[FAST6191]

Was this cell loaded at the time? No load voltage of cells can be higher/deceptive as it will drop when it gets loaded up.

Also 4 volts for CR2032 is quite high as a starter voltage. 3.2 might be a super brand new one normally with them being nominally rated at 3V.

Make sure you clean the pins and make sure the spring contacts are making contact as well.

 

[LVG]

I have just checked a new battery from my pack (there's 4 CR2032 in the pack) and the starting voltage is 4.9V : seems strange, doesn't it?

This phenomenon reminds of the time when I was looking for a replacement battery for the N3DSXL, the SPR-003 model; well, you can find a lot of "compatible" models online that give you more than the 1750 mAh of the official model (they go up to 2500 mAh), but many reviews said that these batteries are terrible.

Is it the same with smaller batteries (too high a voltage means bad quality) ?

 

[FAST6191]

Are you sure your multimeter is good (both the battery in it and the thing in general) and that you are not misreading some old analogue thing or something?

The replacement rechargeable batteries is a different deal though, or maybe not as it could still be batteries that did not make the grade, did not get made well or sat around for a long time.

Better part of 5V from a coin cell is quite ridiculous though if it is accurate. That is item killing voltage for some things.

 

[LVG]

My multimeter is cheap, it's a DT-830D (10$). It has never failed me so far is all I can say.

I changed the battery in the Pokewalker tonight, put a Duracell one in : fingers crossed!

Thank you guys for giving me hope

 

[LVG]

Ok, I decided to wait at least a week before getting back to you, but the good quality battery did the trick! It's been working flawlessly since I changed it. Now I'll be extra careful with any batteries I'll use, thanks again for the precious advice!