SBR no longer recognizes/charges battery.

[dkfackler]

After ten years of faithful service, my SBR no longer charges or registers the presence of a battery. I have swapped batteries between SBRs(I have four) and the result is the same. A new battery makes no difference.

One more curious thing which may be related: radio lost wifi connection last week(WiFi 6 issue) and hung on the Goodbye screen when I tried to turn it off. Finally pulling the power cord turned it off. Reapplying power had it boot and connect as usual, but the same scenario has repeated several times since.

I have another SBR with the same issue, but that one is “beta hardware” and I thought the beta version just didn’t charge the battery. Now, I think it may be something else. It’s been this way since it came to me.

Any insight or experimental procedure is welcome.

~dk

[JoeMuc2009]

Hi there,

the SBR is known for blowing components corresponding to the battery and DC-IN power management. It's Q3 typically if I remember correctly. Something in the design causes the circuitry to fail, often catastrophically.
The Wi-Fi dropping might be a related issue, or is another SBR design problem. I have an SBR here myself which no longer offers Wi-Fi connectivity at all, but haven't gotten around to finding out why that is and what caused it.
As SBRs don't natively support WIFI 5 or 6, many people use WiFi-to-Ethernet bridges as a workaround. These little things can be connected to any wireless network, also the more modern ones, and offer Ethernet on the other end for any devices not compatible or not offering Wi-Fi at all. You will have another constant power consumer though. Other than that, it's the easiest compromise.

Cheers,
Joe

[dkfackler]

Thanks, Joe. I have three of the Vonets ethernet dongles on SBRs. The power pass-through is great, and they handle Logitech 18v without issue even though they’re rated at 25v. IIRC, Vonets makes a similar device which is rated to 24v.

~dk

[dkfackler]

Correction: the Vonets dongles here are rated at 15v

Fat thumb typing.