MyDEL WX2008MKII - Battery Life

[bc312]

Hello all. I'm new to this forum, and am looking for some advice on my recently installed MyDEL WX2008MKII. The station was set up successfully, and all functions are working fine including time reception from DCF here in Kent. However one week after set up, the batteries in the base station died. The measured voltage across each of the three batteries indicated around 0.9v, and I concluded that the supplied batteries (Skytronic brand, made in China) were perhaps of dubious quality, and replaced them with fully charged 2500mAh NI-MH re-chargeables. Again the base station died after about a week, with the batteries indicating low voltage.
The WX2008MKII specification suggests that the base station batteries should last a minimum of 12 months. I decided to measure the current draw on the batteries, and using a new set of batteries this was measured as 14mA. So even being optimistic, the average AA cell with a capacity of 2500mAh is unlikely to last much more than one week.
Has anyone else experienced this problem (maybe a known issue), or could this be a faulty base station. The station could be modded to run from a wallplug power supply with re-chargeable batteries, but I don't want to do this if the station is faulty, and replaceable under warrenty. The transmitter/sensor unit is working fine with no battery problems.
Your battery life experiences and comments on this weather station and its many variants would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Mike

[harrym1byt]

I would not expect it to last long on rechargeables, in part because their voltage is lower anyway. 14mA even on a car battery is quite a lot, I would expect it to fall quickly down to a fraction of a milliamp, once it has got its clock set up and its first batch of data. Are the LED backlights on all the time perhaps, they should only stay on for a few seconds?

To be honest I have never had mine run on battery power - in case you didn't know when it is plugged into the USB it runs from the USB supply and the USB supply is on whilst ever (a desktop) PC is connected to the mains. If you unplug and plug in the USB, you should hear a faint click of a relay inside the unit, as it disconnects from battery and switches to using the USB's 5v supply.

Getting back to the batteries..
The unit is designed to be used self sufficient from batteries with no supply from the PC, so the batteries should be able to keep it going for a very long time. Before complaining to the supplier, I would simply try a new set of AA batteries - normal ones rather than rechargeables. I would suspect the cells supplied with mine are fine as the outdoor unit runs all the time on batteries and it is still on its original set from last May/June.

[dc1500]

No problems here but I didn't realise about the USB power anyway. For the outside unit it is best to use lithium AA batterieds if possible - they last ages and perform well in the low temperatures we are getting this winter. (Argos do them)

Dave