Trouble Shooting Suggestions for Battery, Charger Strobe Situation

I’m having what I believe to be a battery issue with my strobes and am hoping someone can help me troubleshoot this issue.

On two occasions this week, I took four “fully charged” batteries placed them in the battery compartment in the proper orientation but could not get my strobe to power up.  This happened on both of my strobes.

In both instances, the problem was solved by randomly replacing one of the batteries with another “fully charged” battery.

I use eneloop pro rechargeable batteries and use a LaCrosse Technology charger and charge them at the 200mA setting.  My strobes are Sea & Sea YSD2.

I’m wondering if some of my batteries might not be holding a charge and/or if my contacts strobe contacts need cleaning.  However, once the strobes power up they function flawlessly.  So I’m thinking that something related to the batteries is happening?

Is it possible that a “fully charged” battery indicated on the charger could still be defective somehow?

Is it possible that one of the two chargers I have are malfunctioning?

Thanks in advance for any assistance in this matter.  By using the hunt and peck method I can get the strobes working as I have 24 batteries yet only need 8 functioning on any given dive, but obviously this is not a sustainable situation.

Hey Redwing

Frustrating.

Can you try the batteries in another device and see if some/any/none of them are faulty?

I'd suggest too, as you say, cleaning the strobe contacts - electronic contact cleaner is good if you get a can of that. WD-40 at a pinch. Then cleaning the battery contacts too. Maybe some of them have picked up a slight residue.

The fact that they work flawlessly once powered up would suggest to me that the strobe contacts are the issue; or maybe the actual battery contacts. I used to get this problem occasionally with my old Inon Z220 strobes.

Batteries all have an "end of life" at some point. I don't profess to be an expert, but I know some batteries show as fully charged until you put them under load. Boat batteries are notorious for this as they go through many cycles of partial discharge and partial recharge.

I'd be inclined to try some new, non-rechargeable batteries just for fun. It's the least expensive way to test the strobe. Your 24 rechargeable batteries may well all be suspect.

You might want to get a charger that can report the charge level of your batteries. There are lots of good chargers that have these features. You can also have the charger run a discharge/recharge cycle to refresh them.

The real test of the battery is how it behaves under load, you need to measure the voltage when it is under load.  There's probably a few ways you could do that,  and you may be able to rig up something at home to allow you to check the each battery individually.

I Looked up your charger and it looks like it has some good features.  - assuming it's the same model - I also looked in the manual and it has a test mode whereby it will charge the batteries then discharge them and then fully charge (test mode) and report the capacity in mAhr.  I think this is probably your best test.  If a battery shows full voltage but has low capacity this test should show it up.  The downside would be that the discharge current is relatively low and the test would take some time  - like overnight. 

It seems unlikely that a battery is that bad that it shows up as being charged then loses voltage immediately under load.  If the battery was doing this it would be picked up in the test mode I would think.  An alternative would be to try each battery one at a time in device that only needs one battery.

Thanks everyone.  I'll have a break starting this weekend where I'll be able to methodically test each battery under load, clean the battery and strobe electrical contacts, and do charge/discharge test on the tester.  Appreciate all the helpful suggestions.

Would a computer mouse be an adequate test for an individual battery?

I'm not an expert, but I suspect a computer mouse wouldn't draw an especially heavy load. If you've got a torch kicking around that takes AA batteries, I'd try that. Or a motorised toy? (as  a grandparent I have access..... ) 

Rechargeable batteries will fail to charge sufficiently, sooner or later.  I measure the voltage on mine after charging them, and often find one that has not charged well.

A simple digital voltmeter from eBay or Amazon has worked well for me.

Rechargeable batteries will fail to charge sufficiently, sooner or later.  I measure the voltage on mine after charging them, and often find one that has not charged well, or that loses part of its charge in a short time, time to throw it away.  A digital voltmeter from eBay or Amazon has worked well for me.

Thanks.  Once I get back home, I'll use my multimeter to characterize each of the batteries.  It's quite possible some of the batteries have between 100-200 charge cycles on them and few of them have been completely discharged prior to charging.

I always keep rechargeable batteries together in sets. For strobes in sets of 4. A set stays together for life. If one battery in a set plays up, I retire the set and use the remainder for applications that don't matter, such as powering a mouse or TV remote.

1 hour ago, JohnLiddiard said:

I always keep rechargeable batteries together in sets. For strobes in sets of 4. A set stays together for life. If one battery in a set plays up, I retire the set and use the remainder for applications that don't matter, such as powering a mouse or TV remote.

Hi.  I actually started doing this early on and stopped for some reason.  It's a great idea and I'll start this after I have a chance to characterize all my batteries.

2 hours ago, JohnLiddiard said:

I always keep rechargeable batteries together in sets. For strobes in sets of 4. A set stays together for life. If one battery in a set plays up, I retire the set and use the remainder for applications that don't matter, such as powering a mouse or TV remote.

Yep, me too, John.