yoderjac
5 year old buck +
For John and others using the older BuckeyeCam Orions, I thought I'd post this issue and resolution. A while back, I started sending a few of my cameras back to BEC for checkout and repair. In most cases it was small stuff like replacing the lexan that had been scratched and stuff. One of the issues that I had was with the battery connections. It seemed that after 6 years or so, things were getting touchy. If I wiggled the battery connector a little, I'd lose power. I thought maybe connecting and disconnecting them had caused stress on the board over time and the connection was not solid between the male connector and the board.
During one of my conversations with the tech, he mentioned that they had experienced issues with the female connectors on the battery leads wearing out. I doubted this was the case, but I bought a couple extra sets of leads to try. When I got the cameras back, everything was working fine, so I put them on the shelf and forgot about them.
Several weeks ago, I was experiences some issues with one particular camera. It had been working just fine but over time, the battery wore down and needed swapped out. Every since, it seems that I can't get the camera to work. It seems to work ok when it is open but minor wiggling of the connector caused power loss again. On one of the male connectors, I can't get power at all. One the one that works, each time I close the camera, it puts enough stress on the leads to wiggle the connector slightly and it loses power. So, I figured I'd put a big solar panel on it so that if I do get it to work, I won't have to open it for a long time.
So, this morning I installed the solar panel. I'll have to take a picture of that later. No matter how I tried, I could not get the connection to work. I finally took the camera back to camp to work on it. I happened to see the new leads so I decided to give them a try. I used the same battery (fully charged). I removed the old leads and soldered on new leads. BEC was right. Everything now works on both sets of male pins and wiggling the connector does not cause a power loss. The leads I got from BEC were a little pricy, so I decided to make my own for the rest of the batteries. The digikey part number for the kit is WM8383-ND the kit contains the parts for 5 leads. You need to supply your own wire and solder them yourself. It runs about $10. So, if you don't mind soldering them yourself, you can save some money.
I marked them with a date. My plan is to replace the leads each time I need to swap a battery. It will take quite a while to get them all replaced.
So, if you are experiencing power related issues wit your BEC Orions, it is likely it is the battery leads, not the camera if you have been doing like me and buying SLAs locally and simply reusing the leads.
Thanks,
Jack
During one of my conversations with the tech, he mentioned that they had experienced issues with the female connectors on the battery leads wearing out. I doubted this was the case, but I bought a couple extra sets of leads to try. When I got the cameras back, everything was working fine, so I put them on the shelf and forgot about them.
Several weeks ago, I was experiences some issues with one particular camera. It had been working just fine but over time, the battery wore down and needed swapped out. Every since, it seems that I can't get the camera to work. It seems to work ok when it is open but minor wiggling of the connector caused power loss again. On one of the male connectors, I can't get power at all. One the one that works, each time I close the camera, it puts enough stress on the leads to wiggle the connector slightly and it loses power. So, I figured I'd put a big solar panel on it so that if I do get it to work, I won't have to open it for a long time.
So, this morning I installed the solar panel. I'll have to take a picture of that later. No matter how I tried, I could not get the connection to work. I finally took the camera back to camp to work on it. I happened to see the new leads so I decided to give them a try. I used the same battery (fully charged). I removed the old leads and soldered on new leads. BEC was right. Everything now works on both sets of male pins and wiggling the connector does not cause a power loss. The leads I got from BEC were a little pricy, so I decided to make my own for the rest of the batteries. The digikey part number for the kit is WM8383-ND the kit contains the parts for 5 leads. You need to supply your own wire and solder them yourself. It runs about $10. So, if you don't mind soldering them yourself, you can save some money.
I marked them with a date. My plan is to replace the leads each time I need to swap a battery. It will take quite a while to get them all replaced.
So, if you are experiencing power related issues wit your BEC Orions, it is likely it is the battery leads, not the camera if you have been doing like me and buying SLAs locally and simply reusing the leads.
Thanks,
Jack
