DualCell- don't trust the battery status

[Tamarack]

I'm sure this applies to the Cuddelink's too and maybe it's been mentioned in that thread. So this may or may not be a heads up for some.

Had 89 battery days on it a week ago and it said "OK" in the report so decided to leave it..planned to go there again today anyway. Welp..the next evening no pictures. None the next day/night and the next and the next thereafter. Today it said "Error:04". Changed the batteries and it's up and running again.

That was with Rayovacs. When I previously had rechargeables and the solar panel attached it did give me a low warning, and kept working well over a week after that. Not sure if that set-up makes a difference.

With both of the above once I put in new batteries it ended up sending me pics it had taken during the time it had stopped sending them to me. This last time one was even from this morning before I put new batteries in it. I guess it had enough power or built up enough power again to take pics but not to send them.

Some of my other cams have done the same thing so it's not like this is unique to Cuddeback's. It is a bit irritating though given the tech these days.

 

[Tamarack]

And no..I have not updated to 8.0.
And a request if I may...allow those you add to relay your pics to- to be able to just temporarily take them off the list instead of only being able to delete them altogether. So you don't have to input all the info again.

 

[Tamarack]

And now it seems to be dead..less than a week after putting in new batteries. No pictures or report the last two days.

 

[aa961jester]

What firmware version are you running?

 

[Tamarack]

7.9 I think it is. Didn't update it to this latest one. Went 89 days last time as I mentioned above. Longer with the rechargeable and solar panel, when it was in the sun.

May get to it tomorrow and see what it says. If it's the batteries I may try new ones once more. Test the old ones first to make sure.

 

[Tamarack]

I don't like that this last time, if it is the batteries, and the previous..it just shut off all of a sudden. No low battery warning.

 

[Tamarack]

7.7 is the firmware. Noticed it on the last report it sent.

 

[aa961jester]

In the upgrade 8.0 for sure not sure about 7.9. the firmware addresses the DBP. When I initially installed my DBP 8.0 was not out yet and I didn't upgrade to 7.9. I continued to run 7.7 and the banks never switched when one bank died in the DBP. I also wasn't getting great battery life. When I checked my system in April I found one whole bank of batteries in the "Dead" DBP was fine and one bank was dead. It wasn't switching over. I now upgraded to 8.0 and everything seems fine plus as an added advantage you can change your cameras settings from the Cuddeback CAMP website from any computer or smartphone.

 

[Rit]

I bet it’s the UFO in the photo zapping your battery.

 

[Tamarack]

In the upgrade 8.0 for sure not sure about 7.9. the firmware addresses the DBP. When I initially installed my DBP 8.0 was not out yet and I didn't upgrade to 7.9. I continued to run 7.7 and the banks never switched when one bank died in the DBP. I also wasn't getting great battery life. When I checked my system in April I found one whole bank of batteries in the "Dead" DBP was fine and one bank was dead. It wasn't switching over. I now upgraded to 8.0 and everything seems fine plus as an added advantage you can change your cameras settings from the Cuddeback CAMP website from any computer or smartphone.

Can't hurt to try. Just odd it was working fine before or at least with the Rayovacs it went from 89 days to 5. The solar set-up I screwed up by moving the cam so it wasn't in the sun as much.

I'm bringing 2 cards..one with the whole zipfile..the other with just that one file. Guess it did pay to keep up with those long threads as much as possible....

 

[Tamarack]

I bet it’s the UFO in the photo zapping your battery.

Ha..it's a dang branch I ended up cutting off. Really showed up in the nighttime pics.

 

[Tamarack]

Got to the cam, it says "Locked". Taking the batteries out etc doesn't help. Can't be because I'm over the data limit etc because I'm not.

They aren't taking phone calls, says to email them. They can type but they can't talk ‍...

 

[Tamarack]

Tried it again and now it's working. Glad it is, po'd I had to make a 2hr trip..2hrs back.

The data limit was about 8mb away so I checked the extra images box. Not sure if that did it or they got my email and fixed it without getting back to me. Never got a notice that the data was exceeded. Guess I'll find out with the next report.