IKEHERE said:
Hi there
First time on this forum. I bought a LB100 with GPS from lightnspace. The LB100 works but the GPS doesn't.
I opened it up to find that on one side of the unit there is a very small battery. I tested it with my multimeter and it showed a voltage of about 0.19v. I pulled the battery off the board using a fine blade and I can see the battery is a MS621FE, which according to my google searches to possibly a Seiko 5.5AH 3v battery. The battery is spot welded and does not seem to be an easy to replace item. My google searches also seem to show that the battery is rechargeable, so I tried charging it for about 2 days straight. The most the voltage got up to was 1.2v but it unexplainably dropped to 0.5v. Each time I tested the GPS unit, it did not work.
So it is quite possible the faulty GPS units are being shipped with dud batteries.
Now if only Kevin from lightnspace would return my emails...
First post here too, although I bought the LB100 off the back of the review by mtz!
I've got the same fault as you with the GPS though, it worked once - both lights flashing away happily, but subsequent startups give no GPS data, and only the solid green light for the power, not the flashing one.
I'm going to head up to maplins (uk electronics/hobby store) and see if they have any of the batteries in stock and try switching it out - I've opened the GPS module now and completely mullered one of the screws meaning that obviously the warranty is sitting on a cloud playing a harp, so I have nothing to lose by doing so!
Fingers crossed it fixes it! I'll report back if this works.
ETA: It seems these are difficult little gits to get hold of! Maplins haven't heard of them, RS Components don't list them, Farnell do list them (cheap too - £1.11ea), but they have a £20 minimum order value before they'll accept an order, eBay have them listed from the USA and Hong Kong, and the sole UK seller of them is on holiday until the 15th May. I'll just have to use it without the GPS until then I guess!
Further ETA: The battery is pretty simple to replace as they come as a unit with the tabs attached. Just heat the solder up on the board, pull the old one off and solder a new one on.