Two year old Stratus 2S battery dying

[Oldguy]

Flying home from KLAL this past weekend, my Stratus 2S shut down about 15 minutes from the home field. At first, I thought I had not charged it after the weekend's PPP before I left, but this week I fully charged it, and it ran down after a little less than 3 hours. Several questions from this:

• Is this what others have seen as the battery life from their Stratus boxes? I bought this at Sun-n-Fun in 2017 and had expected another year or so before the battery would start dying.
• Is the battery replacement from Sporty's worth the $85 price? Has anyone out in MS done the replacement?
• Is the Sentry from Sporty's worth skipping the battery replacement and spending the $499 to buy it? I already have a Sensorcon CO detector and this 2S. Does the Sentry give me anything additional worth $499?

TIA for your thoughts.

[MIm20c]

Power cable in the plane?  Might get another 2 years out of it before the battery give less than an hr backup reserve. A right angle adapter will lessen the chance of torquing the plug. 

[cnoe]

My Stratus 2S has lost significant battery life as well, but not unreasonably I believe.

I contacted Appareo support about this last September noting that I'd conducted 259 flights/335 logged hours using the device and was getting about 6+ hours out of the battery (new rated life is 8 hours). I've logged another ~57 hours since then and it seems to last about 4.5-5 hours now so it's definitely declining more quickly.

In the past Appareo didn't offer do-it-yourself battery replacements and I learned with my original Stratus 2 that the battery was a proprietary flat-pack which I basically destroyed during disassembly. They were gracious enough to take my old unit (Stratus 2 that I screwed up) and replace it with a newer 2S unit for only $200 which I considered quite fair.

 

In recent discussions with them regarding my declining battery they stated - "Based on the stats you provided about the battery, it is pretty average. Depending on the charging cycles, care of the unit, storage techniques, etc., we see batteries start to deplete around the 2.5-3 year mark or about 300 hours. There is a gauge associated with the battery that may develop a "memory" and performing a factory reset will help with this. If you haven't done so, please perform a factory reset on your unit, charge it fully, run down the battery, and then charge it back up again. This should reset this gauge."

 

Regarding the Sentry unit you lose the ability to connect an external ADS-B or GPS antenna which is a deal-breaker for me. I keep my Stratus under the pilot's seat and use both external antennas (which also provide GREAT reception, even down low). This also keeps the unit out of the sun which should help battery life as well.

I have a permanent USB power port on my panel and will plug in the Stratus on flights of 4+ hours but will likely be purchasing the battery replacement kit soon as it continues to decline.

[N201MKTurbo]

There is a YouTube on replacing the battery on the cheap.

[bradp]

For comparison I’m getting about 6 hrs on a 5 year old S. 

Once you open them up you’ll see they’re not too much of a hassle to get to all the components. 

[cnoe]

16 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

There is a YouTube on replacing the battery on the cheap.

Can you provide a link or good search term. I've searched on YouTube and am now quite proficient at changing the battery in a DODGE Stratus but can't seem to find anything about an Appareo Stratus.   I'm obviously not putting in the correct search terms.

Thanks!

[cnoe]

I dug up an old picture of my unsuccessful battery replacement attempt from 2016 to illustrate the type of battery that was previously employed. Note that the battery is glued into the housing and any attempt to remove it will likely tear the outer metallic pouch.

As I recall it was 2 flat packs glued together and hard-wired in parallel to a small separate pcb. The soldering isn't a big deal but I couldn't source them at the time.

Now they sell the entire assembly (half the Stratus) which makes replacement simple. The battery is now identifiable on pics of the Stratus kit as 3.7V 5400 mAh but I only find them on Chinese sites with high minimum purchase quantities. If anybody knows a good source for these domestically please let me know.

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by cnoe
addition

[Oldguy]

On 2/9/2019 at 12:49 PM, cnoe said:

In the past Appareo didn't offer do-it-yourself battery replacements and I learned with my original Stratus 2 that the battery was a proprietary flat-pack which I basically destroyed during disassembly. They were gracious enough to take my old unit (Stratus 2 that I screwed up) and replace it with a newer 2S unit for only $200 which I considered quite fair.

 

In recent discussions with them regarding my declining battery they stated - "Based on the stats you provided about the battery, it is pretty average. Depending on the charging cycles, care of the unit, storage techniques, etc., we see batteries start to deplete around the 2.5-3 year mark or about 300 hours. There is a gauge associated with the battery that may develop a "memory" and performing a factory reset will help with this. If you haven't done so, please perform a factory reset on your unit, charge it fully, run down the battery, and then charge it back up again. This should reset this gauge."

Thanks for the info. I will try this on the weekend as the weather looks like crud. If it does not improve the battery life, it appears Sporty's sells the replacement battery kit for $85. Either way, a whole lot less than buying a replacement.

[Fly Right Aviator]

I just did the battery replacement in my Stratus 2 and charged it for 14 hrs.  The first flight was about 1.3 hrs.  I left it overnight and found the battery DEAD the next morning.  I am doing another recharge and will see if it improves.  So far I don't think the battery replacement did anything for me.  Sorry

[philip_g]

what about buying an external battery pack for charging your phone and powering the stratus with that?