Freewire wont charge - Charge light flashes blue and red rapidly

Jody Prather

July 07, 2020 12:33

Hi.

I have a Freewire that previously worked fine but recently wont seem to charge. When I plug it in to charge it either from my computer or from power supply the charge light just blinks blue and red rapidly. The unit never charges. This is a unit from 2017 so I guess it's possible the non-replaceable battery has gone bad but wow.. only three year life to this unit? For the price we pay for these three year life expectancy is not very appealing.

I have tried the fault reset and i have factory reset this unit several times but I still get the same outcome.

I am still able to connect the 12v power supply that came with it to power it on but I'd prefer that the battery charge so I don't have to use the power supply.

1. Has anyone else had this type of problem with your Freewire before?
2. If the Battery is bad has anyone attempted to replace it? I know the documentation says it's not replaceable but I can't believe that it's not possible. If so I'd love to get some info on that.

Thanks in advance!

Jody

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  Jody Prather

  July 09, 2020 22:03

  Hope this helps someone in the future because I sure couldn't find any info on this problem.

  So I suspected that the battery had failed and I had already read in a couple of places that the Battery in the Freewire was not replaceable. It says this on the Sena website and this is simply not true.

  It was pretty easy to figure out that the battery was bad by just taking the 4 screws out of the back of the unit. The battery had swelled up so much that it was pressing against the circuit board on the inside of the Freewire. The battery attaches to the Circuit Board by a clip that is very easy to remove.

  The original battery has a Part Number of LP 432543 and is a 3.7V battery with 400mAh. I looked for this exact part number and was able to find a few online but they were all in China and I'm in the US so I really wanted to try and find something closer but didn't have any luck.

  On Amazon I was able to find a battery that had a different part number. I found part number 702540 which is a 3.7v battery with 500mHa. That's ok because that just means more capacity. I found a review for the 702540 where a user listed the measurements and the battery was very close in size to the original. I paid the $7.39 and in two days it arrived.

  I found that the size was perfect. Almost exactly the same as the original. I also found that the end that clips onto the Circuit Board was different than the original so I had to splice the original clip onto the new battery.

  I plugged it in and now my Freewire is working good as new!

  Hope this helps someone else! Thanks, Jody

  702540

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  Chris Erkmann

  November 25, 2021 18:17

  Be VERY careful if you choose to pull original clip off of the circuit board.  It is held by two tiny solder joints, and if you yank them apart, the unit is likely toast.  Carefully pry off, or consider leaving in place and splicing.  

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