Will a backup battery voltage of 0.4V or 0.7V instead of 2.0V cause a
GTA01 or GTA02 to appear to be completely dead and never power on?
I have four openmoko devices (GTA01Bv3, GTA01Bv4-red-pcb,
GTA01Bv4-green-pcb, GTA02A5), but only one of them works (the
GTA01Bv4-green-pcb).
The GTA02 stopped working a couple of weeks ago, for no apparent reason.
Same with the two early GTA01's which stopped working months ago.
I took all four apart tonight to see if I could measure some comparative
voltages across the four boards and see if that showed anything
interesting. At one point, the GTA02 came back to life (which gave me
hope that it wasn't really dead), but on the next reboot it seemed to
die again.
Seeing the GTA02 come back to life caused me to measure the in-circuit
voltage across the backup battery of all four boards, and I found that
the working GTA01BV4 had a voltage of 2.0V, whereas the non-working
GTA02 had a voltage of 0.7V and the two old non-working GTA01s both had
backup battery voltages around 0.4V.
So, is it the case that if the backup battery voltage is below 1.3 V
(BUB, +/- 0.3V, Backup battery present threshold, from Werner's GTA02
voltage chart), then the device will not power on no matter what you do?
Is there an easy way that I can test my theory?
Is there a safe way to recharge the backup battery in-circuit when it's
voltage is this low?
What is the exact type of battery used for the backup battery, and how
is it attached to the board (it seems to be soldered in) - what is the
easiest way to detach or desolder the current battery and install a new one?
Will replacing the backup battery on the three "dead" devices bring them
back to life?
-- Rod
