Comments on: Harmony 880 Remote - battery problems

By: Benoit

Benoit — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:08:41 +0000

No way !!

I found the remorte at a back of a drawer today while cleaning. It has been there for two years, as when it stopped working I did not have the heart to hrow it away. I said: let’s give it another try”. First post I fin is yours, I put the little piece of paper and voila !

Thanks a million, excellent tip

Benoit

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:29:46 +0000

I’d like to thank all of the posters. I have been able to fix my remote thanks to your comments. I’d like to especially thank Budge, because I had just about the exact same experience he did. My battery stopped charging completely. I didn’t know if the cradle was bad or the battery wasn’t able to hold a charge anymore. LOGITECH CUSTOMER SERVICE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO HELP AT ALL. I got the same out of warranty, 50% off coupon speech that Budge got. So I read the reviews and used Budge’s solution. It worked perfectly. The contacts in the cradle were not touching the remote’s contacts. So when I opened the cradle (remove the 4 screws under the feet), I used a nail file to file off the the plastic ledge that was preventing the internal charging contacts from being raised high enough to make contact with remote. Now it’s charging as if it were brand new. Thanks Budge!

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:14:16 +0000

Paper doesn’t burn until 451F. As for ‘near explosive state’: that sounds like a gross exaggeration to me.

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:58:03 +0000

I have multiple Harmony units in my house. One 720 and two 890 Pro units. All of the units are presenting problems charging. I also have used the coaster method, book method, etc., of weighting down the unit to help create a charge and it worked for some time but no longer.

The method of placing a piece of paper to push the battery toward the contacts is creative but not safe. Lithium batteries get very hot when recharging and are in a near explosive state during this period. Adding paper to this situation is unsafe and should not be considered as a fix.

Contacting Harmony was a waste of time. My call went to the Phillipines and the best they could do was send me to RMA which as we all know is a blow off. I also have written (email) Harmony and they do not respond.

When it comes time to purchase new Logitech Harmony Remote you are better to look at the competiton. There are others out there, a little bit higher in price and with my research it is obvious they do not have these sort of problems.

Compaq and Dell took this approach toward their customers and look wihere it got them … Good luck to Harmony because you will never have any of my future business.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:56:27 +0000

I’m very pleased with all the various help. Very nice. Thank you.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:14:36 +0000

I had this same problem and it was definitely an issue with the contacts on the base. Logitech sent me a brand new remote and base and 9 months later the contacts went bad again. I tried cleaning them with Isopropol alcohol (rubbing alsohol), hydrogen peroxide, vodka, etc. but nothing worked.

SOLUTION
===========
Use fine-grained sand paper to sand off the surface from the 2 (or 3 depending on your model) little metal contacts on the base unit. After they are nice and rough, use steel wool to polish them until they are mirror smooth. If you have any problems reaching the contacts, you can remove the rubber feet of the base and remove the 4 screws and pop the bottom off; this will give you better access to the contacts.

After the contacts are nicely sanded and re-polished, put everything back together and your remote should charge properly again.

By: romeo

romeo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:25:58 +0000

Lots of good info; I love the internet, too! But I have a somewhat different problem. (I have sent logitech an email, but after reading this thread am pretty sure there will be no response to question 100107-005910!). The battery in my 880 (about 2-3 years old) is swollen, although the unit continues to operate (yes, and charge, too) as well as ever (I have had very few cradle problems that weren’t fixed with a light wipe of the contacts every few weeks). I cannot get the back on unless I dremel some plastic off the back of the cover, which I am reluctant to do. A genuine replacement battery in Australia is about $60!!! But if the swelling is due to overcharging, I may destroy the replacement as well - the battery and charger are simply not supposed to let that happen. Any suggestions?

By: Simon Hancock

Simon Hancock — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:50:41 +0000

Amazingly simple yet effective solution. I love the Internet! Thanks!

By: dasbigl

dasbigl — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:42:37 +0000

Hi all,

I was just about to post about how I fixed the whole thing, but Budge beat me to it. I started with the paper method on the battery, no luck. I opened up the charging base, noticed that ridge and let Mr. Dremel do the rest (I’m sure a file/pocketknife/sandpaper would do just as well, but I wanted to try out my new Dremel).

Thanks, Budge!

By: Budge

Budge — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:47:06 +0000

Before you go out and buy a new cradle…READ THIS FIRST. I bought my Harmony 880 about 2.5 years ago. It worked great for about a year, and then the cradle started getting very finicky about charging. We moved to a new house shortly thereafter, and the remote has spent the last 1.5 years in a box. I pulled it out the other day to reprogram it and the battery was dead (or so I thought). I bought a new battery, but it wouldn’t charge either. I tried the paper method on the battery to no avail.

The problem with my cradle seems to be that it’s contacts are not making good enough contact with the remote. I took the remote apart n hopes of pushing it’s contacts “downward” to extend them. That is not very feasible. Eventually, I came up with my own fix that I’m extremely happy with. I took apart the the cradle (by removing the rubber feet and screws) and bent it’s contacts “upward”. But when I put the top of the cradle back on, the contacts hadn’t raised enough to make a difference. So I opened it back up again and noticed that there is a raised ridge of plastic right in front of the holes on the underside of the cradle TOP. This ridge pushes the contacts downward when you put the cradle top back on during reassembly. So I took a small file and some sandpaper and completely removed that plastic ridge. Now my cradle contacts sit up nice and high, and the cradle works better than ever. In fact, my old battery is now charging just fine.

RANT STARTS HERE: Now I have to say something about Logitech Support. When I found this website, I contacted them to see if they would replace my cradle. They said my product was out of warranty and offered me a 50% discount on a new product. I argued with them that this was not a “warranty issue” because the product wasn’t defective by age, but by design. When Logitech redesigned the cradle and offered it as a replacement, they basically admitted that the product was defective. If it were a warranty issue, they would send you the exact same model that you bought. This is very different, and they should have had a recall. At the very least, they should honor all claims for a new cradle.

They finally gave me a new case number and told me that they would escalate my claim to the RMA department, and that I would be contacted in a couple of days. After a week, I called them back and provided them with the new case number. The support person I spoke with was very embarrassed, because he told me that the RMA department does not call customers, my new case number was simply a record of my complaint that had gone nowhere, and that he could guarantee me that I would never get a new cradle. I thanked him for his honesty and decided right then that (a) I would fix it myself if possible, and (b) that I would never buy another Logitech product again. END OF RANT.