Saber III - poor battery contacts??

[g8tzl2004]

I have acquired a few Saber III's which came with no batteries.

Two of the radios initially did not power up. However, I "rocked" the battery while it was connected to the dead Saber and eventually both the Sabers powered up!!

One Saber had a loud hum on the TX signal (more than just a PL)..but with a bit more rocking of the battery the loud hum disappeared.

I assume its just a dirty battery contact problem? Anybody know what I should be looking to clean up - presumably something behind the battery contacts? Is this a common problem?

Or maybe because the Sabers had not been connected to a battery for a long time, when you connect a battery does it take , say , 30 seconds to reset the CPU or something??? So rocking the battery had no real effect?

Either way, I'm glad I decided to do a bit of battery rocking. I used a medium amount of gentle force as the battery is a tight fit!!!

[DJP126]

Your best "contact cleaner" is a pencil eraser. Is the battery OEM or after market? Many after market batteries are problematic with Sabers.

[g8tzl2004]

The batteries are aftermarket - Alexander Technologies - which work great with all my other Saber stuff.

I presume I need to clean the contacts behind the battery plate? Is the battery plate "resting" on some other contacts which the plate is tightened against? So I need to clean these other contacts? The actual contacts on the plate look clean and shiny and are sticking up OK, although I guess the contacts might be missing the battery by micro inches or something? Anyway, wobbling the battery did the trick but maybe I should clean up all the contacts to stop any future problems?

[Will]

The later Sabers had small salastic rubber inserts under the battery contacts to give them some extra 'spring' up against the battery's contact.

Use a soft pencil eraser to clean the contacts.

Also in the Genesis series radios.

[g8tzl2004]

Thanks Will.

I've seen some images on the Repeater Builder site which seems to show a bank of 2 rows of contacts on the base of main body of the Saber III. I presume these contacts include the +ve and -ve power input. I'm thinking that the battery base plate/pins rests and is tightened against the relevant contacts. Do I need to remove the battery plate and clean these hidden contacts or do I just need to clean the 2 actual battery contacts?

[Will]

The two rows of contacts was on the earlier radios. Just two on the later Sabers and Astro Sabers.

Check that the small philips screws holding the contacts are snug on the baseplate.

The minus contact is screwed to the baseplate.

[AEC]

All models of the Saber analog series have spring finger contacts on the bottom of the frame, with the main battery power being one of those.
The fingers had been prone to 'setting' when cased over the years. This results in poor contact, inability to program the radios, and loss of accy. connection contacts.
Will is right about the spring contacts on the bottom of the case, there are rubber inserts that prevent crushing of the contacts when sliding the batteries on. The case has NO fusing, these are on the main board of the radio, mounted vertically, next to the spring contacts, and older versions had the fuse mounted to the board on the left side, near the bottom.
All button contacts are via flex cabling on the left side of the fame, ending into a pin header on the upper left of the main board, between the main receiver module and frame. The reference oscillator should also have a rubber cover on it.
If you have any problems with receiver sensitivity, remove the receiver module, and flip it over. The filter is band specific, so it must be matched to the frequencies you intend to operate the radio in. Same goes for the synthesizer module, and the F.D.S (VHF) and P.A.
The controls top is connected via multi-pin header as well, and this is located above the receiver module, oriented horizontally.

[g8tzl2004]

OK on the spring finger contacts which are prone to setting. How do you fix this? Can you clean them up and apply a bit of pressure to force up the contacts?

Its a UHF radio so I'm hoping it covers 440-470 MHz rather than just a segment. My VHF Saber covers the entire 145-175 MHz band.

Thanks for all the other pointers.