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Thanks Axel for confirming the theory.
I just went from two non-working Beo5s to two working Beo5s 🙂
I tested with parts from two remotes, new flat flex cables (seen here) and three battery packs: two older Sanyo packs (blue cells with yellow wrapping, bought years ago, suitable NTC, one dead pack, one working) and the new one (green wrapper).
I replaced the flat flex on one remote as the old one had a sharp bent and the connectors were somewhat fiddly too after several insertions and removals.
New flat flex next to the old one. I bought a 8cm one (link for the current item on eBay at the time of writing) which does fit inside the case (needs a bit of fitting) and is easier to handle during disassembly. Shorter cable would be ideal but I couldn’t find one. Cable specs: 30 pins, 0.5mm pin spacing, Type A (contacts on the same side).
This is the new battery pack into which I replaced the “more correct” NTC from the dead older pack. While I presume this is not a good practice (the NTC should be matched to the specific cells), I expect the range to be about there for the remote to detect a hot cell, and at least with the USB charging the current is so small that unless the cells go short, I guess it’ll be fine.
For reference, this is how the display module (actually the CPU board) looks inside. The clip-up connector for the flat flex is so much easier to work with than the push-to-insert one in the keypad board.
The display case is held with clips on the edges, it can be opened and closed with not too much marks on the casing.
Both remotes appear to work now, and least they both charge (first with USB as I could plug in my USB power meter to keep checking that the charge kept going and then with the original charger (400mA), keys work and with camera I can see the IR leds beaming.
Neither remote is in too good condition, both have worn key legends and scratches on the aluminum parts etc and one has a bit loose display mounting. Both remotes have my somewhat hacky configuration from years ago (that january 2017 as seen in the display is probably correct), when I only started to grasp the configuration tool before the first remote died (I presume it was a bad battery, then the later remote I bought probably had a bad ribbon cable and/or bad battery too, and I couldn’t figure this all out then).
Now I need to get the configuration utility installed and start hacking with it again to see if I can further polish the configs!
I remember at least thinking about testing one of those round IR eyes, can’t remember if I tried (and it did nothing).
Here are some more pictures of the boards. The front panel is a bit tricky to remove, but from the rear the traces (at least the ones on that side, there might be more on the front) show. The three colums seem to go into the flat cables to go into the three identical boards so it looks like the colums are independent. I’d presume most of the audio/video are just pass-thru, and the boads mainly relate to the datapins on the different buses.
Serial port has only the usual pins 2, 3 (RX/TX) and 5 (GND) connected.
Inspired from this thread, I went and bought a new battery from ElectroPapa, I received a white-label vhbw one (identical to the first picture in this thread). I was happy to see that one of my two Beo5s (both bought second-hand, both worked for a while but died soon after and were put away) did came up with the battery, but there is still a problem as it’s not charging. I am using a USB charger with a USB power meter, and I can see that when I first put the remote to the dock, the current goes up to 90mA (matches the USB charge current in the user manual) BUT drops down to zero after just 5-10 seconds. The Beo5 says ‘charging’ but it’s clearly not, however it keeps it barely alive (if taken out of dock, it gives ‘charge battery’ but while in charger keeps going).
I disassembled the remote (again) and experiment shows that if I disconnect the display ribbon cable, it keeps charging. So I assue the charging circuitry itself is working, but the CPU (inside the display housing) tolds it to turn off. The wiring diagram confirms that there are HIGH_CHARGE_STOP, VBAT_SENSE and CHARGE_ID* signals so clearly it’s doing something with the charging. My ribbon cable was already bent and the contacts don’t look too good so I am somewhat expecting a bad cable. I ordered some new ribbons (the service manual gave me the needed info: 30-pin 0,5mm pitch, contacts on same side) and I’ll need to dig up my other Beo5 and compare what it does with the new battery. The ribbon cable is detachable on both ends (for some reason the display unit has a nice locking-tab connector while the keypad has a push-in connector in my remote). I was able to open the display housing too.
*) CHARGE_ID appears to be also a signal from the dock, I presume this identifies the wall-charger with which the charging should happen at 400mA, ie. much faster. If I can find my wall-charger, it would be interesting to measure how the detection works to bring the remote into the higher current charging mode.
I am pretty sure this is NOT a fault of the battery, but my Beo5s/the ribbon cable, as this is very much the same I had before; the remote seemingly works but it’s not really charging and eventually the remote dies.
