G'day Ian,
Are you quite sure that it's not what you first suspected- some
kind of physical contact thing?
A long time ago and I can't remember where, I encountered some item
of equipment which needed the AA cells to have unusually protruding
positive terminals. Most cells wouldn't make contact because their
"shoulders" were bumping into the plastic around the equipment's
positive contacts. It's gotta be something like this causing your
problem.... I think!

Cheers,
Bob




"Ian.2" wrote:

To be honest, I'm not really expecting this to get working again, but mostly
it's just baffling me. So if anyone can offer any light onto what might be
going on here... I'm posting from the UK, in case any of the wording seems
a bit odd to you

Some years ago I bought a radio-controlled analogue clock module from
Maplin, and used it to replace the standard clock module in a cheap and
cheerful wooden wall clock I'd bought from Argos. The clock synchronises
itself with the Rugby radio time signal, so always keeps exact time - even
adjusting between BST/GMT. It's fun to listen to the radio time pips and
see the second hand of my clock in perfect syhnchronisation with them.
Well, there's so much tat on telly these days, what else would I look at?

I noticed the other day that the clock was about 10 seconds behind the hour
countdown on BBC News 24, but assumed that, being digital, there was a delay
with the TV signal. Then today I realised that my clock was in fact slow,
as it was behind the pips I could hear from the radio in the kitchen. Time
for battery replacement, I assumed.

Indeed it was, as the alkaline AA battery in there barely gave a flicker on
my meter. I put in a new Ever Ready one. Nothing. Every Ready battery is
fine on meter. Try an almost-new Rayovac. Nothing. Put original "dead"
battery in the clock. Clock starts ticking.

Despite fidgeting the batteries in the battery case, cleaning contacts with
emery paper, and trying several other brands in case it was some bizarre
physical contact thing, the only battery that will make my clock tick is the
practically dead Sanyo one I took out of it. None of the new or semi-used
batteries will make it work!

Any suggestions before I throw the clock module away and seek a new one?

Ian