Race awful charger contacts

Jonathan Schwarz

@peegee I agree! The magnetic connector is very weak and the charger is very sensitive to orientation - a very frustrating combination. I have several times left it to charge and come back to the same battery %

GiPFELKiND

@peegee Suunto 9 Baro strongest Magnet ever dont know why suunto dont make stronger Magnets in the Vertical, Race and co.

pilleus

@GiPFELKiND said in Race awful charger contacts:

@peegee Suunto 9 Baro strongest Magnet ever dont know why suunto dont make stronger Magnet

It’s the charger of the Spartan series and you have to train regularly in the fitness center to remove the charger of the watch.

Brad_Olwin

@peegee most of mine are.

Brad_Olwin

@GiPFELKiND because the stronger magnet will damage internal components!

Elipsus

@Brad_Olwin Yeah but slightly larger contacts on the charger would help a lot, its so finicky !

GiPFELKiND

@Brad_Olwin my old Suunto 9 Baro works until today fine No damage from internal components

Mff73

@GiPFELKiND
between S9P and S9PP, Suunto changes some internal components (surely for more accuracy, dual band, or…) and updated the charger magnets to less strong ones.
Your S9 even older than S9P, you can’t compare.

Dušan Ković

It is not so much problem with magnet strength (it would be nice if magnets are stronger), but the shape of the charging contacts. Keep magnets as they are, but give us more contact surface.

Left S9P, Right SR

It is super finicky to align charger on the SR properly.

pilleus

@Dušan-Ković

My chargers are the same for S9PP and SV.

Egika

the one with the circular contacts was from S9P afaik.

Anyway: I got myself a charger from Ebay (cheapo) for S9P. It had super strong magnets that resulted in charging not starting. So I pried it open and removed one of the two magnets inside. Now it it still holding well (can hang my watch on the charger) and charging

peegee

@Elipsus
FINICKY is the word!

Mff73

@Egika
Customizable magnets strength, you got the idea

maszop

If magnetic chargers didn’t work well, why the hell does Suunto still use them?
For comparison, here’s Suunto’s older solution that just worked:
https://www.suunto.com/Products/Other-accessories/USB-Power-Cable/

MiniForklift

@GiPFELKiND said in Race awful charger contacts:

@Brad_Olwin my old Suunto 9 Baro works until today fine No damage from internal components

Same! Think I had my S9B for 4 years or might have been even longer, never had any issues with it and the magnets for charging on that watch was the best

sartoric

@Mff73 said in Race awful charger contacts:

@GiPFELKiND
between S9P and S9PP, Suunto changes some internal components (surely for more accuracy, dual band, or…) and updated the charger magnets to less strong ones.
Your S9 even older than S9P, you can’t compare.

@MiniForklift read what @Mff73 said … older hardware was different

MiniForklift

Yep I realise that we’re talking about different hardware. I was just commenting on what a great charger the S9B had

Stefano M64

the real problem for me with the new charger base isn’t the magnet, but the lack of a “guide” that keeps the charger base correctly aligned with the pins on the back of the watches: it’s enough a small rotation to loose the contact

Mff73

@Stefano-M64
in fact (my understanding of the design) is that the magnets are playing the role of alignment jig.
not strong enough and alignment is lost.
too strong and suunto programmed a non charging alert to safe the sensible components.

in addition to magnet, there could be (in the future) a solid aligment point(s), but …

~~[edit] might be some quality issue where magnets are not super well placed according to pins positions (watch vs charger) ?~~

[edit2] my bad, magnets are the contact pin to charge, thus no misalignement. just too weak ? or poor/dirty contact ? )

maszop

@Mff73 It’s just a very bad design.
The problem is that Suunto hasn’t done anything about it for years (since the release of 9PP, or even 9P) and traditionally pretends that the problem doesn’t exist.
Shame.