RE: [IUG] Percon Unit Failure

[William Gray <wgray at greenwichlibrary dot org>]

We've gotten around this kind of battery-life snafu with the Percons by
using rechargeable batteries. We've found that the batteries operate
reliably for about 2 hours, so when we've run our Inventory projects,
we've kept scanning time to an hour and a half or lower to be on the
safe side (it also keeps our scanning personnel from burning out).  We
keep a box of fully-charged batteries at our processing desk so that
once the used Percon scanner has had its data transmitted to PAC, out
come the depleted batteries and in go the fresh batteries. The depleted
batteries go immediately into the recharger, and once they're back at
full charge, they go into the box, ready to be used again.  The
batteries themselves have an estimated lifespan of something like 1000
charges.  Much MUCH more economical than buying standard
non-rechargeable batteries and having to keep buying them.

-_Will


-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Gary Jeffries
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 5:12 PM
To: innopac at innopacusers dot org
Subject: [IUG] Percon Unit Failure

We experienced this same problem for at least a couple of frustrating
years, with many a lost file, many calls to III, and 
many replacement units.  On a hunch, we started changing the batteries
in our two units weekly, without fail.  
We started doing this several months ago, and have not had a failure
since.

We learned from III that the Percon units take a lot of power to operate
properly. Our hunch was perhaps the units got to
a point where there wasn't quite enough battery power to operate
properly, thus freezing up, but still had enough battery 
power to not display low battery. 

This has worked for us, so far.  Might be worth a try to change
batteries frequently. We use good quality alkaline batteries.

Gary Jeffries



We have also had a history of problems with Percons.  We had to get all
4 of ours replaced last year as each one kept freezing. That was the
second set of replacements, and some of the units had previously been
replaced before that. We use them to count in-house use of periodicals
during re-shelving, and have used them in the past for partial
inventories.  We have lost a lot of files.  Once a Percon freezes, if
you reboot you lose the file.  Ours got to the point we could not even
reboot them.

Despite the problems, we still use them because the functionality is
good.  We do not have a practical alternative.  


Sandra Card


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