Best battery for Stages power meter

Equipment
21

I use Sony 2032 batteries and typically buy in bulk off Ebay as I have a bunch of devices that use these batteries.

I haven’t had any major issues with my Stages, but I do tend to replace the battery at the start of the season and then keep a battery or two in my Camelbak in case I run low. I do think my Stages PM’s burn through batteries a little quicker than the Quarq DZero on my road bike.

22

Which ones did you buy? I notice the LIr2032 have a higher voltage than the CR2032

23

I have a 4iiii Gen 2 and I use the Sanyo batteries you get from the Dollar store. 3 for $1.25. I get about 120 hours of usage from each battery and I don’t recall ever having a bad battery.

24

I’ve tried a bunch of brands and don’t find any to be significantly better than any others. Basically I just have to keep trying until I find ones that work in my devices. Once I find them they work for many many hours of training. It seems that they either work or they don’t…

Two changes that I’ve made that may or may not be helping:

  1. I shut off my computer in between rides. I think the devices were staying connected instead of sleeping which was prematurely killing the batteries. They last much longer now.
  2. I added a little shim of paper inside the battery compartment for my Stages to try to ensure that the batter is getting good contact. I had a feeling that they were slipping around inside. No idea if this is really true or not, but I’ve had better success with finding batteries that work since doing this.
2 Likes
25

I know that this is an old thread but I had the problem where my stages was eating batteries like eating Tic-Tacs. I found out that it was related to water ingress and the battery compartment was probably still damp. The way that I solved the issue was to take the crank off and put it in a stocking with the battery lid off then cover the crank in damp rid for 24 hours :smiley: Take it out of Damp Rid, then put it back on and voila, no more eating batteries. You can often see the condition of a stages pm from the slope number that is reported when you connect it to the app on your phone, my understanding in speaking with stages, the closer to 890 the better. HTH.

26

Just beware of buying counterfeit batteries, they’re branded as engergizer, duracell, and the rest of the big brands. They’re everywhere on line and they’re garbage. They work, but only about 1/3 the life of the real brand name batteries.

To answer the original question, no particular brand of battery works well in the two Stages PMs I have, as long they’re fresh and the real thing they go for ages w/o drop outs. Actually if you’re getting dropouts, that seems like a whole other issue.

27

I’ve had no trouble with my Stages PM, and just buy whatever CR2032s the local Safeway is carrying. Here’s a few thoughts though:

  1. The battery should click into place and be slightly difficult to remove. If the battery cover is removed and you lay the bike on its side, the battery should not fall out. If it does, bend the terminal at the side of the battery mount. so it’s held in place well.

  2. Smear some grease or Vaseline over the battery before you put the cover back on. This will protect it from any water ingress. Put on enough so that it squeezes out of the sides of the cover when the cover is put on

HTH

28

Just as a side note, I did this and it warped the o-ring after a while. I contacted Stages to see if I could get another o-ring and they indicated that you definitely should not do this but sent me out another few o-ring replacements because they are awesome at customer support. :slight_smile: I thought it would help as well…

29

Biggest battery issue I had with the stages was the cold.

1 Like
30

Yeah my batteries seem to last much longer during the summer months, the cold weather in winter seems to kill them if left in the crank, I remove the battery in winter and it seems to be fine.

On another note all my calibration readings lately seem to be very close to the upper calibration limit of 940. No matter how many times I undo the pinch bolts and torque them I can’t seem to get the reading lower, just worried it may soon start reading out of the calibration range

31

Torque the pinch bolts? Surely that shouldn’t make a difference?

Definitely not fitted some heavier pedals?

32

No pedals are the same,

Yes loosening or tightening the bolts changes the calibration, the crank arm clamps around the axle, so changing the clamping force on the crank by loosening or tightening the bolts affects the strain on the crank.

33

I have just bought a second hand stages crank arm. The big issue I am having is on drop out. I have tried switching a round batteries between ones in my heart rate monitors and put a bit of paper on top of the battery to press it in further. It seems to work fine indoors on the same bike, but when out doors it constantly keeps loosing connection. I have tried banging the bike about indoors to check if this is causing any issues compared to the knock you get on the road but it still works fine indoors. Does anyone have any suggestions??

34

Since I first posted this I’ve found that as soon as I start to get dropouts I need to put a new battery right away in and then all is good again. I still use a bit of paper to keep the battery pressed against the contacts but I’m not actually sure if that is really required…

The batteries will drain very quickly if you leave things running (eg trainerroad app open on your laptop or tablet, head unit turned on, etc.) as the ant+ or bluetooth will still be communicating. So I make sure to turn everythig off when I’m not actually riding.

35

You should take the battery out of the power meter if you are on the trainer and not using it for power reading. Obviously if the battery is in the PM and your riding the PM is trying to find a Bluetooth connection the whole time

36

what’s the head unit you’re using outside?