SRAM shifter coin cell battery

SRAM says 2 years battery life under “normal” conditions. What’s normal? My Garmin shows average of 1100 shifts per hundred miles. 1x Texas hill country riding. Anyone know about how many shifts you get out of a new coin cell?
Thanks

I have been tracking. 2x road bike. Windy flyover country. Ride about 12,000 miles per year.

Fresh Duracell - ~550,000 shifts
Energizer - only 380,000 shifts
no name Amazon battery - currently at 600,000 shifts and still going

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How do you track that?

When they go, they can go quickly. Like from good to warning to dead during a ride (particularly if heading out on a cold morning). The status is based on voltage and those lithium coin cells have a very flat voltage curve, looks good until right before it dies.

I’ve found that replacing them yearly never gets me in trouble, typically do it right before race season along with annual tear down of bike for maintenance. Cheap insurance.

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Interesting stats, but without looking at a number of batteries from each brand, you don’t know whether the difference is from variation within a brand, between brands or in conditions.

There has been discussion that also the new bitter coating (to meet new child safety regulations) makes the electrical connection more temperamental. Buying batteries sucks, it can be a crapshoot.

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The site should work for SRAM since it’s the Garmin that holds the data. I’m not sure if other cycling computers are supported.

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I use shop wipes like Goop puts out to try to remove the coating. Wipes like that usually have a rougher side coupled with the chemicals in the wipe to remove most of that coating. But ask anyone who has more than 5 AirTags about battery usage. It seems like I’m chasing dying batteries almost monthly. :roll_eyes: AirTags are great for finding your stuff, but the battery usage is nuts. I found out that there’s a limit to the number someone can have registered to them and I think that is telling as someone with more than two dozen of them would likely be driven nuts with the dying batteries. They happen in waves too occasionally. I have to buy the sheets of batteries! And Costco stopped selling them for some reason.

And I heard coin cell batteries are outlawed in Australia? That must not be accurate as what would all the devices do for batteries and sales there. I mentioned swallowing of them to a bunch of ER docs, and they said that they get a kid in every so often who has swallowed one. They can do a lot of damage to the digestive system! The new bitter coating also has dye pads that will color the mouth and hands of a victim.

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A quick hit with some denatured alcohol on a paper towl does the trick. I intentionally buy the Duracell batteries with the bitter coating because I’ve read they are less likely to be counterfeit (a huge issue with coin cells). I have no idea if that’s true (just read it on the interweb), but it makes sense that counterfeiters would probably avoid the hassle of trying to duplicate the coating.

My AirTag batteries last a year and a half or more. I’ve had two on <20% for what feels like a few months now :joy: Living life on the edge.

I had my SRAM shifter not work prior to a ride earlier this year on a brand new bike. The bike was likely sitting in the shop for a year or so prior to me buying it, but it would have had almost no shifts on it. It worked fine for first 3-4 rides, then one day it wouldn’t shift no matter what. Battery showed up as 100% in AXS app, but it wouldn’t respond to the AXS button on the shifter, no light or anything. Swapped a battery and it worked fine. Now of course, it could be an issue with the shifter itself and not battery, so let’s hope not!

I had one appear to reject a battery after a couple months. I took it out and cleaned it ‘better’, and put it back in. Two weeks later, it wanted a new battery. (Never had kids, but I can imagine the same thing happening) So swapped a new one in, and silence (so far).

It’s damned frustrating. I have a key chain with a dead AirTag somewhere here, and of course I can’t find it. :roll_eyes: And I’ve gotten alerts when the battery shows so near :skull:.

Glad I don’t have SRAM that is chirping it’s hungry like the AirTags. And I buy from a store that has a quick turnover for ther 2032 batteries too! sigh

Good luck all you SRAM’ers…

I thought they had a ‘shelf life’? Does the shifter look for accessories when the accessories are off? If so, sounds like the PowerBeats Pros I had (just donated them) that my iPhone would pick up at times in a different room. No wonder the damn battery was always dead. :roll_eyes: :person_facepalming:

I got no warning on my AXS battery dying. I just tried to go out for a ride one morning, and no shift. I was pretty frustrated since I camped out in the middle of nowhere and didn’t have spare batteries, thinking they were good for two years and I had it less than one.

Luckily, I had AXS on both bikes and brought both with me, so I swapped those batteries. Eventually ditched AXS on both.

And I’ve had my road bike for 18 months now…I better replace the Di2 battery…

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If it’s got a bitter coating then that definitely…sucks?

Haribo coin sours anyone?

Batteries do have a shelf-life, so that could have been it. I’m honestly not sure about whether it looks for anything when powered off. I know the system wakes up when you shake it, but I’m not sure how that impacts the shifters. It ended up in a pretty frustrating experience, but it was easily fixable. I replaced both at the same time, just in case!

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The coin cells that came with my SRAM shifters sucked. I could not get one shifter to pair. Then the other shifter would disconnect. I put in a new set and presto, everything worked. My air tags work for 2 years no problems. In hot trailers all summer in Texas. I replace my batteries every 2 years. Now if I could just find ear buds that seem to disappear on rides. My guess is they fall out going over cattle guards never to be seen again.

This seems a lot like my issue! I haven’t had any problems since swapping in a new one, so who knows. Good reminder to replace it yearly anyway, they’re cheap enough, it isn’t worth the hassle.

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The derailleurs wake up when shaken, but the shifters do not. The derailleurs must be on and listening for commands from shifters. The shifters only need to wake up and transmit when the lever or button is pressed. This is why the app says to shake bike the derailleurs on the component list, but says press AXS button for the shifters. For wireless Blips with no AXS button, the button needs to be held for 4 seconds for them to switch on their receiver. Only when a component is on and actively communicating with the app will the battery level shown in the app be current.

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Ah, so then they wouldn’t be affected by anything other than a very long shelf life, excessive shifts, and of course crappy batteries. Good to know! I couldn’t wake up the shifter no matter what - no shifts, no AXS button.

Apple’s AirPods Pro 2’s have Find My. The older versions did too. I had one pop out on a trail, and I was able to find it again with my iPhone. I was surprised it worked so well. Have to have an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch though… Regular AirPods have find my too evidently.

I tried but my iPhone would not direct me to the one side that popped off. I even got off the bike and walked about 100 yards in each direction. Maybe too many bounces on the road. Had to dig out my discman head phones.