diad battery problems!

[jughead]

My situation is that my diad's battery starts getting low (warning- battery 20%) at around 5 or 6 p.m. with most of my residentials still left. They've switched out the diads a couple of times, but its still a problem. I've tried cleaning the power/charge contacts but doesn't seem to help much. Anyway, the beef I have with management is that after informing them of the problem, they instruct me to stop, scan and DR all remaining resi. stops before diad goes down. I could understand doing this if I had maybe 5 stops but most of the time its more like 40 or 50 left. I tell them can't do it due to the fact that there are sign. required and non-dr items such as electronics; not to mention what if once I get to a stop I've already DR'ed in diad and decide its not a good DR. I know sometimes they're unable or have no one to bring me a backup diad, but I'm only 2 to 3 miles away from center. I know that theyre telling me do as instructed, but its my name in the diad and i feel this is going against the DR methods we've learned all these years. Plus i've heard of drivers being disciplined or fired in the past for these kind of integrity issues involving their delivery records. I don't know if I'm being to paranoid or what, but it stinks. Anyone else dealing with this or having problems with diad battery.

[big_arrow_up]

I'm going through the same thing. Learn how to restart the DIAD after it dies. You push "A", "K", "X". First push A and then while continuing to hold down A you then push and hold K and then while still holding down A and K you hold down X. You supposedly only get 3 restarts before the DIAD loses it's info so what you need to do is prerecord your remaining packages as soon as you get the "...battery only has 20% capacity...bla blah.." message. Deliver all the rest without using the DIAD and when you get back to the building you can restart (AKX) and complete the rest accordingly and then clock out. I had to do this just about every day during peak. It sucks but it beats the hell out of writing down all the tracking numbers. I'm wondering if the fact that UPS Freight is using DIADs now is affecting our ability to get our DIADs fixed/replaced fast enough.

[mattwtrs]

The Diad 4's battery life is shall we say "least best". I know it will be 1 year in April since we went on the 4's and almost everyone in the center has had problems at least twice. It does not matter if you are on a metro route with 400-500 packages a day or a rural area with 125 packages in the car. The Diads fail in the heat of the summer & snow of winter The AXK thing is OK but having a paper manifest to mark the dr's down on makes it easy to complete the stop on return to building. Usually 5 min. in the rack recharges the battery enough to punch out!

[fredly00]

One thing that will help battery life is not leaving the board in signature mode.
it seems to not shut off when its in that mode(maybe I don't wait long enough)

I've worked a couple 13hr days(12+ lunch) and never had one go down
I could only imagine the headache if it had happened)

[jughead]

But the thing thats bugging me is having to scan and dr all your remaining resi. stops in the span of 10 minutes. On record all these pkgs. will have the same time of delivery. I sometimes have 40 or more stops. This doesn't seem right. I kinda feel like I'm cheating for management for their failure to fix this problem. Are we not supposed to dr a stop when we're physically at the stop. And suppose further down the road management feels like busting me on something, could this kind of thing be used against me, like a dishonesty/integrity issue. Even though they are instructing me to do it this way. Sincerly, Mr. PARANOID.:confused1

[big_arrow_up]

Originally Posted by jughead

But the thing thats bugging me is having to scan and dr all your remaining resi. stops in the span of 10 minutes. On record all these pkgs. will have the same time of delivery. I sometimes have 40 or more stops. This doesn't seem right. I kinda feel like I'm cheating for management for their failure to fix this problem. Are we not supposed to dr a stop when we're physically at the stop. And suppose further down the road management feels like busting me on something, could this kind of thing be used against me, like a dishonesty/integrity issue. Even though they are instructing me to do it this way. Sincerly, Mr. PARANOID.:confused1

If you are worried about the ties then call the center and ask them what they want you to do. I'm sure they'll either tell you to prerecord and complete as many as you can until the board fails and the complete the rest at the center after the board is restarted or they'll have someone bring you another DIAD.

[browned out]

Originally Posted by jughead

But the thing thats bugging me is having to scan and dr all your remaining resi. stops in the span of 10 minutes. On record all these pkgs. will have the same time of delivery. I sometimes have 40 or more stops. This doesn't seem right. I kinda feel like I'm cheating for management for their failure to fix this problem. Are we not supposed to dr a stop when we're physically at the stop. And suppose further down the road management feels like busting me on something, could this kind of thing be used against me, like a dishonesty/integrity issue. Even though they are instructing me to do it this way. Sincerly, Mr. PARANOID.:confused1

You are not being paranoid. If something goes wrong, they will fire you for dishonesty. If they instruct you to do this, have management 2 way a message that instructs you to prerecord and dr these pkgs. cover your ass

[browned out]

you could also take a 2nd diad if one is available

[over9five]

"Sincerly, Mr. PARANOID"

You are not paranoid. You simply know who you work for.

[rushfan]

I still have the old pads to sheet packages. Once the bugs get worked out of PAS we won't have to work over 8 hours. When that happens, we won't have to worry about the batteries running out.

[helenofcalifornia]

"Once the bugs get worked on w/PAS, we won't have to work more than 8 hours." Huh??? Who told you this? You must mean as a PTer you won't have to work more than 8 hours, right?

[scratch]

Originally Posted by rushfan

Once the bugs get worked out of PAS we won't have to work over 8 hours. When that happens, we won't have to worry about the batteries running out.

Now THAT was funny!

[SeniorGeek]

Originally Posted by jughead

My situation is that my diad's battery starts getting low (warning- battery 20%) at around 5 or 6 p.m. with most of my residentials still left. They've switched out the diads a couple of times, but its still a problem. I've tried cleaning the power/charge contacts but doesn't seem to help much.

When I was with UPS, there were battery troubleshooting instructions for the DIAD III, and a test to perform to detect a bad battery - which could be replaced on an exchange basis. There were also spare batteries provided to each center with DIAD III. There was also a periodic process to deep-discharge the batteries, to help extend their life.

I was not involved in the DIAD IV deployment. Did all this support go away with DIAD IV, or did the information and training get lost along the way? (I do not need an answer, but maybe some drivers, OMSes, Sups and Center Managers would benefit from the information.) It used to be that TSG would provide training to in-center staff, sometimes just in the form of a document or URL with the information.

[over9five]

DIAD 4 batteries are not user replaceable.

[UPSBOI]

Part of the problem is the enviroment in which the batteries are charged. In our building the racks had to be moved into an air conditioned office to offset the heat being generated by charging those batteries. If it is too hot the batteries will not charge effectively and shorten battery life.