Dead HP-17bII

[jlovda]

I have a 17bII in mint condition. It worked fine a month or so ago when I last used to. I pulled it out yesterday and saw a dead battery symbol and put new batteries in. The battery contacts were perfectly clean. I checked the new AG13 batteries with a DVM, all were 1.5v. The calculator is now completely dead. What can I do next?

[Steve Simpkin]

Try the following in order.

1. Verify the batteries are installed correctly.
2. Try the reset or memory clear methods on page 217 and 218 of the manual.
3. Remove the batteries and short the contacts in the battery compartment for 10 seconds. Put the batteries back in. If it is still unresponsive, repeat step 2.
4. With the batteries installed, short the contacts for less than 1 second. This brief short won’t hurt the batteries but may jolt the calculator back to life. This is from the HP-15C manual.
5. Apply pressure on the bezel between the top row of buttons and the LCD and try the ON button.
6. Try another set of batteries in case one of the ones you have has a high internal resistance.

[jlovda]

I am incredibly embarrassed. I took the old batteries out the calculator. I then took the new batteries out of their package, measured them, got sidetracked and I guess threw out the new batteries by mistake. I put another set of new batteries in the calculator and it works fine. I did loose the memory. The big thing I lost were SOLVER functions for calculating Sin, Cos and Tan using a Taylor series out to maybe six terms. The Tan equation was Sin/Cos (loooong). At first I did use two separate SOLVER functions and then divide them in a third but I couldn't compute arc Tan that way.

Thank you very much!