Sena Customer Service

Well my Sena20s stopped working right after my ride on Saturday. It won’t go into normal phone pairing or connection mode after powering it up. Lights up but no blinking blue light. Charging doesn’t seem to the problem. It also does the same thing when powered from an external source. Reset our factory reset does nothing.

Guess I’ll try to reinstall its firmware and if that doesn’t work, it’s battery replacement time.

Off to check out that Amazon link for the plug n play battery
 
AV8R said:
It also does the same thing when powered from an external source.
Click to expand...
If it suffers from the same symptoms when plugged in to an external power source I doubt, unfortunately, that the battery is the problem bit I hope that is wrong and you get lucky.
 
Andrew Shadow said:
If it suffers from the same symptoms when plugged in to an external power source I doubt, unfortunately, that the battery is the problem bit I hope that is wrong and you get lucky.
Click to expand...

well if the battery just loses capacity or is an open circuit, then an external source should work. But if the battery has an internal short, then that would affect an external source too.
 
AV8R said:
But if the battery has an internal short, then that would affect an external source too.
Click to expand...
I hope that you are right.
I THINK that somewhere in this thread someone responded that the 20S will work with an external power source regardless of the condition of the battery which is why I replied as I did.
I do hope, for your benefit, that I am remembering that incorrectly or misinterpreting what they wrote.
 
While I live and learn every day, amongst other things, I am an electrical enginerd.
Some say I have ”the knack”....


Bought the replacement battery, so soon we shall know if it’s the battery, firmware or the hardware.
 
Last edited:
Well my Sena20s died. The battery was not the issue. Something in the circuit board. So i need a replacement asap. My options were to wait for an used, refurbished or under valued set... or buy new. Decided to upgrade to 20s EVO. Well the price differential between refurbished or new was like $30, and since I could get it in 3 days; i went for Amazon. Little more expensive, but ill be good to go soon.

Bought the battery linked above, no way it would fit in the 20s case. But at least i was able to use it for testing.

30C5535C-893F-44EF-8DF3-B3603B7185F4.jpeg
 
AV8R said:
Think I got it working. Seems to be the reset switch is intermittent.
Did u know this device has two batteries?
Click to expand...
Do tell.

Let me know what you did and I will pass the information on to my brother-in-law. He is about to send his away to a company to see if they can repair it. His symptoms are the same as yours. He has replaced the main battery to no avail as well. Maybe what worked for you will work for him.
 
Hard to say what fixed it exactly. I resoldered all the connections around power components. One or more of them were a cold joint. Doesnt matter anyways now, I ordered a new Sena 20s EVO to replace it anyways. Cant afford relying on a device that is dodgy. Lives depend upon my comms.
 
This Sena 20S has been fixed and works as good as new again.

We highly doubted that the problem was the battery from the get go, because the charging cycle worked normally. We took a stab in the dark and replaced the battery. No luck as I suspected would be the case.

As it turns out the problem was two-fold.
- One was a defective power chip on the circuit board.
- The other was several very poorly done solder joints at the factory.

Fortunately there exists companies, other than Sena, who have the ability to test, identify and address minor problems that can be easily repaired. This provides a welcome alternative to having to replace a prematurely failed and very expensive unit with another very expensive unit as Sena would have be done.

See here for the repair story- PalmDr.- Repair Your Garmin, Sena, etc..
 
Andrew Shadow said:
As it turns out the problem was two-fold.
- One was a defective power chip on the circuit board.
- The other was several very poorly done solder joints at the factory.
Click to expand...
The defective power chip is understandable of course. Even the best component lines can have a failure - assuming the best are used.

The second is unforgivable IMNSHO. Much of electronics soldering has been done by machine for years now. So either a machine was defective or poorly calibrated or there is a lot of hand soldering done.

But you got it sorted at a reasonable price. Should my Sena go T/U I might skip the warranty (which could be gone by now anyway) and see The Doctor.
 
[/QUOTE]
My point from the beginning. Despite the warranty period having been barely exceeded and all the comments pointing that out, this was not a routine failure that is to be expected after years of use. Neither was it a question of a battery that had reached its useful life as a matter of normal aging. This failure was not part of the normal life cycle of the unit. We knew just by the way that it suddenly and catastrophically failed without warning, and how it responded to inputs thereafter, that there was a major defect that should not have happened so early in its life. That has been confirmed now. Regardless of that, we were still expecting and more than willing and fully prepared to have it repaired at our expense. Sena should offer some kind of support. Even if it is just a simple test procedure, done at the customer's expense, to determine the cause of the failure so that they have some information to decide if they want to do anything about it. To learn that the only support that they offer is to politely say to bad for you, buy a new one from us I don't view as an example of good service.

In the long run they have lost on this count. They have made no money off of their defective unit even it it was only for a diagnostic test. They also didn't sell a replacement unit. I can assure you that they will never sell anything that they make to my brother-in-law again. Anyone he ever talks to he will try his hardest to convince them not to buy a Sena as well. Be that justified or not, he has been left feeling let down by them after having paid big dollars for their product believing the extra money would buy him better quality than the cheaper alternatives.

I also know that they don't care. This is an example of the double edge sword of big multi-national corporations. On the one hand, they offer definite advantages to consumers in that they have the resources to bring products to the market that we might not otherwise have. On the other hand, they are big multi-national corporations who can also afford to not care about what for them is a very small percentage of unhappy customers who get stuck with one of their lemons. These few customers are but a drop in a very large bucket for them.
ST Gui said:
But you got it sorted at a reasonable price. Should my Sena go T/U I might skip the warranty (which could be gone by now anyway) and see The Doctor.
Click to expand...
An example of why it is also good to have the small businesses around as well.
 
Well I think I might feel a notch lower about Sena today. I went for the upgrade incentive that expires tomorrow and received an email cancelling my order today. The reason is "cannot fulfill the order before your credit card expires." My card does not expire until October! Did they become overwhelmed by the number of people taking advantage of the upgrade incentive?
 
I contacted Sena and the problem isn't my card. Apparently Paypal will not allow a payment to be held by a vendor if they cannot deliver in 30 days. I submitted a new order on my ccard and the order was accepted with a 4-6 week lead time. I wish they explained that in the cancellation notice.
 
Mine started shutting off Radom without notification. No beep nothing. Turn back on and will do it again in 5 min or sometimes not at all. Seems to happen when it’s below 45 degrees out.
 
Flatbroke said:
Mine started shutting off Radom without notification. No beep nothing. Turn back on and will do it again in 5 min or sometimes not at all. Seems to happen when it’s below 45 degrees out.
Click to expand...
Try replacing the battery.
 
I have two Sena SMH10s that are about 7 years old. Both still work very well, and I've replaced the battery in each at least twice... they get used a lot, about 150k miles between the two. I recently lost one of the rubber covers on that snaps over the micro-usb charging port. I contacted Sena to get a replacement. It was a bit arduous, but they ended up sending me two free of charge.
 
Flatbroke said:
Mine started shutting off Radom without notification. No beep nothing. Turn back on and will do it again in 5 min or sometimes not at all. Seems to happen when it’s below 45 degrees out.
Click to expand...
Yep this says diminished capacity in the battery dept. to me. The output of an Li battery is pretty flat until its empty. When you charge it does it charge quickly? Like really quickly? Another indication that its capacity is a shadow of its former self.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom