A customer bought an RC5400, but he had just broken his 5200 and I stuffed its program, imported and modified as needed, into the 5400 so he could continue to use that system.

I then took another 5400 out there to use as a loaner. Somewhere in the process, one of the batteries either went dead or never charged. The symptoms are:

The remote boots when you put it into the charger. It will operate while in the cradle. The charger's blue lights do not come on at this point. If you pull it out of the cradle it goes dead.

After it has been in the cradle for about two minutes, the blue lights come on any time you use the remote, and they stay on as long as the panel lights of the 5400 stay on. After that, no blue lights.

This happens with one battery in either remote in either charging base. The blue lights always come on with the other battery in either remote.

Any hints as to whether this could be anything other than a dead battery?

Sounds dead to me..I don't think even a firmware download will fix that problem although it might. who knows.

It occurs to me that the behavior is very much like having no battery at all -- voltage from the charger makes the remote work, but no current is drawn until the panel is lit; the blue lights go on then. When the panel goes dark, not enough current is drawn to light the blue LEDs.

The battery meter also shows 100%, which is what it would read at the battery terminals if it were in the charge mode and the battery voltage could not drag it down to a real, less than 100% value.