On Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 8:22:07 AM UTC-4, wrote:
I bought a glider which had been in storage for some time. It has an ILEC SB-9 vario which does not appear to be functioning.

When I power on the vario, the needle climbs to the one knot up position and stays there continually while beeping. It does this regardless of which position the mode switch is set to.

Gently applying pressure or suction to the pitot causes the other vario (Cambridge 302) to respond, but the ILEC does not respond at all.

I have removed the old rechargeable 9v battery from the ILEC with no change in behavior.

Are there troubleshooting steps I should attempt before I remove this vario?

Matt
I searched for "ILEC SB-9 manual" and read it to find this... Have you followed the maintenance procedure and replaced the battery?

"Maintenance
SB-9 adjustments

Emergency accumulator
The emergency battery is a NiCd accumulator and should be renewed after 5 years. Only use a type
like VARTA TR 7/8 for this purpose.
CAUTION: Never use non rechargeable primary batteries, they may blow up when being charged.
The lifetime of this accumulator will be extended, when being discharged twice a year. Therefore we
recommend the SB-9 to be switched to the emergency mode (RES) for at least 10 hours, main battery
off, to discharge ist accumulator. Don´t forget charging afterwards."

Also "The SB-9 is switched off automatically when the emergency battery voltage falls below 7.7V, to prevent overdischarging and damaging this accumulator." so it won't work with it removed - your problem.

Replacement batteries: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/123798119902...8AAOSw3jZc-qaJ and probably elsewhere
Dan