I have just bought a second hand stages crank arm. The big issue I am having is on drop out. I have tried switching a round batteries between ones in my heart rate monitors and put a bit of paper on top of the battery to press it in further. It seems to work fine indoors on the same bike, but when out doors it constantly keeps loosing connection. I have tried banging the bike about indoors to check if this is causing any issues compared to the knock you get on the road but it still works fine indoors. Does anyone have any suggestions?? I am using a Garmin Edge 820 with the stages powermeter.
I had the same issue. On my old bike I had gen 1 Stages and the Edge 800. Worked without any issues. Bought a new (used) bike with gen 2 Stages and kept getting dropouts etc. Tested with my brother’s Edge 1030 and that solved the issue. So then off course I had to buy the 1030… Worked well since then.
Think I read somewhere that they improved battery life on the newer generations by reducing signal strength. Your 820 is newer than my 800 so one should think the receiver has improved as with the 1030, but perhaps the smaller design has not allowed for this.
Suggestion? Buy a different bike computer 
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I had the same problem with my Stages Gen 2 power meter with my Garmin 500 bike computer. I sent the power meter back to Stages and they rebuilt it with Gen 3. It was still dropping out on my Garmin 500. I tried everything from changing batteries, making sure the seal on the batter door was in properly, calibrating and nothing worked. I finally purchased a new Garmin Edge 520 plus and it looks great. The power meter works great with TR as well running either my iPad or Windows with ANT+ connection.
Sometimes you have to buy a new bike computer.
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Thanks for the feedback, massively appreciated. Bit broke atm but new computer is firmly on the shopping list now.
I felt the same way when my time came to purchase a new bike computer since I had just spent my extra funds on a power meter. Looking back, I might purchase a Wahoo versus a Garmin since the Garmin software is so glitchy and the user interface to set up the Garmin is terrible. I’ve heard that a Wahoo can be set up with your smart phone. My wife is getting into cycling and I might pass along my Edge 520 to her and I look into a Wahoo Bolt.
I also had dropout issues with a Stages Gen 2 and Garmin. It worked flawlessly with a Garmin 510 but when the 510 died I replaced it with a 520 Plus. That is when the dropouts began. My understanding was Garmin reduced the battery allocation to the power meter. My Gen 2 Stages was replaced with a Gen 3 under warranty for another issue. The Gen 3 works great - I’ve never had a dropout with the Gen 3.
I have a Gen 1 and a Gen 3. I had no Gen 1 issues on a Large frame bike but I loaned it to a friend who had once or twice a ride drop out issues on his XXL frame.
I seem to remember GP Llama doing a test on the (then) new Gen 3 with his Garmin mounted to the end of a painters pole so like 10 ft. in front of him with no issues.
I have no issues with drop outs due to distance on my gen 3, nor does the friend who now has his own Gen 3 on the same XXL bike and gets no issues. Contrary to what others have said, I’m pretty sure one one of the gen 3 upgrades was better signal strength over previous versions.
I have run into drop outs during high-end sprint efforts which is frustrating for a power meter that’s supposed to go to 5000 watts or something ridiculous like that but not as concerning as regular riding dropouts.
I was getting dropouts on my 510 and then I read the instructions. 
Garmin set my sampling rate to auto and that didn’t work. After manually setting it to 1 second everything has worked nicely.
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Have moved the Garmin to the top bar and now there is no drop out. amazing how much difference it made. Not ideal though as I like having my garmin on a mount in front of the handle bars as I find it is safer to look at when cycling.