Hi, Jerry. I think you might be right about the percentage drops. What I am
going to do with the next full charge is to use the stopwatch to see how
much I actually use the unit before it falls to near zero.
The problem is that I don't use it that much so I shouldn't have to charge
it weekly. I had a loaner in November and the percentage drop was pretty
much the same. When I asked tech support about this, they told me the unit
was probably two years old based on the serial number. They told me that
although keysoft 5.0 had been installed and a new motherboard, the battery
may not have been changed. Of course, they didn't know for sure, but this
was the supposition.
But I thought it odd that with my new unit, the percentage drop was the same.
I called tech support again and Al had me press d on the support page. I
got the number 3200. He said that anything below 2600 was considered a bad
battery but that he had only seen one person with 3300 and that 3200 was a
good number.
Once I try the stopwatch thing, I will know within 30 minutes or so how
much usage I get out of my unit.
At 1/13/2004, you wrote:
Paul,
If I were in your shoes, having a brand new under warrantee unit, I would
have PDI put a fresh out of the shrink wrap new battery into your unit.
When my new unit was delivered, I easily charged it no more than once a
week. Now, a year and a half later, I charge it more than that. The big
percentage drops with your battery seem to be not right for a new unit.
Sincerely,
Jerry Weinger
From: "Paul Henrichsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Braillenote List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 6:15 PM
Subject: battery drain. Was [Braillenote] A suggestion regarding alarms
Hi, Terry. I guess this alarm suggestion stems from the fact that I still
really dislike the amount of battery drain on my bn.
I know that everyone on this list has tried to assure me that the
percentage of drain is normal, but it just really bothers me that I can
read for an hour and drop almost ten percent.
I just had my bn fully charged on Sunday morning and I am already at 47
percent on Tuesday. I have probably used the unit for maybe three hours or
so, four hours if I were over exaggerating.
I like everything about this unit except for the battery drain. If it goes
down this fast with a new unit not yet a month old, Imagine what it will be
like in two years. Will it drop 50 percent each day if I read for an hour
or so at that time?
What can I expect in a year and a half or two years with regard to battery
drain?
How will I know it is time to get a new battery?
Is it because I have speech and braille turned on that I drop so fast? Is
it because I am editing, dleting and adding characters instead of just
reading?
I assume not because I drop at least four percent a day when my unit is
switched off.
I have a book port, a portable reading device from A P H. Although it
doesn't have an alarm, it does have a clock; so that it keeps track of the
time even when the unit is off. It uses flash memory to store books and
that card is always in the unit. It doesn't drain nearly as fast as the bn
does. I don't keep a flash card in my unit; nor do I use the modem, serial
port or infra-red port.
Of course, we are talking apples and oranges here, but I do remember that
in the early rom updates of the book port, it ate batteries like candy.
They somehow fixed the drain problem and updated the rom so now, it doesn't
drain hardly at all.
If I over exaggerate, I probably get ten hours out of a full charge. I
thought we were supposed to get between 16 and 20 hours; or is that if the
unit just sits there doing nothing?
I had thought that if we could turn off functions that we weren't
interested in using that, perhaps, we could increase the battery life.
I think this is really going to be a sticking point if the new packmate
gets a much higher battery life. We already have the problem with a newer
internet explorer that pocket pc provides for the pacmate and the fact that
they can use a wireless connection.
I think their 50 hour battery life was an exaggeration, but what if they
can get 20 or 30 hours to our ten?
There is no way to even tell how long you have used the bn between charges
The L key doesn't work on the support page. With my braille lite 18, I
could bring up the status menu and find out how much of a charge I had left
and also how many hours I had been using the unit.
We can't do this with the bn.
If I used the stopwatch each time I switched on the unit to get a running
total, would that drain the battery even faster?
I tried it last night after a suggestion from a user that this wold tell me
how much time I had used the unit. I read for an hour and five
minutes,according to the stopwatch. I dropped from 58 to near 48 percent.
This is the only thing that really frustrates me.
Can you tell<grin>?
Paul Henrichsen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<home.pacbell.net/paulh52>
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Paul Henrichsen
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