Hi, everyone. Let me add more to what has been said below. I found this out
last evening by experimentation.
My quicker battery drain probably stems from the fact that I am editing as
I read. If you have speech turned on, of course, every time you do
something that requires speech, the amplifier turns on and remains on for a
few seconds after the message is delivered. You'd think that speech on
request might help here. Not really. If you are editing and you delete
something, you get a warning beep for each time you press the delete key.
Again, that turns on the amplifier which remains on for a few seconds after
the last beep is sounded. This even occurs if you press the thumb keys in a
menu and get that lower tone telling you that you are at the end of the
listing or menu. . You might as well have left speech on. If you turn
speech off altogether, you don't even get a warning beep when deleting
something. If you hit the bottom of a list or menu, again, no lower warning
tone. This is probably the best idea, but you may not get all of the
feedback you would like.
However, the amplifier stays off.
Since it takes more power to run the amp than the braille display, turning
off the amp should decrease battery drain during usage. Once I finish
editing and just read a document, of course, even if speech is turned on,
it won't come up unless I exit and return to the previous menu or main
menu. No beep will sound unless I enter a menu and get that lower tone that
denotes the bottom of the menu or of a list. So, the amplifier stays off.
Just a theory here.
I do think that the manual should state an accurate representation of
battery life with these new boards, though.
Another item.
I use my bn probably only an hour or so each day. I might check something
occasionally during the day or even use it to edit for a little while, but
I dont' use it extensively each day leaving it running for hours at a time.
If I did, I probably would get a higher number of hours used from a full
charge to a freeze.
At 1/14/2004, you wrote:
Hi Paul and List,
I too feel that the battery is a weak point in the BN but then I think I
have made some discoveries. The more you use your unit between charges,
the more you will get out of your battery. I always try to get my battery
down to six percent or lower before charging my unit. One good thing
about the BN, it only takes two hours to bring the battery up to full
charge and one can leave the BN plugged in indefinitely, at least, that is
what we are told. Before you use your unit, be certain your battery is
fully charged. My unit operates a long time on zero percent charge. If
you are going to use the modem, don't try to do so on such little
charge. before you take it on the road where there is no convenient
electrical outlet, charge your battery even though there may be a high
percentage on it. Work it like you would a wireless phone. Plug it in
before taking it on the road. I am finding that I'm able to accomplish
what I need to accomplish before recharging my BN by observing what I told
you. If you are near an outlet at the time your battery is about to go on
you, plug your unit in and finish up what you are doing. Once you get it
home, charge the battery.
HTH
Jim Aldrich
At 03:15 PM 01/13/2004 , you wrote:
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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