Hi Don, Thanks for this helpful message. I was using my mPower and the battery seemed to be discharging more slowly since upgrading to KS 7. I keep speech off most of the time and thought that would be the reason. Now, yesterday, my battery was at 38%, and today, it was down to 8% and the battery low message was displayed. I figured that it shouldn't have dropped that much, as I had no cards in the unit, and my usage wasn't indicating that a 30% in one day should have occurred. So I figured time for Calibration. AS I haven't done this before, I went into Support Mode and typed Letter G and the message you referenced regarding the initial charge was displayed. Should I abort the process, since I obviously didn't hit letter R? Thanks. Best Regards,
Les -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don Bishop Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 1:35 PM To: Braillenote List Subject: Re: [Braillenote] battery is critical If you want to calibrate your battery gauge, do the following. Note that the battery itself is really not effected, but rather the gauge within the MPower which determines when battery warning messages should be sent out and also tracks the percentage of battery charge. It helps to put the software mechanism in the MPower in sync with what is actually happening related to the physical battery charge. First, use your MPower until your battery registers below 80 percent. This will insure that the calibration process starts with the unit charging at a full charger rate rather than trickle charging. Actually, you can do this if the battery is around 90 percent, but 80 percent gives a bit more chance to be sure the battery is charging. If you start the process with too high a percentage of battery capacity, the initial charge part of the process can take nearly forever. 2. To actually start the calibration process, from the main menu, press space with o on the bt or function with o on the qt to get into the options menu. 3. Enter support mode with space with i on the bt or read with i on the qt. 4. Make sure your ac adapter is plugged into an electrical outlet and into the MPower. 5. Press dots 1 2 3 5 on the bt or the letter r on the qt to start the process. You should see a message on your braille display which says " battery calibration I'm charging up my battery!" And there may be more to this message but this is the gist of it. Once the battery is fully charged the discharge cycle will begin. Speech will be switched on and you hear the message "I'm talking until my battery goes flat", etc. It's a good idea to put the MPower somewhere so this repeated message won't bother you as it will continue for many hours. A good way to deal with this is to turn up the MPower volume to 32 and then plug earphones into the earphone jack of the unit. This will also help to speed up the discharge process. You may be able to speed it up further by playing the repeated message through the speaker but it may be at the price of your sanity and the good will of your family. Once the battery is fully dicsharged, a second charging sequence will start. There will be no continuous speech during this charge. Once the final charging is complete, you should see a message saying that the calibration is complete. You're done! Don't interrupt this process if at all possible as it will just slow things down and may require you to do it all over again. You won't hurt anything by interrupting it except that you may not receive the calibration results you want. The entire process can take around 18 hours, sometimes more sometimes less depending on the particular unit and battery in question. You really should only have to do this very occasionally. Once the battery calibration is complete, just exit back to the main menu and continue using your MPower as usual. Don ___ To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote ___ To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
