Thanks, Debbie and all of you on this list. All of you have been so
helpful. I especially like the comments that Roselle sends. I think she
knows more about the bn than anyone I have ever met<grin>. I have started
saving many of these messages to a braille note folder in Eudora.
But thanks to everyone who has commented on my battery drain issue. The
problem is that I am used to a braille lite 18 where battery drain was
minimal. The blt 18 didn't have any alarms or anything that required it to
keep checking things even when the unit was off. It really bothers me to
read for an hour and have my percentage drop by greater than five percent.
I am not used to that.
Thanks, Debbie. I will try leaving the speech off after a full charge just
to see how it goes.
Sometimes, though, it is nice to have that speech on when editing just for
confirmation so you don't erase the wrong thing.
At 1/14/2004, you wrote:
Hi Paul, it's Debbie, I can tell you that if you turn off speech, you will
se a lot less drain on your battery. I am not sure why but the speech drains
the battery a lot faster than just using the braille display.
I hope this helps. If you still have problems feel free to email me off
list. but what you are saying sounds quite normal.
I find that if I am reading with speech, my bn experiences the same amount
of battery drain.
I hope that I have helpped.
>From Debbie. P S Good luck.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Henrichsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Braillenote List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:15 AM
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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