Hi Karen, Calibrating the battery gauge means making it accurate again. The battery gauge in the BrailleNote monitors the capacity of the battery, and determines its percentage out of 100 on every charge. Over time, as the battery ages, its capacity reduces. Therefore, every once in a while, your gauge will become inaccurate. Re-calibrating re-measures your battery capacity because, as the capacity decreases, the gauge will over-estimate the capacity and report inaccurate results if not re-calibrated. If the battery goes completely flat, which means the BN will shut itself off, and you cannot re-power it unless you plug in the adapter, the gauge will need to be re-calibrated. Your BrailleNote might, for example, prompt you that your battery is low, but when you check the "Power and Battery Status" in the Options Menu, you would get something like 30 percent. Now, you don't know what to trust, the Low warning or the 30 percent. That's a sign you should re-calibrate A.S.A.P. Another way to tell that you should re-calibrate it soon is if the "Battery is Critical" warning quickly follows the "Battery is Low" warning, since there should be a one to two hour gap between them. Otherwise, a good way to check if your battery gauge needs re-calibration is to check if the gauge is accurate. To do this, go to the Options Menu (SPACE with O on the BT) and then the Support Information Mode (SPACE with I on the BT). This mode allows you to check such aspects of the battery as its temperature, cell voltage, nominal available charge, last measured discharged count, capacity inaccuracy count, etc. From here, press A. The BN will either say "Gauge is Accurate" or "Gauge is Inaccurate". Of course, if it's accurate, you're fine, but if it's inaccurate, you need to re-calibrate. When re-calibrating, you do this from the Support Information Mode. So, if your gauge is inaccurate, you can stay where you are if it's convenient because you're still in the Support Information Mode. However, if it's inconvenient, you can always re-enter later. Anyway, from the Support Information Mode, there are two choices in running the gauge down, therefore re-calibrating the gauge. Note that it's highly recommended to fully charge the BN before re-calibrating with these methods. One option is to press F for the Support Information Mode, and this will run down the battery by speech; the BN will continuously repeat a message which says "I'm talking until my battery goes flat. This repetition is enough to drive me crazy. How about you?". If speech if On Request or Off, the message will just appear once on the Braille display, which means it won't keep popping up. However, the battery will still discharge, and you can press SPACE to get the time the discharge was started and the elapsed time in hours and minutes. To exit it before the battery completely discharges, you can press SPACE with E (BT command). The second choice is to press X from the Support Information Mode, which will drain the battery using the Braille display; this causes a cycle to be repeated in which the rows of dots first pop up one at a time, and then the display starts moving rapidly back and forth across the display one column at a time. To pause and re-start the Braille display during this mode, the BACKSPACE with ENTER keys pressed together on the BT keyboard toggle these commands (pause and re-start). To speed up the display, press the NEXT thumb key, and to slow it down, press the PREVIOUS. To exit, press SPACE with E on the BT. Note that, if you press SPACE to hear status while using the Braille display, you will just get a beep tone which sounds the same as the Error Alert Tone, so this cannot be done using the Braille display. When you use the Braille Display Mode, the speech will say "Exercise the Braille Display", and the speech will automatically be set to Speech On. You can always request HELP (SPACE with H on the BT), and this will present you with your choices in the Mode you are in. In the Drain Mode, requesting HELP will cause it to only display on the Braille display if speech is On Request or Off, but if both speech and the Braille display or just speech are On, this will cause the message to be interrupted. The HELP prompt will speak, and the drainage message will resume. If both Speech and the Braille display are on, the prompt will appear on both, and you will be returned to the drainage message after reading it. The same applies when you check status by pressing SPACE. When exercising the Braille display and requesting HELP, it will only be spoken, as speech is automatically turned On, and the Braille display will continue to cycle without displaying any help messages. If you run the Braille display mode while Braille is off and Speech is on, the Braille display will turn on for this feature, but if you exit it, Braille will stay off. If you exit these modes prematurely (before they're done), you should RESET before continuing normal operation. During the battery discharge, you will eventually receive "Battery is Low" and "Battery is Critical" warnings, but you should just ignore them, and eventually, the BN will finally shut itself off because the battery is flat. It won't power up again until you plug in the AC adapter again, even if you switch the unit on and off again. Now, in addition to the message "AC Adapter On", you will receive a message that tells you the "Battery Test is Completed". You can press SPACE to hear the time it took to discharge the battery from its full state. Once the battery is done charging, which should be in about 3 hours, your percentage should be 100 once again, and your gauge is now accurate. Another thing I do to calibrate is, when I find out my gauge is inaccurate, I continue to use my BrailleNote normally until it shuts itself off due to battery flatness, and after a full recharge, the gauge is accurate again. However, if doing this, remember to save your work by going to the Main Menu when the "Battery is Critical" message is displayed to ensure that all your work is still in the BN. I find that I calibrate my gauge about once every two months or so. When one of my friends still had KeySoft 3.06 on their BN, I discovered that the Braille display drainage mode wasn't implemented in that version and, I assume, earlier, so if you pressed X from the Support Information Mode, you would just hear a beep. I never tried it in KeySoft 4.01, which is what I had when I purchased my BN, but the KeySoft 4 manual referred to only one drainage mode in the User Guide, so I'm not sure if it was there. When I upgraded to 5.0, however, both Modes were documented, so that was the first time I tried working with the Braille display mode. If you have earlier than 5.0, and the Mode isn't there, you'll hear an Error tone when you press X from the Support Information Mode, and nothing will happen. Your only choice, then, is the Speech Mode. In the KeySoft 5.0 manual, this topic is covered in the section entitled "Calibrating the Battery Gauge", which is section 2.5 in the BT User Guide. Also, 2.5.1 "Support Information Mode" covers the drainage modes under Item 6, but the rest of the Mode is also discussed. In earlier manuals, the section on Calibrating the Gauge will be there, but information on the Support Information Mode is in Appendix G "Support Information Mode"; in 5.0, this appendix covers KeySync, and therefore has nothing to do with this topic. Also, I don't know QT commands, but you could find all the information in the sections mentioned above. I don't know if the numbers of sections are the same, but they should be similar, and the titles are the same, so you should be able to find them fine. Section 2.5.1 won't appear in the Table of Contents, as it's a sub-section of 2.5, but from 2.5, you can move to the next section (BT command SPACE with dots 4-5-6) to get to Support Information Mode instructions; Item 6 would be the start of a paragraph, so the fastest way to get there is to Move by Paragraph (BT command SPACE with dots 5-6) until they get to the number 6. However, in the Readme for KeySoft 5, it says 2.5.1 is the same section for all User Guides, so 2.5 might be as well. I know this message is extremely long, and that I included a lot of information that you probably didn't ask for. However, I hope I've answered all your questions clearly enough. I make it a regular practice to check the accuracy of my battery gauge, so that I know when I need to re-calibrate, and so I'm sure I always get accurate results regarding my battery percentage. I hope you find this helpful. Maria
>----- Original Message ----- >From: "Karen Folsom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: "Jill O'Connell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"Braillenote List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:14:52 -0800 >Subject: Re: [Braillenote] Service contracts >Hello all! >I've never calibrated my BN. What does it mean, and why do you do it? >Also, how often to you calibrate the battery? Does that just mean you leave >it turned on until it dies? >With a smile, >Karen >___ >To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit >http://list.pulsedata.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
