Dave:
I haven't responded till now, because I agree with what others have
told you and felt there was no need to repeat. One thing to remember
here is that not only can cheaper batteries cause variances in the level
of performance, but there can even be differences in the way the ends
are made, to the degree that it could cause behavioral differences as
well. The Positive End could actually stick out a little too far, or
not be as round as other batteries. I have not seen it specifically
with the Book Port, but we have seen it with other pieces of equipment
that we manufacturer. In that case, it caused more serious damage, so
count your blessings that all it did was a Reset and not something else
more serious. So, it wouldn't surprise me that your unit reset on its
own, because the shape of the batteries could be causing some connection
interference. If the problem persists with better name batteries, than
you could have bent contacts. Just keep an eye on it. However, I
suspect that it's the batteries themselves that you need to take issue
with and not your Book Port.
Pamela Rader, TECHNICAL SUPPORT
American Printing House For The Blind
1839 Frankfort Ave.
Louisville, KY 40206
PHONE: 1-800-223-1839, Ext. 307
wd8ldy@xxxxxxxxxx 10/27/06 04:12PM >>>
Hi Nolan and list:
Yep I ageree with you on the lesser batteries. I've definitely found a
better source that I plan to use in the future. So do you think getting
the
defaults restored message at around 50 percent when I hadn't issued
tieh 2B
command to also be symptomatic of the junk batteries I'm using?
Cheers,
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nolan Crabb" <ncrabb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 12:05 AM
Subject: [bookport] Re: Battery life in version 2.03
You wrote about extremely short battery life.
I'm using batteries purchased at Costco, not name brand, but the
Costco
store brand. I'm primarily reading MP3 books I've digitized at 24
KBPS.
I'm getting about 45 hours of battery life consistently under that
circumstance. If I switch to dollar store batteries, I get the
results
you've described or something a lot like them. I rarely get less
than 45
hours per set of batteries, and while I toss several braille books
into
the
mix during the life of those batteries, most of my reading is
definitely
the
MP3 audio.
The moral of the story is watch out for those nasty dollar store
batteries.
They may even be name brand, but they're likely in that dollar store
for a
reason, not the least of which is that they may have become close to
outdated. Please don't misinterpret this message; I'm not lecturing
or
castigating you at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I've been
where you
are in terms of that four-hour battery life, but not with this
version--with
earlier beta versions. These Costco batteries seem to last as long
for me
as the name brands, and I'm getting a twelve pack of four batteries
per
pack
for between $10 and $11.
