From: Chris Holt <amiga2k_at_cox.net>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 22:11:28 -0400

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 21:08:36 -0400, M wrote:
> I've had my Recorder 20 for almost a year and the battery life has
> always been poor but it has stays hooked to the charger most of the
> time so I never looked into it.
>
> Last week I purchased a new set of 1800mAH rechargables and installed
> Rockbox 2.0 but battery life still sucks.
>
> Last night I hooked the unit to the recharger ( the Recorder 20 was OFF
> the entire time) and charged it for 12 hours. I then turned the unit on
> (battery status was 97%) and starting playing songs in shuffle mode.
> After 2 hours and 40 minutes of uninterrupted play time the batteries
> were fully discharged.
>
> This unit is claimed to run for 8 hours and I see that many users are
> getting somewhere in that range. Does anyone have any ideas why my
> battery life is abysmal and/or suggestions on how to improve it?
>
> I've looked at the Battery FAQ on the Rockbox website but didn't find
> answers to my questions.
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Marcel

It sounds like these batteries have never gotten a full charge.

These new batteries are going to need a couple of full cycles before you
will get max life out of them. If you charged them for 12 hours and still
were only at 97%, then you may want to have rockbox on and use deep
discharge and trickle for a couple of cycles. (what is the mA rating on
your AC adapter?)

You get much better information and charging by leaving the archos running
rockbox (ON but not playing) as opposed to using the rather dumb charging
of the built in firmware (plugged in from OFF as you did before) You can
go to info in the menu and check for the point where it gets to trickle
charge to make sure they are full.

You could also charge them with a smart external charger (as opposed to a
timed one) and run them down completely a couple of times. Rayovac sells
the PS1 charger for about $10 most places and I have gotten good results
with it. It senses when the batts are full and drops to a trickle. 4
independent circuits too. A real bonus if you have devices that run on
one battery.

Chris
Received on 2003-07-09