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-- Battery Questions (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=836)

I have been using my VDx for about two weeks now and my batteries are down to 24%, so it looks like I will be changing them soon. I have some questions:

1) How low do you let your batteries go before changing them? (What voltage/percent do you let it get to?)

2) Is there anything special I have to do when I change the batteries? Do I need to wait a certain period of time before turning on the unit?

How low do I go? (What is this, the limbo?)Depends on the chemistry of the batteries. Are you using alkalines, "Renewals", or NiMH's?

1. I'm using NiMH's and have been letting the voltage drop to ~2.35v before replacing.

2. Change them quickly. I haven't heard of anyone taking too long, but I don't want to be the first one to lose everything during a battery change. Personally, I do a backup to my backup module, but at the very least, I'd do a hotsync before changing "just in case".

An interesting suggestion to those still waiting for their Visors (and those who may have to hard reset theirs):

We know the manual says that we have approx 1 minute to change batteries before the memory self-discharges, but how long is it really? I've read somewhere that it's around 3-5 minutes for a PalmIII. Anyone willing to try this little experiment?

If you read the visor user guide, it says that the visor will still hold it's memory for about 1 month after the batteries seem to "die" as long as you don't take them out, since they still hold a residual charge. It is once you take them out that the 1 minuite rule applies. So, once your batteries start getting low, just make sure you have an extra pair of AAA's with you. Oh, does anybody know how the palm devices hold their memory once the batteries are removed? On a WinCE device I was looking at at Office Depot it had an indicator on whether or not the backup battery (button cell type?) was good or not, yet my visor doesn't. Did they decide to use a capicator or something. It would be interesting to know how Palm did this.

I'm a little piss - the sales person told me that the batteries will last me 2 months, if I don't hot sync every day, and use it in short intervals, which I have. I found that it goes between 2-4 weeks.

The Visor holds it's memory when the batteries are removed because it has a capacitor that it keeps charged up until the batteries are removed. There aren't any button cells or anything like that. Hope that helps.

compupika, crypie:

I'm aware that a capacitor in the Visor keeps the RAM alive for a short time after removing the batts while changing them. The question I posed is how long exactly do we really have before the capacitor fully discharges after the batts are removed. Maybe I'll have to answer this question myself by doing a little bit of experimentation, ...but that would mean reinstalling 4MB of data and apps afterwards...

I've had lockups that hard resets wouldn't undo and the only recourse was to remove the batteries and reload. After removing the batteries it took up to 15-20 minutes to clear the Visor. It happened to me twice when trying to load a program. I suspect that's about how long you can go without batteries. Saying one minute is safe because that keeps you concentrated on the task. If they say 15 minutes then people will get distracted with other tasks and interruptions, lose track of time, forget, etc.

Well, guess what? No sooner than one day after I posed that question (of how long the Visor retains its memory after the batteries are removed) that I experienced a lockup of the kind mentioned by Davydd. Must have been one too many hack activated! I had to wait at least 20 minutes before reinstalling the batteries in order to accomplish a completely hard reset.

Fifteen to 20 minutes?!? So what you're saying is that all these times that I've changed batteries feeling like I'm defusing a bomb or something has been for naught? Dang! That's the most exciting part of my life these days!

Thanks for the info, guys. One less stressor to contend with.