Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 21

Does anyone own or has anyone tried the Visor rechargeable Power Kit by I.C.U.?
What are your impressions ?
http://www.visorcentral.com/news.php3?id=827

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 152

ICU a-ok

I've had the ICU Accessories Handspring Power Kit about 2 weeks and it seems pretty good. It ships with a cigarette lighter adapter cord which snaps in on the other end to a modified battery door cover. The battery door cover is clear(more transparent than my ice vdx) with two gold-colored metal leads embedded in it and seems to be made of a more flexible plastic than the visor. My kit didn't come with a battery pack but with 2 600-mAh AAA nimh's shrunk wrap together but with both batteries oriented in the same direction so they weren't intended to be used as a battery pack. Since I already had a couple of Energizer AccuRechargeable nimh's in my visor, I just snapped in the provided battery door cover and attached the cord and plugged it into my car. The light on the cigarette lighter adapter plug glows amber when charging, green when not. The cord can be plugged into a provided wall socket adapter allowing you to charge in the safety of your home. There are a couple of annoyances however. The first annoyance is that the leads extending from the battery door cover into the battery compartment seem a little too long so they cause the battery door cover to protrude slightly on the side with the leads. Second, the cord is one of those short coiled numbers so you'll probably want to use it with an extension cord or a convenient desktop power outlet. Lastly, the plug where the cord attaches to the battery door cover will not allow for in-cradle charging. Overall, though, the kit provides the desired functionality.

Registered: May 2000
Location: St. Paul, MN
Posts: 1429

so wait.. All this is is a battery COVER that has wire extending around it, and then a charger? You use your own batterys? hmm intresting.. Sounds somewhat better then the fullcharage, but not EXCATLY. It seems less professional. Can you use your Visor while charging?

__________________
-miradu

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 152

ICU still ok

Taking a look at the FullCharge pic(above), no, the ICU Accessories Power Kit(below) doesn't seem as nice.


From the picture of the ICU Power Kit, you can see all the stuff that is supposed to come with it. My kit came with a couple of 600-mAh AAA nimh's instead of the lime green battery "pack" shown in the picture. That's OK because you can seemingly use any old nimh's, which are cheaper than the extra $20 battery packs FullCharge sells. Also, if you need to pop in alkalines for whatever reason, there's not the hassle of prying the battery pack out of the visor that the VC review describes for the FullCharge.

The visor can be used while charging but the laughably brief instruction card is silent on the issue. I've had good results leaving it plugged in overnight with the visor on.

The battery cover has gold-colored metal contacts embedded in it (as you can barely make out in the photo) so it's not necessarily as bad as a "battery COVER that has wire extending around it." It's competitively priced at $50 vs $55 for an equivalently functional FullCharge kit, uses (or can use) regular nimh's, and can be bought at your local CompUSA(which may or may not be a good thing).

[Edited by dvIceT on 01-29-2001 at 01:11 AM]

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 21

dvIceT
Thanks for the great description and photos.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Richmond, VA, USA
Posts: 151

second the thanks

I second the thanks. I e-mailed ICU and asked for details on their product and received no response. Their site looks like it is only half completed (the Support link on the left says Suppport, links go nowhere, etc.)

Registered: Nov 2000
Location:
Posts: 69

I purchased the I. C. U. system for my VPL. The installation and info card is cryptic at best. I emailed support several times without a response. I went ahead and chanced it - it works great and I think it looks smarter and more professional than the FullCharge.