Registered: Sep 2001
Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 1

Power Consumption DBase (FlashPlus)

Everyone,

In case you didn't already know about this . . .

The following info could be useful to anyone planning to buy (or already owning) a FlashPlus adapter. It is essentially a database that breaks down the power usage of the Visor with and without the FlashPlus and CF card installed, compared to other brands.

There have been so many reports that certain brands of Compact Flash cards will DRAIN BATTERIES heavily, even with the Visor's power off.

In addition, if anyone has the technical know-how to properly run these tests on their Visor (at your own risk, of course), you can contribute to the database, as it is still fairly new.

Scott

A copied post (with link) from the flashplus Yahoo forum follows . . .


From: "Blaine Gardner" <blaine@x...>
Date: Fri Nov 2, 2001 11:43 am
Subject: CF Card Power Consumption database


"There's a new database for reporting CF card power consumption data.
It's at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flash...-forum/database
along with the other forum databases.

All the current measurements are in milliAmps (mA).

The steady-state measurements (No Card & Card In) are pretty
straightforward. But so we've got some consistancy, the techniques I
used for RAM to CF and CF to RAM measurements were to copy a fairly
large file (a Mapopolis map, about 500KB), so there was plenty of time
to take readings. There were noticable fluctuations in mA while the
file was copied, so I just recorded the maximum value.

The databases are limited to 10 columns, but I think we were able to
squeeze in all the essential stuff. The column for FAUtil Info (Serial
#,Firmware, Model#) is an attempt to identify different cards that may
have the same brand name on them. To get this info, run the FAUtil
"Test Flash Card", then "View Info Log" to see the results.

With the four cards I had to play with, "Serial Num", "Firmware
Revision", and "Model Number" were the entries that seemed to have
useful identifying information.

One interesting note from my own tests: the Mr. Flash card was in the
low end of most numbers, but the "Card in, Visor OFF" was 4mA,
compared to 0.8mA - 0.9mA for the others. So if you've got a Mr. Flash
card, you might not want to leave it in overnight if your batteries
are low."

__________________
"When in doubt, see into the life of things . . ."

Last edited by stccb on 12-31-2001 at 11:05 AM