Tungsten T Dies in 4 Hours!

[carlt]

Had a power problem on a number of occasions.

A couple of times it's discharged in no time at all.

Last Friday it charged all day, was at 100% when I left the office at 5pm, by 7pm it was 63% and by 9pm it was dead as a dodo!

This Friday it was fine. 4 full days later it's at 53% allegedly! I don't geddit!

I've a feeling it was a Bluetooth toggle utility which I deleted this week.

Anyone else had a similar problem or used the BT Toggle without problems?

[iiicRules]

I was wondering... On my iiic the light went off when the battery was full- isn't this the case with the Tungsten T? I charged mine for 9 hours last sunday and the light was still on.......
HELP!

[cemuller]

iiiRules: My green charging light stays on whenever I am connected to a charge source- cradle, ac adaptor, car adaptor, even when fully charged.

I am not running bluetooth, ir is off, access SD occasionally, backlight always on, setting is under "t" on slide bar=say 60%+.
I drop to 60% by Noon each day, and am hurting by late evening (20-25%). There is no way I can go more than one biz day without recharging.

Hope this helps.

[mmmkay]

The charging light stays lit until you remove it from the external power source.

You should keep in mind the Tungsten T battery life is not as great as previous Palm handhelds :-)

It has a BT radio, SDio enabled card slot, very fast processor, and a very bright colour screen among other things.

If you keep it on with the backlight constantly, battery life will suck very very much :-)

[bloemkool]

I have my cradle placed at work.
It is placed in the cradle when I am at work, but on the weekends I take it with me.
So the whole weekend it is without power.
My girlfriend has found a nice game which I placed on my Palm (Bejeweled) and she is playing rather much :( .
But my Palm remains ok.
At the end of the weekend I still have more than 50% of power left.
What I will do:

- I am going on a long weekends vacation and will not recharge my Palm for about 5 days.

Let's see.:D

[nightwing]

carlt, were you using the T|T the entire 4 hours for something? dont know how long you've had your T|T but sometimes, even LIon batts, experience what some call the 'memory effect'. nicd/nimh batts are more susceptible to it but lion batts experience them as well...i heard. it comes from several cycles of discharging and recharging the batts.

they do have those portable chargers that connect from your outlet straight into the T|T (without the cradle), i think they also have car cigarette chargers...been thinking of getting one of these as i use BT a lot and am away from the office and home much.

does anybody know if Palm is looking into putting out a better battery that you can just replace the existing one with? i'd be quite interested in that...

[bloemkool]

About the sync - charge cable.
I have tried one from BELKIN (it also has a car charger enclosed) and it SUCKS bigtime!!! :mad:
The USB connector hardly makes any contact so there is hardly power (yo uhave to jiggle it constantly to get it connected) and the plug which goes into your Palm doesn't lock very well.
Each time I connected it, it sprung loose again, so no connection.

I am thinking of trying the Targus one...but not sure.

About the battery change. THis should be possible but I think it is better to do this at a certified dealer.

[carlt]

I still haven't charged since last Friday (113 hours) and it's now Wednesday morning. Battery is at 44% :-) It's not a memory effect for sure or it'd be consistently 4 hours. Li-ion should have no memory and I think it's the best batt tech there is for now so I doubt Palm could do any kind of in-case upgrade.

Been using it normally. The week before when it only lasted 4 hours it was turned off and in my pocket! I'm convinced some app or other was doing something in background which drained it while off but it's hard to prove. The fact I removed the BT toggle SW may indicate a culprit!

My TT green light is on while connected to power, whether battery is 100% or not.

Being forced to recharge daily is no fun after having a Vx which lasted a month! I could take that away from the office for a 2 week holiday and still have 50%+

I have bought a USB sync-charge cable which also has mains and car adaptors so I can charge anywhere but if it keeps this up I won't need them unless I'm away for a whole week. It was from Expansys in the UK and uses Palm's own connector so it seems pretty secure. Genuine connectors probably do make the difference.

I'm keeping it off charge and using it normally to see how long it can last, then I may put BT Toggle back on, charge it and see what happens...

Cheers guys.

[mmmkay]

Aren't they lithium polymer batteries? (in the Tungsten T that is)

[carlt]

Brighthand say ion and Palm product specs say polymer. They should know I guess?!?

Found the following on the web:

http://www.valence.com/faq.asp?topic=lithium

"
What is the difference between Lithium-Ion and Lithium-ion polymer?


Lithium-ion technology uses a liquid or gel type electrolyte that requires substantial secondary packaging to safely contain flammable active ingredients. This additional packaging not only increases the weight and cost, but it also limits the size flexibility. There is no free liquid electrolyte in Valence's Lithium-ion polymer technology. As a result, our batteries are packaged in a foil. This provides added weight benefits and design flexibility. Additionally, the absence of free liquid makes Valence Lithium-ion polymer batteries more stable and less vulnerable to problems caused by overcharge, damage or abuse.
"

So I guess performace is the same and package size is the only difference.

Either way the Palm battery is as good as it gets.

[iiicRules]

definately polymer. we had this discussion about a month ago.....

[dr rx]

Yes, iiiCRules is right....in fact everyone is right! It is a Lithium ION-POLYMER. It is simply a new technology using the same energy-generating premise. So it uses Li Ions to create the electrical source, just that it does so in a polymer form instead of a liquid form (the older ion batts)

[carlt]

5 Days - 21% - Charging now!

Don't wanna run out in the middle of a sync or anything.

I'll give it a few weeks and put BT Toggle back if it's been behaving...

[harvey]

Originally posted by bloemkool
About the sync - charge cable.
I have tried one from BELKIN (it also has a car charger enclosed) and it SUCKS bigtime!!! :mad:
The USB connector hardly makes any contact so there is hardly power (yo uhave to jiggle it constantly to get it connected) and the plug which goes into your Palm doesn't lock very well.
Each time I connected it, it sprung loose again, so no connection.

I am thinking of trying the Targus one...but not sure.

About the battery change. THis should be possible but I think it is better to do this at a certified dealer.

I use the targus sync cable/charger with my Palm M505 - the particular one I use simply plugs into a USB port on my laptop. It is excellent - none of the problems you refer to.;)

[PalmOSFan]

Although Lithium Ion batteries do not typically develop a 'memory', it is considered good maintenance to drain the battery completely on occasion. Draining the battery, followed by a full recharge, is a good way to condition the battery.

Any thoughts?

Good luck, all! :D

[dr rx]

PalmOSFan

I must admit that I am no expert on batteries, but this euphemism known as 'memory' on batteries prior to the advent of Li Ion (ie NiMH, NiCad) pertains to a built up of 'whiskers' on the cells of the battery. The whiskers occur on NiMH and NiCad batteries with continued recharging and even when discharged down to zero and than recharged. Performing a complete discharge on these types of batteries slowed the inevitable proliferation of these whiskers. As a much younger man, I made a electric pulse generator as a electronics project that 'zapped' the whiskers off of NiCad batteries (NiMH wasn't really around at that point) and thus prolonged their useful recharge life.

I do not know that Li Ion batteries develop 'whiskers' or 'memory', so I don't know what benefits could be conferred from a complete discharge and subsequent recharge of the battery. Perhaps someone more intelligent than I in this area could intercede?

[mmmkay]

I read somewhere Li+ batteries prefer to be topped up than totally discharged. Not that they have any preference :-) but apparently it's better for the battery.

[bloemkool]

Harvey,

I use the targus sync cable/charger with my Palm M505 - the particular one I use simply plugs into a USB port on my laptop. It is excellent - none of the problems you refer to.


have you tried the cable on you T|T as well. Cause that's where the Belkin made a boo boo. :p?

[nightwing]

i heard lithium batts are less susceptible than nicd,nimh ones...but still are susceptible, could've been just a rumor :)

[mmmkay]

Probably a rumour. I read they have no memory effect.

I don't run my T down much. Just once or twice when I was listening to music for a few hours.

[Dangmo]

I remember seeing a 9v battery adapter for a Palm Vx somewhere. Does anyone know if such a thing exists for the Tungsten?

Dang_mo