Battery drain question for 515

[cracker]

I purchased my first palm a week ago (515) and I find the battery to drain more quickly than I expected. After charging all night, I turn it on with the backlight on low and no sounds and find that the battery has lost 14% of its charge after 5 minutes use. The day before I had it on for about three to four hours entering information and the charge was down to 68%. Does this sound right? Any comments from more experienced users would be appreciated.

[PilotUser]

I had exactly the same problem ... After I purchased my m515, notice that the battery life is so short, just like what you have described.

I contacted Palm, and found out that my unit's battery is defective. Arrange to have it replaced and everything is fine now.

Your m515 should retain battery charge for up to a week with moderate use, at low light. And for sure, if you do not use the unit at all, the battery should not drain by itself.

Contact Palm for a replacement unit.

[cracker]

Thanks PilotUser. It seems the battery may not be defective after all. It retains the charge very well when not in use, and using it without the backlight on extends the battery usage time dramatically. Not surprising, of course, but I was a bit surprised the backlight on low would use as much power as it does. I have read most of the posts related to battery charging and I would still like to know how long a fully charged unit is expected to last with the backlight on the one hand and without on the other. Does anyone knows of any tests relating to this? I'm using a program called battery log which is very helpful keeping track of this, but the indicator for length of time on with the backlight, is not registering. Overall, I'm happy with the unit.

[blogger]

I think you are right. The times you are quoting are not far off mine. It is the only downside of the 515 - the colour is great but the battery drain is terrible!!
I have to have chargers everywhere - and am now contemplating one for the car!
I havent seen any comparisons of backlight on/off - probably because I find the unit unusable without the backlight on at least low.

Anyway if you bought for these features why not use them- that what Isay!

[DrMud]

Rapid initial draining of a freshly charged battery generally indicates one of two issues may be present: 1). The battery is old or defective. 2). The charging circuit is not set correctly.
If the charging circuit is out of specs then use your Palm until you are in the 10-20% of charge remaining and do the following. Place your Palm in the charge cradle, with the Palm off but charging do a soft reset and let it charge for a minimum of two hours. My personal preference is not to charge overnight on this reset.
Doc

[cracker]

Thanks for the advice, DrMud. I have completed the soft reset with the battery reading just below 10% while charging in the cradle. After six hours+ of charging, the voltage reads 4.20v. The highest previous fully charged reading was 4.14v. I am hoping this translates into longer battery usage between charging. Perhaps you could try this as well, blogger. Does anyone know to what voltage level a new 515 unit should be expected to charge? 4.20v is certainly better than 4.14v but is it "good?" "average?" Thanks to all who replied to the initial posting.

[DrMud]

Cracker,
The best reading you will see on a new 515 is 4.20v. Congradulations.
Doc

[JohnKes]

4.20V is pretty good. The ultimate measure is how much ON time you get out of it. Put in Battery Log. It tracks ON time and total time.

My Prism gets 6-10 hours of ON time over about 4 days. My wife's m500 gets over 30 hours of ON time (ridiculous, the good kind). I think an m515 should get around 6-10 hours if not better.

[DrMud]

John is right on target. THe older or more damaged a battery gets the faster it drops off in the first hour of use.
Doc

[tuffguy]

To conserve battery power you should turn the backlight down and turn of IR, right? Is there anything else you should do?

Also, how do you control the backlight? I seems like I can turn mine off and on, but how do you adjust it?

[JohnKes]

Doesn't a brightness control pop up when you press and hold the power button for 3 seconds?

[tuffguy]

On my 130 it doesn't, that just turns the backlight on/off

[JohnKes]

You are right. I learned something new today:
Backlight:
http://205.141.210.149/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=57,E=0000000000266800172,K=9771,Sxi=15,Case=ob j(16149)

Contrast:
http://205.141.210.149/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=57,E=0000000000266800172,K=9771,Sxi=15,Case=ob j(14350)


BTW setting beam receive OFF saves power because ANY stray IR will cause the unit to wake up to try to figure out whether the signal is anything useful.

[dwhoward]

Relating to some earlier comments about turning down the brightness, you might want to look at a program called Energy Dimmer V1.3. This program lets you create screen brightness "profiles" for automatically controlling your backlight. In my case, I set my brightness to high and then after being inactive for 35 seconds it automatically switches to low and then 60 seconds later the unit shuts off. I find that this really helps my battery life. You can find it at Palmgear:

http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=47703620021106053031&prodID=28880

[JohnKes]

You are running Dimmer on an m130?

[dwhoward]

No not on an M130, I'm running dimmer on an M515. I was referencing some of the earlier discussions in the thread that started with the M515 and then appear to have evolved into a discussion on the M130. Dimmer will work with any Palm OS device that has multiple brightness settings (e.g. M515, Clie, etc). I would imagine (but haven't tested it), that it would also work with M505 and allow for automatic changes from backlight on to backlight off.

John - One other thing concerning your earlier post....On Palms (e.g. M515) where there are multiple (off, low, high) brightess settings, it's controlled by the "sun" icon in the top right corner of the graffitti area. Holding the power button for 2-3 seconds simply toggles the light from current state to the other extreme. In other words when I'm on max brightness and hold the power button, it shuts the light off. It does not bring up the control box for the light and allow me to go from high to low setting.

Hope this helps.

[tuffguy]

Thanks for that clarification dw.

Sorry, didn't mean to distract from the m515 board. I tend to read this forum as much as the m1xx board. There are often times better posts here. Additionally, most of the things you do on one you can do on another. I didn't mean to cause any confusion, but I did get my question answered.

tuff