David Hettel

Did you buy one of the first Mugan/LION 4400 mAh batteries? Do you find your run time less than what it should be? It seems that the battery was redesign and the controller changed. The battery should give 7 ~ 7.5 hours run time, and apparently the new version does. Have you been contacted by Mugan/LION to return your battery? If you bought one of the first batch do you get 7 plus hours of life?

MEF38

Originally Posted by David Hettel

Did you buy one of the first Mugan/LION 4400 mAh batteries? Do you find your run time less than what it should be? It seems that the battery was redesign and the controller changed. The battery should give 7 ~ 7.5 hours run time, and apparently the new version does. Have you been contacted by Mugan/LION to return your battery? If you bought one of the first batch do you get 7 plus hours of life?

David,

Where did you get the information about the controller being changed? We are not aware of any changes other than the cover being redesigned. And, up to today, we have not had any defects, returns or complaints about the battery.

Can you enlighten us? Perhaps we've been overlooked on this subject and we need to stay abreast of things.


Thanks!


Mark

dkimak

Originally Posted by MEF38

Where did you get the information about the controller being changed? We are not aware of any changes other than the cover being redesigned. And, up to today, we have not had any defects, returns or complaints about the battery. Can you enlighten us? Perhaps we've been overlooked on this subject and we need to stay abreast of things. Mark

I have been using what I think is one of the original prototype batteries for the 210 since February and it has worked well!

On the other hand, I have emailed to request a cover that fits properly (because the prototype cover does not) and have yet to get a reply... :(

MEF38

Originally Posted by dkimak

I have been using what I think is one of the original prototype batteries for the 210 since February and it has worked well! On the other hand, I have emailed to request a cover that fits properly (because the prototype cover does not) and have yet to get a reply... :(

I remember sending the prototype to you. You did not get the cover??? I'm sending it today.


Mark

dkimak

Originally Posted by MEF38

I remember sending the prototype to you. You did not get the cover??? I'm sending it today. Mark

I appreciated getting the prototype in February, when the battery wasn't readily available. The extra battery life was invaluable for my vacation across North Africa!

Thank you for sending the proper cover, had to break a couple tabs off the prototype one to fit it onto the 210. Must be a bit frustrating for you when you design a cover based on HP specs, then find they change them!

David Hettel

Originally Posted by MEF38

David, Where did you get the information about the controller being changed? We are not aware of any changes other than the cover being redesigned. And, up to today, we have not had any defects, returns or complaints about the battery. Can you enlighten us? Perhaps we've been overlooked on this subject and we need to stay abreast of things. Thanks! Mark

Well Mark it would appear that you either did not bother to contact Mugen Power or are not permitted by Mugen Power to announce what you where told. My source is another user who directly purchased his battery from Mugen Power and the battery failed. In fact his battery has failed more than once, and this is why he was told of the controller redesign.

My experience with the battery I purchased from you is that it does not give me seven hours of operation, or anything close to seven hours, let alone seven and a half hours.

?You are a dealer, and clearly you should have better sources of information than I do. PocketPC Techs claim their batteries give 7 to 7.5 hours of run time, perhaps I'll purchase one of their batteries and do a comparison, if indeed there are no changes in the current battery design.



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MEF38

Originally Posted by David Hettel

Well Mark it would appear that you either did not bother to contact Mugen Power or are not permitted by Mugen Power to announce what you where told. My source is another user who directly purchased his battery from Mugen Power and the battery failed. In fact his battery has failed more than once, and this is why he was told of the controller redesign. My experience with the battery I purchased from you is that it does not give me seven hours of operation, or anything close to seven hours, let alone seven and a half hours. ?You are a dealer, and clearly you should have better sources of information than I do. PocketPC Techs claim their batteries give 7 to 7.5 hours of run time, perhaps I'll purchase one of their batteries and do a comparison, if indeed there are no changes in the current battery design. .

David,

Let's start with the fact that your source is wrong. Unless he bought a couple hundred batteries, he did not buy directly from Mugen Power. He may have bought from a distributor who uses the name and logo of Mugen Power, but it is not the manufacturer (just another distributor). (The manufacturer's web site is Fattafa Limited)

After reading your orignal message we did contact the factory to see about this and there was no comment about controller redesigns. If you are not experiencing the power increase you require, please contact our office and we'll replace the battery. If yours is defective (and it is always possible) we do cover it for 1-year and we'd be glad to take a look at it.

Also, the battery from PocketPC Techs is also made by Mugen Power. They resell the same battery. So if you buy theirs, it is like buying ours.


Mark :approve:

phmurphy

I have purchased two extended batteries, one is a 4400 mAh Mugen that I bought from Lion Battery on eBay for a total of $81.60, and the other is a 3650 mAh that I bought for $34.00 on eBay from Hong Kong. I am getting exactly the same amount of time on both - 6 hours. I use my HP210 to collect data all day and run ArcPad with a bluetooth link to a GPS, so something is running all of the time except for about 15 minutes while I eat lunch. I start at about 7:30 AM and both batteries go dead at about 2:00 PM.

I have let the Mugen go through 5 charge cycles and the results are the same. Unless I am missing something, the Mugen is absolutely not worth the extra money. I expected to get 7-8 hours and that was why I paid the premium so I wouldn't have to change batteries in the field.

The battery indicator on the today screen of the 211 indicates 6 hours when the Mugen 4400 is fully charged, and it seems to be very accurate.

Does this mean I have a defective battery?

Thanks,

Pat

David Hettel

Originally Posted by phmurphy

I have purchased two extended batteries, one is a 4400 mAh Mugen that I bought from Lion Battery on eBay for a total of $81.60, and the other is a 3650 mAh that I bought for $34.00 on eBay from Hong Kong. I am getting exactly the same amount of time on both - 6 hours. I use my HP210 to collect data all day and run ArcPad with a bluetooth link to a GPS, so something is running all of the time except for about 15 minutes while I eat lunch. I start at about 7:30 AM and both batteries go dead at about 2:00 PM. I have let the Mugen go through 5 charge cycles and the results are the same. Unless I am missing something, the Mugen is absolutely not worth the extra money. I expected to get 7-8 hours and that was why I paid the premium so I wouldn't have to change batteries in the field. The battery indicator on the today screen of the 211 indicates 6 hours when the Mugen 4400 is fully charged, and it seems to be very accurate. Does this mean I have a defective battery? Thanks, Pat

You are getting significantly better runtime than I am. Based on just the claimed capacity if you are getting 6 hours on the 3650 battery, I would suspect that you should see about 7 hours and 15 minutes on the Mugen Power battery based on it's claimed capacity.

HP has said we need their new battery driver to take full advantage of extended batteries. Some users have stated they get significantly longer run times when NOT using the new battery driver. Personally I don't see any difference one way or the other.



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phmurphy

I hadn't done the upgrade for the extended batteries. I have just done that now and I will see how things work this week. Is there some kind of special dance you have to do to "clear" the battery memory and get the calibration to work for the new battery?

thanks,

Pat

phmurphy

By the way, I have the screen backlight on autosensor and the On Battery slider at about 80%. At first I hated the screen compared to the HP5555 screen until I figured out that although the HP5555 screen works best outdoors when the light is coming in from behind one of your shoulders, the 211 needs to be in your own shadow. The HP5555 backlight could be turned totally off when outdoors, but the 211 still has to have backlight. The TFT screen on the 211 doesn't work well at all without the backlight on.

I also have the screen shut down if it isn't being used for 2 minutes, and the PDA shuts down if it isn't used for 5 minutes. I get automatic screen shut down numerous times during the day and PDA shut down about 5 times. So that helps conserve power as well.

Pat

phmurphy

Well,
After one full day it seems that the new improvement for the extended battery clipped 30 minutes off of the battery run time. I only got 5.5 hours instead of 6. I will let the battery completely recharge and see what I get tomorrow. I hope the Lion/Mugen rep will respond to this thread to make any suggestions. I may be returning the battery to Lion if the 4400 battery is really not significantly better than the 3650.

Pat

Yarrenbool

Originally Posted by David Hettel

... ... ... ... Some users have stated they get significantly longer run times when NOT using the new battery driver. Personally I don't see any difference one way or the other. .

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David, I read this comment of yours the other day and thought I'd try it.

I had purchased a Mugen 4400 mAh battery as soon as they became available and was very impressed by the longer life it gave my 210 over the standard battery. However after a few weeks I had to return my first 4400 mAh battery for a replacement as it just simply went "dead".

When I received the replacement Mugen 4400 I installed the HP battery patch at the same time.

I then found that the new 400 mAh battery seemed to have a much shorter life between charges than the first one before it died. I just put it down to some other problem with the battery itself and decided just to live with it.

Then after seeing your post I decided I had nothing to loose so I uninstalled the battery patch from my 210 but didn't really expect to see any real difference.

BUT - there IS a difference! With the patch removed the new 4400 mAh seems to have the same really great life that my first one had before it died!

I have not done any measuring but even today it absolutely lasted much much longer than it did before I removed the HP patch!

Thanks for having passed on that tip. It sure worked for me!

(Though it does make me wonder at HP's programming skills!)
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phmurphy

I got my 30 minutes back after an overnight recharge but that just puts me back at 6 hours runtime for the 4400 and the 3650. Since there is really no significant differenct between the two I am now going to send the Mugen/Lion batter4 back for a refund. I can get 2.5 of the 3650 batteries for the same price. I will post how that went. The bottom line is that I need about 7.5-8 hours so I don't have to change batteries in the field.

Pat

David Hettel

You might try this with the new battery driver loaded, wait until the 4400 mAh battery is about 40% or less charged. Then using Resco File Explorer do a search for battdrvr.dll Resco should find one file at \Windows tap | Menu | Feed to listbox | you should see battdrvr.dll 26K 4/29/08 rename this file to battdrvr.dll.old. Now do a soft reset. After your iPAQ reboots again do the search and we should now find two files. There should now be a battdrvr.dll with a date of 1/8/08 showing this is the original driver with the new registry settings. Charge your iPAQ for at least 10 hours. Also check what your iPAQ is showing as the current charge level, it should be about half of the previous level.