Battery Extender Best Performance

01-29-05, 10:23 PM

I recently ordered a battery extender from E-Bay (sure beats paying for an extra battery).. and since I haven't really had time to conduct some serious tests on it, I thought I would ask some of you who have used it with your Axim.

Is it best to plug the extender in while the battery is at full charge and use it up that way? Or do you wait until the battery goes down to a certain level?

When I say best, I mean which gives you the best overall battery performance.

Warone · 01-29-05, 10:50 PM

I just got mine in the mail today and plugged it in. After about an hour I did'nt see any change. Anyone have one of these that works? I had one for my x5 and it would fully charge the standard battery (axim off) after about 6-8 hours using four brand new AAs.
Tonight I'm going to run my x50v down to about 10% and plug it in. I'll post tommorrow with the result. oh, one more thing. The extender says for use with rechargeables? I'm going to put in four new standard duracells. Until tommorrow.

"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly."
Oscar Wilde ('The Picture of Dorian Gray' 1891).

x50v - 4 days old w/updated rom. works great

x5 - 2 1/2 yrs old - never updated. works great

me - getting old - w/o updated rom. works okay

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 12:36 AM

I got mine from www.semsons.com and regular alkalines just don't work, I used duracells.

I got some 2500Mah nihm energizers and it finally works, If your power button doesn't light up it's not working.

HTH

Hobbbbit · 01-30-05, 12:42 AM

I too ordered one of them from E-Bay, and after two hours spent with multi-meter, I can say that battery Extenders from E-Bay just doesn't work. More then that, for me it actually discharged my battery, instead of recharging it. As far as I know wall charger for Axim X50v outputs 5.4V, and battery extender outputs 6. There is a small converter inside the unit, that should theoretically changed it to 5.5V but it doesn't work. More then that just by doing math, you can calculate that even if that thing does work, it will only extend your battery life by no more then 20-30 minutes.

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 12:48 AM

You didn't use alkaline batteries did you?

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 01:14 AM

Tell you what I'm down to 42% charge, I'll plug in and come back at 2AM.

01-30-05, 02:03 AM

Originally Posted by Hobbbbit

I too ordered one of them from E-Bay, and after two hours spent with multi-meter, I can say that battery Extenders from E-Bay just doesn't work. More then that, for me it actually discharged my battery, instead of recharging it. As far as I know wall charger for Axim X50v outputs 5.4V, and battery extender outputs 6. There is a small converter inside the unit, that should theoretically changed it to 5.5V but it doesn't work. More then that just by doing math, you can calculate that even if that thing does work, it will only extend your battery life by no more then 20-30 minutes.

What do you mean didn't work?

I plugged in my axim with rechargable batteries.. the orange-light went on.. and about 2 minutes later it was green again.

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 02:15 AM

74% after 46 minutes, not bad. So I would get a full charge in about 2 houts if my device ever actually went to 0%. Don't laugh I actually did it once with an X30/high. God bless the backup battery.

Back to the original question... back in 2000 I got 6 hours playing MP3's with the screen dimmed on a Cassiopeia E-125. I didn't know about toggling the screen back then. I started with a full charge. That's the best way to use it in my opinion. Full charge and let the extender do the work.

HTH

Warone · 01-30-05, 08:48 AM

ForkyFork, (or anyone else that has a battery extender that works), what kind of batteries are you using. I tested mine last night and it didn't charge anything. Okay, I admit I put in some brand new Alkaline batteries. Didn't think it would matter but it does. The charger didn't do anything. If yours works I'll get some batteries similar to those and try it.

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 09:19 AM

I'm using Energizer High Energy NIMH Rechargable 2500 mAh batteries. I got 4 batteries and a charger for $21.99 at the local Walgreen's Drug Store. I'm positive I could have gotten a better price online but I didn't want to wait. ;)

01-30-05, 09:51 AM

I've done some work with these, and made one for myself....it's only good to use it to either leave your unit off and charge it, or wait till the unit is just about completely depleted in battery life and then use it. Because if you use a charged extender and your charged battery at the same time you hardly gain any life

Because it's like having a second HUGE battery. think about it... 4.8v at 8000mah or so. 2a x 4, at 1.2v each

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 10:09 AM

gm464-have you actually tried running it as an extender? I'm talking from real life in the field experience here not any battery math calculations.

I'll do another real world test today during my travels. I'll cue up a couple of hundred MP3's and run my fully charged X50v with the battery extender attached with fully charged batteries for a couple of hours and report back later this afternoon.

I'll take some screen shots with SPB GPRS Monitor bubble battery status indicator messages showing but I won't be able to attach them until tomorrow.

I wonder if it's my username that makes people not take me seriously? I've never deliberately mislead anyone < sigh >

01-30-05, 10:18 AM

yeah, try it though because I could be wrong. from what I've found the extenders (the 4-NiHm ones) just don't work well as straight pda life extenders, unless there's not much battery left in the pda, if you use them together, the extender seems to drain really fast.

Warone · 01-30-05, 10:33 AM

Energizer High Energy NIMH Rechargable 2500 mAh batteries .

those sound good. I'll get them today. Also, on the regular alkaline batteries. They can activate the led light on the charger but nothing through to the axim battery. I didn't try a multimeter or anything, just hillbilly observations.

Okay, it's off to Walmart to buy a battery charger.

"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly."
Oscar Wilde ('The Picture of Dorian Gray' 1891).

x50v - 5 days old w/updated rom. works great

x5 - 2 1/2 yrs old - never updated. works great

me - getting old - w/o updated rom. works okay

Don't Panic! · 01-30-05, 11:10 AM

Warone - The Hi-Tech Hillbilly. I like that! Sounds like it should be an article or column in Pocket PC Magazine. You should stop by there forums and see if they're interested. Hal Goldstein is a cool dude. He just might go for it. Of course if this results in a job you'll have to send me your castoff or unwanted review programs/hardware. :)