I would not call it a miracle.
If you have a lot of rechargeable batteries and different charging devices
you will make this experience sooner or later as well:
the Newt does not have a simple charging method as you will find for cheap
charging devices, which apply a constant current until you disconnect the
battery.
Like more intelligent charging devices the Newt will apply a charging
current and then check the battery voltage. If the voltage has not increased
by a certain value (as it happened in your case) the Newt "assumes" that the
battery is dead and stops charging.
If you repeat this cycle (as you did) the Newt will start this cycle once
again by adding a certain charge to the battery, which still might be not
enough to increase the battery voltage sufficiently.
As soon as the "starting voltage" is reached the Newt will continue charging
the battery until the charging end voltage is reached.
Doing this (including the discharge) you will also perform what is called
"formatting" the battery.
If you run the complete cycle a few times there are good chances to get back
to the full battery capacity.
No miracle, no mystery.
Johannes
> -----Original Message-----
> From: newtontalk-bounce_at_newtontalk.net
> [mailto:newtontalk-bounce_at_newtontalk.net]On Behalf Of Daniel Ho
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:45 AM
> To: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
> Subject: [NTLK] Another Battery Miracle!
>
>
>
> The battery that came with the 2100 that I just received seemed dead.
> While, I read the rest of the recent battery postings recently,
> my story is
> a little different.
>
> Following the directions, I plugged in the Newt BEFORE sliding the battery
> in. This brought up the "waiting" and then a bit later "charging"
> indicator, a dialogue box would say something like "the battery will not
> hold a charge...please replace".
>
> When I checked the battery compartment, it wasn't warm at
> all...to me, this
> indicated that nothing was happening.
>
> However, when I removed the power, there was still enough charge
> to keep the
> Newt running for 10-20 seconds. When it died, I would plug it in
> to see the
> same message after "charging" for a little bit.
>
> So, I figured that the battery was fried and I have nothing to lose (I
> already worked out a detour on my Saturday errands to pick up
> some new NiMH
> cells!). While "charging", I unplugged the adapter until the
> indicator said
> it was running on batteries again, and then plugged it back in
> until it said
> "charging"...after a few times, the battery charge indicator
> started moving
> from the left to right and was full within 10 minutes!
>
> I thought something was fishy, so when it reported a full charge, I
> unplugged it and used the Newt for a few minutes until it ran out of power
> again.
>
> After a few cycles...it is still only taking 10 minutes to charge to
> full...but on the last charge, I've been using the Newt for about 4 hours
> straight without any problems. Strange.
>
> It looks like there has been yet another Newton battery miracle! :-)
>
> Keep the faith...
>
> Dan
>
>
> --
> Daniel Ho/Toronto
> hod_at_mac.com
>
>
>
>
> --
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