Steve asked...
>Here's what I need to know: what
>kind of rechargeables do I need to buy when I go down to KMart next, or do
I
>need to find an official "Newton Battery Pack" somewhere for this?
Myq replied...
>You can make your own with NiMH AA rechagables with the battery tray and
some
>modifications, although I've never done it. There's instructions on the
web.
Adam chimed in...
>NiCd batteries have a
>different pattern of power draw and the Newton can't accurately predict the
>battery level of NiCd batteries.
<snip>
>The best strategy I have come up with is to buy a brick of 40 AA batteries
>for $12.99 (no brand) this usually lasts me 6 months.
To save bandwidth I'll answer all of that in one mail.
1) As to making your own rechargeable, you'll probably find instructions
somewhere one level deeper than http://www.newton-lifestyle.de/artikel/
It's a german site and the instructions will thus be in German.
Unfortunately, our stupid network is currently down, so I can't verify
this url right now.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend bothering due to 3)
2) To express what (I think) Adam means a bit more clearly: The Newton can
predict the remaining battery capacity fine as long as it knows which
kind of batteries are installed in the machine. This is why all Newtons
prior to the MP2K have a switch that is depressed by the original Apple
battery pack. The MP2000/2100 have two contacts in the battery pack with
a little electronics attached within the battery cage for the same
reason.
Both versions tell the MP that a rechargeable pack is installed. For all
Newtons up to the MP 130 this will mean NiCd's (as rechargeable packs
sold by Apple for these machines were always based on this type), for
everything younger this will mean NiMH's (as all packs for the MP2K were
based on NiMH).
3) There are a couple of workarounds. If you, like me, aren't eager to
"repair"
a dead battery pack, thus effectively preventing using the batteries in
any other device, you can put them in just like normal batteries. If you
don't trick the Newton into thinking a rechargeably pack is installed,
the
MP will think that non-rechargeable alkalines are installed and calculate
the
remaining capacity accordingly (wrong). Nine out of ten times this means
that
you either don't get a battery low warning at all or you get it only
seconds
before the MP automatically shuts off.
The good news is there are apps that let you control when the battery low
warning occurs. I don't know the names right now, maybe someone else can
help.
You can even replace the NiCd rechargeables by NiMH cells. Although the
charge curve of all Newtons up to the 130 is for NiCd's, many on this
list have
reported they are doing this all the time and it works. Most likely you'd
not
get optimum performance out of the batteries, but still way more than out
of NiCd's.
4) As to the "brick" solution, I'd rather not comment.
Sorry for the long-winded post. I had the feeling this needed some
clarification.
Frank
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