[NTLK] AW: Re - Power was interrupted...

From: Johannes Wolf (jwolf_at_xe.estec.esa.nl)
Date: Wed Aug 08 2001 - 11:16:38 EDT


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Laurent Daudelin [SMTP:laurent_daudelin_at_fanniemae.com]
Gesendet am: 08 August 2001 17:06
An: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
Betreff: Re: [NTLK] Re - Power was interrupted...

On Tuesday, August 7, 2001, at 05:17 PM, Frank_Gruendel_at_t-online.de
wrote:

>
>> Well, I haven't cracked it open yet. I may tonight. However, it seems
>> less than random. It's completely reset itself several times in the
>> past
>> hour, and every time it's been due to me trying to perform an action -
>> set a repeating date, creating a new event, filing a note. Whenever I
>> try
>> to perform this action - POOF! the unit shuts itself off. When I turn
>> it
>> on again, it tells me it was reset because power was interrupted.
> <snip>
>> It seems too tied to
>> particular operations to be a bad contact in the battery compartment...
>
> It's not a very common case, but electrically it is perfectly possible.
> A bad battery contact is basically a resistor that lies between the
> battery terminal and the logic board inside the Newton. Depending
> on how bad the contact really is this imaginary resistor has a lower or
> higher resistance (resistance gets higher when contact gets worse).
> When you Newton draws current, this current must pass the imaginary
> resistor. According to good ol' Ohm's law current through a resistor
> will result in a voltage across this resistor. The higher the
> resistance,
> the higher the voltage. The higher the current, the higher the voltage.
> This voltage is missing from what the Newton's electronics "sees".
> Now doing things, any things, on your Newton usually results in an
> increase
> of the current the Newton draws. How much depends on the action you do
> and
> sometimes on how fast and which what frequency you do it.
> Handwriting recognition on my 130 requires more than
> twice as much current as what the Newton draws when idle. Twice as much
> current means twice as much voltage across the imaginary resistor which
> might cause the Newton to draw the conclusion that the power has been
> removed.

Frank,

As always, a very good explanation!

[Johannes Wolf] But it is a theoretical one. And with all my experience as an electrical engineer I really do not believe that this is the problem...
BUT there is a very simple way to proof that theory: switching on the backlight should then IN EVERY CASE and IMMEDIATELY lead to the switch off.
I am curious about the experience of Zachery Bir...

Unfortunately I am off line until next wednesday.

Regards
Johannes
 

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