[NTLK] was: Firstly, hello! now: battery packs

[Gene Beaird]

The quick drain issue with rechargeable batteries was the main reason for my hesitation for getting the ones James mentions below without the added explanation below.  I tried rechargeable AAs many years ago when the battery pack in my wife's 2100 quit holding a charge and found them to be barely better than just leaving the Newt plugged in all the time.  

With this new info, I'll go locate a set of these Eneloops and see how they work, since my wife's 2100 again (on a replacement rechargeable pack) is not holding a charge much over a couple of days sitting off the charger.  Thank you, James!

Regards,

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

On Feb 27, 2013, at 11:00 AM, newtontalk-request at newtontalk.net wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:49:03 -0800 (PST)
> From: James Fraser <wheresthatistanbul-newtontalk at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] Firstly, hello!
> To: newtontalk at newtontalk.net
> Message-ID:
> 	<1361900943.80959.YahooMailClassic at web181001.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Hello,
> 
> --- On Tue, 2/26/13, Henry Gratwick <henzoelgreat at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> or get any advice on whether it's A) safe and B) worthwhile
>> trying to recell the slightly-leaked battery pack that I do
>> have.
> 
> The answers to your questions appear to be "maybe" and "no," respectively.
> 
> Frank Gruendel had this to say on the subject a while back:
> 
>> This is because in my humble opinion recelling an OMP pack does > not make very much sense. In 99 out of 100 cases the contacts 
>> are in such a poor condition that reliable operation seems 
>> unlikely.  Moreover, it's kind of difficult to open and 
>> reassemble the pack in a halfway reliable way.
> 
> http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=124136870613439&w=4
> 
> Apart from the above, the fact that the OMP's charging circuitry turns 20 this year does not, IMO, make it a good candidate for running it off of mains power.  Yes, you could use a rechargeable battery pack in conjunction with one of these:
> 
> http://www.freeimagehosting.net/aaiqs  
> 
> (Warning: large photo of a rechargeable battery pack charger)
> 
> ...but try finding a rechargeable battery pack charger at a non-ludicrous price point at a time when anything that says "Apple" or "Newton" on it seems to command The Big Bucks. :/
> 
> At any rate, I'm glad to see that a fellow list member was able to come to your rescue with a battery cage.  I don't know if you're already familiar with Eneloop brand batteries, but they are low self-discharge rechargeables that are almost ideal for use in (typically) low-draw electronic devices like MessagePads.
> 
> If you have no rechargeable batteries on hand, you might want to consider picking up a couple of sets of AAA Eneloops while you're waiting for your battery cage to arrive, seeing as how the OMP was widely known for gobbling batteries (prompting Apple to switch to AAs for subsequent MessagePads).  
> 
> 
> Best,
> 
> James Fraser