Re: NiMH Battery

[Tim Tyhurst <tim@excelsior.com>]

> Hi All. I have a 360c - have had it for about 8 months. Works great really -
> I mostly run Linux/XFree86.
> 
> My question is: My original battery has bit the dust. It won't hold a charge,
> and I've had to go buy another. I try to be good about letting it run down
> between charges. I'm pretty disappointed that I only got 8 months out of the
> battery. What has your experience been?

Pretty much the same as yours, I'm afraid.  My 360Cs' original "dumb" NiMH
battery is pretty much dead, despite my having treated it according to the
directions in the manual.

The 360 series does not have the battery conditioning circuitry that
the 75x units have. I also have one of the 750-series "smart" batteries,
which is starting to demonstrate the same problems. I've tried to condition
it a couple of times in a 755, but I haven't been able to do so frequently
enough to be effective.

I tried to condition the dumb battery the same way, but as I recall,
the 755 didn't even recognize the presence of the battery.

I haven't heard any of the people I know with 75x units complain about
this problem, so it seems that the discharge/charge cycle feature
does indeed help prolong the lifetime of the NiMH batteries.

--
Tim Tyhurst                  tim@excelsior.com