How long can a T3 be left in the cradle?

K

KiLLA Kali

New member
Hi folks,
I just paid a workmate for a T3 and then found out it's been in the cradle for possibly weeks at his house. He's bringing it in tomorrow. Is it ruined or does it have some safeguard against this.
Thanks so much
>>>--Tiribulus->:(
 

Even thought all litium ion batteries have protection, and simply cannot be over/undercharged when used whithin specifications, but keeping Lithium ion/polymer battery fully charged _all the time_ - is not a good thing, since battery ages much quicker it such conditions.
Weeks may be not too much, but you better check it's battery life and see if this is excepted for you. Just note that T3 is
excellent machine (IMO - best palm ever made) ,but it's battery life is very short (even when new).
In the worst case - you can replace your battery.
 
Thank you so much for this reply. I am a computer technician and am sure I could do the replacement, but didn't know it was possible. Is it difficult/dangerous to the machine?
Thanks again,
>>>--Tiribulus->
 
Junglemike can give you more info on the battery change IF NECESSARY . . . but I wouldn't jump the gun just yet. I agree wholeheartedly with him that it's the best Palm ever, and you've got a "goodie" even if the battery is a little "worn." My advice:

I'd use it til the battery's dead. Just stone dead, "turn off I've had enough" dead.

Then Charge it 3 hours, and repeat. Just use the hell out of it til you get a warning. Charge it again.

A couple of good "use it all up cycles" will probably give you an idea of what kind of charge it will hold and for how long; personally I doubt it's damaged since people leave it on their charge stands for longer periods than I do with no bad effects.

You can also perform a SOFT RESET through the little hole in back WHILE ON THE CRADLE; this resets the "charging information." I would do this after you've exhausted the thing a couple of times. Congratulations on getting a T3 - the real "LifeDrive," if you ask me! Awesome unit and you're gonna have tons of fun - be sure and research plenty of stuff on this forum!!
 


IMO- battery life is _very_ important thing. This is the reason why i performed hardware modifications to all my palms, since palm VX - becasue battry life is simply unacceptable for me. Especially T3's battery. with T3's battery , when new, i can't even record single lecture (at university) 3 hours long! And have have some many things to do after that. Even 1.5 hour extensive use of Scientific calculator EasyCalc alone kills battery completely. I've done already 4!! modifications on my T3, improving battery life. Curretnly i have approx 3.5 times larger battery than stock T3, and ist's still not enough.

First, i tried replace T3's internal battery with slightly larger one (1100mah instead of 900) - but i hardly felt the difference.

Second, i constracted unplugable HUGE battery pack, which was 10 times the capacity of T3's battery but gave it up after 2 months, since it was bulky. It looked like this:
http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/157/17/T31.jpg

Than i used Ipod thin wide battery that has 2x times capacity of T3 (12$ off Ebay), i put it between T3, and metal case.
It was very cool, cos size was practically the same. But i needed even more power, coz internal T3s battery stared loosing power very quickly.
This is how it looked like:
http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/157/17/T3238743.jpg
http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/157/17/T33.jpg
http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/157/17/T34.jpg

And now i have another mod, which consists of these 3 batteries:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=34056&item=5979628691&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
One went instead of T3's , and other two between T3's back and hard case, as before. This is 3150mAh total.
(no pics though)

Sorry for all this off topic crap, i'm just too much into the battery issue.

 
Thanks for all the info guys. I was actuall reading Junglemike's big thread somewhere about this very issue. The thing is it'll be for my wife who will use it mainly for business. I've seen it when he had it at work and it is in mint condition. He even through in 2 cradles and a 512mb sd card. I'll have to see how it is. I was just worried that it was totally dead. As for mods, I have a few of my own.
http://gregnmary.zapto.org/nif/base0.html
>>>--Tiribulus->:D
 
BTW, suppose I just eventually wanted a regular highest possible capacity battery to install myself. Do you guys know of a reliable dealer that won't sell me one that already dead?
 
www.gethightech.com is a good source of Palm batteries and their stock is always new.

On the issue of battery life, wouldn't it just be easier to get an outboard battery pack that uses AA cells rather than depend on the rechargeable battery, regardless of capacity? You can get one at http://www.sfplanet.com/index.cfm/fa/items.main/parentcat/4017/subcatid/15207/id/89099 for only $13 and use regular alkaline AA batteries to run and recharge your Palm. I have one of these for my Clie and used it for about 3 weeks in Nepal when there wasn't an electrical outlet within 50 miles. It took a total of 16 AA cells to keep my Clie running every day and I could have done with even less batteries if I had also bought a solar charger.:)
 
Thanks for the response,
The thing is my wife will be using it for her housecleaning business and won't want to carry anything extra. It's already a pain for her just to carry a phone and a palm. As much as she loved her Tungsten T before it died she complained about carrying it around. I was just worried that it was going to die in like 15 minutes or something. I'm afraid I won't be able to tell if there's real damage to the battery until it's too late to get my money back at which time a normal replacement would be fine. However I took apart her old one last night and quickly learned why Palm calls the batteries non-user replaceable. Wadda pain in the a$$. She's no power user though just some Word docs, reminders, a few games and splash photo. Maybe an occasional 30 second home movie. The point is if it'll run for a couple hours between charges with nothing but the above being used it'll be fine. Do you guys know how reliable some of the battery testing programs out there are? I do appreciate your insight on this.
>>>--Tiribulus->:D
 
This has turned out to be one of the best threads in some time, especially due to Jim's and junglemike's contributions . . . but I just have a couple of thoughts if I may . . . .

Simply and politely as I can put it . . . there are thousands of "power users," myself included -- that live by the thing . . . and we're okay with it.

I think your wife will do just fine and by now you've had (I'm sure) a chance to evaluate the T3 and its battery. Jim's idea of external power charger or a SLED is great, and if your wife doesn't want the extra bulk I think she'll be okay. I can run mine, sporadically but often, for 2 days without charging - it's not like you're jump-starting a mack truck with it.

Between j/m's mods, your own tweaks and a CIGARETTE LIGHTER charger, I don't think this will be an insurmountable issue for you. I hope I'm right and that you're both happy with it.

I say this only because I, perhaps like you, tend to "worry over the fine points;" bottom line is you've got a GREAT handheld, and with two extra chargers and a 512MB Card - you're set, my friend!! Enjoy it and don't fret the battery thing - with a cradle reset and a couple of cycles I'm willing to bet it's 95% perfect, and might have been in worse condition if it wasn't kept charged and left in a hot car for weeks on end, and dropped, or abused . . . etc etc. I may be in the minority, but my T3 is now 18 months old (yikes!) and believe me it's been charged, purged, hard reset, JackSpratted, reflashed, jump started and hogtied . . . and I've seen no erosion in full cycle battery life.

Hope this allays your fears and doesn't offend you - I just want you & your wife to enjoy what TO ME AT LEAST is the best PDA available!! Otherwise, if it's still bothering you to the point of NOT enjoying it - simply tell the guy you're not interested. Personally, I'd not only keep it - I'd be actively looking for another one in similar shape as a spare. As a matter of fact, I am . . . .
 
Everybody has been very helpful on all levels here and I really appreciate it. I have it in my hand now and it looks like it was taken out of the box 5 minutes ago. Immaculate in every way. I've been playing with it for about an hour and the battery hasn't gone down at all. I think she'll be fine. He also gave me the whole package (T3, 512 meg SD, 2 cradles all the packaging and an extra stylus) for 200 clams, 50 less than we originally agreed on so I,m happy. While I have you guys here, if I just sync it with her old desktop install of Palm desktop and her other stuff will it install all her stuff or will I have to start over and if so can I save all her old docs etc and if so, how? WHEW!
Thanks again folks and to PalmTealLover, no offense at all.
>>>--Tiribulus->:D
 
A Tungsten T.
It got accidentally dunked in water which brought about it's untimely demise. The trouble I think is going to be all the 3rd party apps like splash photo, Zlauncher etc. Also I upgraded Docs2Go along the way which I'm sure is now newer than what's on the T3. That's the bit there. I'll probably just have to uninstall everything from her laptop which was her Palm desktop machine and reinstall it with the T3 on the cradle. I just don't want to lose her docs, memos, notes, etc. Are these in like database files or just rebular .doc files like windows files for example?
Thanks again,
>>>--Tiribulus->:D
 
Tiribulus, I didn't see it posted above, but if you want to do a full battery drain, the Palm key sequence for "No Auto Off" is "shortcut" + "." + "3". If you enter that, your Palm will stay on until the battery drains. You might want to set the screen to full bright to increase battery usage.

junglemike, I'm impressed with all the battery modifications you have done! Nice pictures! ... For what it is worth, I picked up a Palm PowerToGo sled last year and it's been good for 3-4 full re-charges to my T3. The WiFi card is a huge drain on the battery and, for me, the PowerToGo is a good way to replenish my Palm's battery when I was away from the office or my car chargers.

Just my 2 cents, guys.

OldBlue
 
The T|T and T|3 are both OS 5 machines so that considerably simplifies the upgrade process. If you have DTG version 7.x, there won't be any problem (except for using more RAM) since it will install on the T3 and "hide" the version 6 DTG from the OS. The desktop and built-in PIM apps are completely different from the T|T but the data should sync over fine assuming you're already using the earlier version the Palm desktop. You could certainly take the route of renaming the backup folder, installing the new desktop, and then reinstalling all the apps. I'd just make sure I had a good backup of everything, install the new desktop software, and then hotsync. If things go haywire, you can always do a hard reset and start over the difficult way but I think most of the apps and data will carry over just fine without all the extra work.
 
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