Sitting in charger - good/bad????

M

Malinda B

New member
I read somewhere that it takes about 15 mins or so for the palm to re-charge itself. My question is this - is it bad if it sits in the charger all the time or overnight? Does it drain the battery after a period of time? I have a Tungsten T3. I've owned mine for about 2 years. I've noticed the battery doesn't last quite as long as it used to and was wondering if this was the result of my letting the palm charge overnight. All comments on this are welcome.
 
I also have had a T3 some time. I don't charge overnight, but leave it on about an hour to "fully charge." I don't think 15 minutes is enough - I laughed when I read "just leave on a few minutes" in the manual.

What you can try is this . . . use the battery til it's quite low. Place the T3 on the charger, and WHILE ON THE STAND, do a soft reset. Resetting the Palm ON the charger also resets the "charger memory." Take off the cradle, turn off, and replace on cradle and leave it a couple of hours. You should see a difference.

I've never condoned leaving them on all night but many people do. Rechargeables have so many "cycles" before they start to tire, but I seriously doubt you or any of us have exceeded that number, which is probably very high. The auto-shutoff prevents overcharging; my opinion is that also sometimes prevents a full charge unless it's "dedicated to charging" for a period of 1-2 hours without activity.

I've also noticed that when on charger, if you turn the unit on and use it, you're not actually charging, and the battery depletes a little despite being ON the charger; in that case I turn off, remove it, turn off, and replace on charger for an hour. I have not seen shorter life (yet) and use my T3 daily. I think doing the reset may solve your problem. Cheers! /p
 
Thanks, I'll give it a try when I get home tonight. Not sure about how the reset is possible on the charger, but I'll give it a try. I always worry about not taking the palm off the charger properly and breaking the bottom of the palm.
 
Put T3 on charger "extended." Use the stylus to carefully (without lurching T3 forward til it disconnects) hit the little "pinhole" in back. It's a little tricky, but you'll only have to do it once or twice a year!

Also - I mention this as often as I can - get a power strip and dedicate it to the "T3 and other peripherals" like Cameras, a lamp, etc - so that it can be turned off without disturbing your other computer stuff. Plug charger in the strip and use the OFF/ON button on the STRIP to turn the charger on. Then connect the T3. Reason for this is many of the T3 chargers around the time we bought ours were faulty and had a short - it's happened to me - you place in cradle one day, and there's a "beep," and WHAM - your data's gone in a forced hard reset. Nasty. I've never been able to prove it was the charger connection, but it happened to me three times, and it's never happened when I followed the above.

Having the charger in a power strip grounds it "more properly," so that placing on cradle doesn't "arc" anything. Just remember to take T3 off cradle before turning strip off, or you'll (in theory) be draining the battery.
 
I already have all my peripherals on a dedicated power strip. Learned that a long time ago from my father. But what I don't do is turn off the power strip. I need to start doing that.

Thanks again for the advice. I did it last night, but it doesn't look like I gained anymore battery life. I'm trying it again right now to see if anything changes. Looks like I'm down to around 90 minutes of battery life on one charge. :(
 
I've had that very thing described by PalmTeal Lover happen to me about half a dozen times, but I never knew what caused it. I use my pda quite a bit and have always lost some amount of data (large or small) during those unintended hard resets. Luckily, everything since the last synch is always put back on the T3 upon re-synch, but anything I've added to the T3 in the interim is obviously lost.

I am going to try that second/separate power strip idea. It seems to me that those hard resets were often/usually accompanied by some level of static electricity in the cradle/T3 contact.

Thanks for the solution to a problem I haven't really searched for yet! :) You said that you mention this as often as you can... Keep doing that, because this was the first time I read it -- so there will always be someone else who accidentally stumbles across that advice who can use it. But, of course, you already knew that... ;)
 
The reason your battery doesn't last as long as it used to is because it is 2 years old. Batteries wear out. LiIon batteries wear out faster if you deplete them more fully before charging them. They are rated to have around 500 complete cycles generally. Some maunufacturers claim up to 1000, but I have never observed a LiIon battery able to be used for 1000 full cycles.

You should be able to leave your T3 in the charger indefinately. The LiIon battery will not overcharge and therefore it will not harm it. It is best to keep it topped off. Remember, we are talking about Lithium Ion battery technology, not NiCad or NiMH. They are very different.
 
PalmTealLover thanks so much. It's been several weeks since I used your advice and I'm pleased. It solved my problems. I now have my battery length back. It's as good as new.
 
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