Going back to previous firmware

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by kdf9511

Lets see the PP uses a 400Mhz Arm processor and has 32mb of memory....I used to carry a HP Jornada 520 that used a 133Mhz SH3 with 16mb of memory and it had a much more precise and accurate battery meter. The ARM processor has a much better instruction set than the older SH3 processor. So this argument doesn't hold much water with me.

I have had many PDA's, some of the early Palms, and later HP Windows based. All had reasonably good battery meters.

[93terp]

Originally Posted by jusmee

I just left the new Coolreader sitting at a page in a book I was reading, and a few hours later I picked it up to find nothing would respond. A reset just caused it to beep 4 times. Removing the battery and replacing it had no effect.

At this point I had to assume it had flattened it's battery, so I plugged it into a usb port, and after a minute, it beeped and restarted. Just to test, I removed the usb power source, and it reported 'low battery' so that's definitely what happened.

So, looks like, amongst other things, Coolreader does indeed flatten batteries.

I am going to reload the previous firmware after it recharges.

It killed my battery as well. Did the upgrade yesterday & charged my battery completely, took it off the charger at 5:30pm, opened my current book (.prc file) and engaged the key lock. Turned on the reader at 8:00am today & the battery was completely dead. I'm getting ready to reinstall the old firmware as well. I loved the CoolReader integration (what little I saw of it), but I love my battery more!

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by kdf9511

Lets see the PP uses a 400Mhz Arm processor and has 32mb of memory....I used to carry a HP Jornada 520 that used a 133Mhz SH3 with 16mb of memory and it had a much more precise and accurate battery meter. The ARM processor has a much better instruction set than the older SH3 processor. So this argument doesn't hold much water with me.

Yeah, I used to carry one of those HP WinDoze machines too, and also the Palm variety, but I really hope that you do not think that you are really comparing apples to apples. Those devices did NOT use smart batteries, so they used an A/D converter on the main board to track battery use. That way, the OS had complete control over battery management.

In the case of the Hanlin readers, they chose the Smart Battery approach, so the battery state microcontroller is inside the battery packaging. I can guarantee you that the battery monitor is NOT a 400MHz ARM9 or anything even close. Since Hanlin chose the Smart Battery approach, no amount of complaining here about the reader software is going to change anything *meaningful* about the battery monitor since the monitor is inside the battery and not on the board with Hanlin's OS. I know that the monitor sends more than just a 2 bit resolution reading back to the main board, but the accuracy and linearity of the returned reading is still very poor. OpenInkpot on the V3 displays a percentage reading, but that reading is still non-linear and does not seem to be worth much more than 10% accuracy. Even then, the displayed values make some non-linear changes at the inflection points of the battery's charge/discharge curve. It is probably true that Hanlin could display a percentage scale with 1% resolution just as OpenInkpot does, but that does not mean that the accuracy would even come close to 1%.

All that being said, I do agree that I prefer OpenInkpot's method of showing the battery state.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jusmee

The battery meter is NOT conservative, it is wrong, when it claims 75% full after only 30 minutes of recharge from flat then is still not full after 4 more hours of charge. That's the opposite of conservative. This meter is not even accurate to the extremely poor resolution displayed.

Battery meters mostly work on terminal VOLTAGE, that is why it is not accurate. It is impossible to charge a battery without applying a higher,charging level to force current to flow INTO the battery.
C/10 is a normal maximum fast charge for many batteries (avoids Heating, out-gassing issues) (1000mA/10=.1A constant current mode for the PEz)

When you take a battery "Off Charge", the terminal voltage is elevated for a period (load, battery type, temperature,age all affect time), which is why it may show more bars after a short charge.
The charge curve for batteries (and capacitors) is exponential.
It takes forever (literally) , without resorting to over charge techniques.

This is the reason and theory behind Astak's Charge for 12 Hours strong suggestion.

If you make the gauge more granular, it will be less accurate , because you are trying to linearize an exponential function

[MaggieScratch]

Do non-DRMed ePubs automatically convert to Coolreader? I mostly read my non-DRMed stuff in Mobi, because my old reader used Mobi so I had a lot in that format already, and I think it works better than ePub in some ways on the EZReader. I haven't noticed any significant battery drain since updating, but I've been reading Mobi books.

[Robertb]

Dear All:

I will pass this on to all key tech people and we will work on getting this fixed also.

Anybody that is having short battery charge life... stay tuned and let us get this tested and fixed also.

I thank everybody for posting that there seems to be a major problem!!

[93terp]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

Do non-DRMed ePubs automatically convert to Coolreader? I mostly read my non-DRMed stuff in Mobi, because my old reader used Mobi so I had a lot in that format already, and I think it works better than ePub in some ways on the EZReader. I haven't noticed any significant battery drain since updating, but I've been reading Mobi books.

Not automatically; you need to append your .epub file with .fb2. For example:

Dracula.epbu --> Dracula.epub.fb2

[93terp]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I mostly read my non-DRMed stuff in Mobi, because my old reader used Mobi so I had a lot in that format already, and I think it works better than ePub in some ways on the EZReader. I haven't noticed any significant battery drain since updating, but I've been reading Mobi books.

I agree - I really like the .mobi/.prc integration on the EZReader; much more so than .epub.

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by theducks

Battery meters mostly work on terminal VOLTAGE, that is why it is not accurate. It is impossible to charge a battery without applying a higher,charging level to force current to flow INTO the battery.
C/10 is a normal maximum fast charge for many batteries (avoids Heating, out-gassing issues) (1000mA/10=.1A constant current mode for the PEz)

When you take a battery "Off Charge", the terminal voltage is elevated for a period (load, battery type, temperature,age all affect time), which is why it may show more bars after a short charge.
The charge curve for batteries (and capacitors) is exponential.
It takes forever (literally) , without resorting to over charge techniques.

This is the reason and theory behind Astak's Charge for 12 Hours strong suggestion.

If you make the gauge more granular, it will be less accurate , because you are trying to linearize an exponential function

Dear Ducky and all:

Today I had the pleasure to get a phone call from The Ducks. He is a great guy and I loved the conversation. What amazed me is his knowledge is total. I am hoping to utilize Ducky more in the future and may indeed let Ducky try firmware upgrade betas before release (subject to approval by our evil PM who hates every idea I have).

Anyway, I just wanted all to know that Ducky is one hell of a nice person over the phone and a pleasure to know!!

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Robertb

What amazed me is his knowledge is total. I am hoping to utilize Ducky more in the future and may indeed let Ducky try firmware upgrade betas before release (subject to approval by our evil PM who hates every idea I have).

I have to agree with your sentiments there.

Congratulations to theducks on being nominated by Robertb as our official beta firmware expert and tester.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by theducks

Battery meters mostly work on terminal VOLTAGE, that is why it is not accurate. It is impossible to charge a battery without applying a higher,charging level to force current to flow INTO the battery.
C/10 is a normal maximum fast charge for many batteries (avoids Heating, out-gassing issues) (1000mA/10=.1A constant current mode for the PEz)

When you take a battery "Off Charge", the terminal voltage is elevated for a period (load, battery type, temperature,age all affect time), which is why it may show more bars after a short charge.

I am aware of how this works too, but just to illustrate how it still gets it wrong, - After it finally indicated that it was fully charged, I unplugged it, then the battery meter read 3 bars - i.e. 75%, not full! Even stranger, after a short time (maybe 10 minutes) I happened to look at it again, and it had increased to 4 bars. This is the opposite of the effect you described.

Bottom line for me is that other devices I own, and have owned, get it right (near enough), the PP does not.

But hey, this is all really a side track to the main issue here, which is that the newest firmware flattens batteries real quick, and has other weirdness as well, and so I feel going back to the previous firmware is necessary. That's why I started the thread after all

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jusmee

I am aware of how this works too, but just to illustrate how it still gets it wrong, - After it finally indicated that it was fully charged, I unplugged it, then the battery meter read 3 bars - i.e. 75%, not full! Even stranger, after a short time (maybe 10 minutes) I happened to look at it again, and it had increased to 4 bars. This is the opposite of the effect you described.

Bottom line for me is that other devices I own, and have owned, get it right (near enough), the PP does not.

But hey, this is all really a side track to the main issue here, which is that the newest firmware flattens batteries real quick, and has other weirdness as well, and so I feel going back to the previous firmware is necessary. That's why I started the thread after all

Not opposite ,
it took it that long to catch on that the charge changed.

I believe it is a sample done only when the processor is not sleeping, otherwise the battery meter would run down the battery.

[ThomasMcKean]

I've nay had any problems with my battery with the new firmware.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by theducks

Not opposite ,
it took it that long to catch on that the charge changed.

I believe it is a sample done only when the processor is not sleeping, otherwise the battery meter would run down the battery.

Actually the battery gauge is only updated on page changes or other activity. I have seen it toggle between two adjacent bars from time to time. A battery with no load or light load will have a higher voltage than one that is heavily in use. Even a non-rechargeable battery will have this effect. There is also hysteresis built into the gauge system itself. These are the reason that a charge it near the edge of transition will toggle back a forth a few times before reaching the lower setting.

Dale

[animedude01]

Just to add to the mix, I'm having issues with the battery gauge not changing at all on the most recent firmware. It always shows a full charge! Even when the battery died (assuming it died as the laptop didn't recognize the reader, the reader didn't respond to anything, didn't respond to a reset, and started working after I recharged it) it still showed a full charge!

Maybe a firmware issue with the new firmware on the Pocket Pro?