Re: New user - Battery problems (!)
(no name) ((no email))
Fri, 21 Oct 1994 20:23:02 -0400 (EDT)
I aquired and ultralite pc1701, recently. I also got a battery from
Jem and participated in the battery exchange program. I bought my ultralite
with no charger. I cannot seem to get either one of my batteries to hold
up for more than about 45 minutes. I thought it was because of the charger.
The battery life was worse than that before I modified my homemade charger
to increase the charge current to about 125 milliamps from about 50 ma.
My thinking is this, and I have not verified the validity of my theory.
The older style battery had a lower charge current requirement than the
new nickle metal hydride type does. And in addition to that, the newer
battery has a lower capacity than the old one does. In order for NEC to
provide us all with new chargers, they would have to get UL and God knows
what other kind of US government approval, this would be at great expense
to NEC. It looks to me like the Ultralite is simply a product that failed
somewhat and NEC is trying to some extent to cover themselves, but not
going as far as they perhaps should in terms of making Ultralite users
happy. sorry for rambling, but the bottom line is that short battery
life is the most common complaint with this product and NEC has not
solved the problem. IMHO, it does not look like they will.