extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[Brent Harding]

				Is there anything one can plug the charging jack in to on most synths,
and or laptops, namely a dell inspiron 3500 and a dectalk express that
would give me external power without needing an outlet? Is there a device I
could plug the charging cube in to that would have a battery in it that one
could use for this purpose? Someone told me that if I just got an adapter
with the proper voltage, that one could hook it to some external battery
and plug it in to the charging jack, does this usually work OK? The idea of
it being, having wires wrapped around the positive and negative terminal on
one end, and the connector on the other to plug in to the dectalk or laptop.

Re: extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[rob]

Hi

On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 09:24:31PM -0500, Brent Harding wrote:
> 				Is there anything one can plug the charging jack in to on most synths,
> and or laptops, namely a dell inspiron 3500 and a dectalk express that
> would give me external power without needing an outlet? Is there a device I
> could plug the charging cube in to that would have a battery in it that one
> could use for this purpose? Someone told me that if I just got an adapter
> with the proper voltage, that one could hook it to some external battery
> and plug it in to the charging jack, does this usually work OK? The idea of
> it being, having wires wrapped around the positive and negative terminal on
> one end, and the connector on the other to plug in to the dectalk or laptop.

The dectalk works fine off a 12 volt battery, you just need to get the
right connector. You might have more difficulty with the laptop
however because they sometimes use weird connectors and voltages. One
solution to this is to get the statpower notepower 75 or similar,
which lets you use the standard powersupply which came with the laptop
with a 12 volt battery. I have used this setup in a car, a boat and
while camping. It works great. Make sure the battery has enough
capacity to power the laptop for as long as you need it.

Regards

-- 
Rob Murray

Re: extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[Tommy Moore]

Hmm, anyone have an estimates how much power laptops usually use and what kind of battery could be used to get like maybe 12 or 18 hours out of one?
Also I notice that when you use speech that the battery doesn't last near as long.

battery life

[Kirk Wood]

There are a number of things that will cut down on your usable battery
life. The guess that the UART uses more power when active is correct. Also
any sounds you have enabled cut down life. Hard disk usage does. If you
can cause you screen to blank out it will save a lot of power. Also eject
any and all PCMCIA cards you don't actually need at the time. (They
consume power even when not in use.)

If you really feel a need to run 24 hours on a charge, I have several
suggestions.

1. Make the processor run as slow as you can. Speed is the enemy.
2. Get as much memory as needed to avoid the hard drive.
3. Prepare to lug around either spare batteries or a huge single one.

If you are carrying this around, I think you would be better off planning
an 8 hour life span and have two batteries if needed. If your actually
using your computer for more then 8 hours in the day chances are there is
a power source you can tap. Consider that we have electricity in the house
because it is cheaper and more convenient then having the number of
batteries needed to swap them out. It is not because cords are cool.

-- 
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net
------------------

Seek simplicity -- and distrust it.
		Alfred North Whitehead

Re: extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[rob]

On Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 08:01:26AM -0400, Tommy Moore wrote:
> Hmm, anyone have an estimates how much power laptops usually use and what kind of battery could be used to get like maybe 12 or 18 hours out of one?

The battery I have is a Yuasa NPC24-12 12 volt 24 AH lead-acid
battery, which I think lasts for about 24 hours with my laptop (Sony
VAIO pcg505fx). It is very heavy. You may be able to get lighter
batteries, but they will be more expensive.
> Also I notice that when you use speech that the battery doesn't last
near as long.

I haven't noticed this, maybe the UART uses more power when in
use. You can save power by switching the screen off if possible, and
by letting the harddisk spin down when not in use.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
Rob Murray

Re: battery life

[Kirk Wood]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2000, Brent Harding wrote:

> It is, however a lot easier, in a work situation to have something that'll
> last longer than 3 hours. A lot of places, especially ones crowded with a

Real life must intercede here. Nobody else's laptop will work more then 3
hours. Most people work in the same spot day in and day out. When they
move arround they have places with the needed power to run their
laptop. That is real world. Operating for 8 hours on battery just is not.

Most laptops in business move from the desk at work to the desk at
home. There are a few (and very few at that) who move arround a lot. They
work out ways to have a power source. But if you decide to carry a battery
to power your devices for 8 straight hours you will distinguish
yourself. (Though few people would consider the words complimentary.)

-- 
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net
------------------

Seek simplicity -- and distrust it.
		Alfred North Whitehead

Re: extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[Brent Harding]

Cool, I thought the dectalk will connect to any 12 volt AC plug. It'd be
nice if I could use one source of power for both the laptop and dectalk,
pcmcia synths aren't an option in linux, or with my system that only has
two slots, have to have the modem in one of them for sure, eventually
networking in the other one if and when I can get such access.
At 12:44 PM 9/20/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi
>
>On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 09:24:31PM -0500, Brent Harding wrote:
>> 				Is there anything one can plug the charging jack in to on most synths,
>> and or laptops, namely a dell inspiron 3500 and a dectalk express that
>> would give me external power without needing an outlet? Is there a device I
>> could plug the charging cube in to that would have a battery in it that one
>> could use for this purpose? Someone told me that if I just got an adapter
>> with the proper voltage, that one could hook it to some external battery
>> and plug it in to the charging jack, does this usually work OK? The idea of
>> it being, having wires wrapped around the positive and negative terminal on
>> one end, and the connector on the other to plug in to the dectalk or
laptop.
>
>The dectalk works fine off a 12 volt battery, you just need to get the
>right connector. You might have more difficulty with the laptop
>however because they sometimes use weird connectors and voltages. One
>solution to this is to get the statpower notepower 75 or similar,
>which lets you use the standard powersupply which came with the laptop
>with a 12 volt battery. I have used this setup in a car, a boat and
>while camping. It works great. Make sure the battery has enough
>capacity to power the laptop for as long as you need it.
>
>Regards
>
>-- 
>Rob Murray
>
>_______________________________________________
>Speakup mailing list
>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>

Re: extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[Brent Harding]

I notice that too, the majority of time lately I've been near an outlet but
this might not always be the case in the future, especially if I used the
laptop for portable use.
At 08:01 AM 9/20/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hmm, anyone have an estimates how much power laptops usually use and what
kind of battery could be used to get like maybe 12 or 18 hours out of one?
>Also I notice that when you use speech that the battery doesn't last near
as long.
>
>_______________________________________________
>Speakup mailing list
>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>

Re: battery life

[Brent Harding]

It is, however a lot easier, in a work situation to have something that'll
last longer than 3 hours. A lot of places, especially ones crowded with a
lot of machines, there's so many cords around you can't find a place to
plug both a synth and a laptop in. Especially if you have to move around to
hook up to different machines, the cords get in the way, especially that
the synth can't even be given a spare battery without taking it apart.
At 07:37 AM 9/20/00 -0500, you wrote:
>There are a number of things that will cut down on your usable battery
>life. The guess that the UART uses more power when active is correct. Also
>any sounds you have enabled cut down life. Hard disk usage does. If you
>can cause you screen to blank out it will save a lot of power. Also eject
>any and all PCMCIA cards you don't actually need at the time. (They
>consume power even when not in use.)
>
>If you really feel a need to run 24 hours on a charge, I have several
>suggestions.
>
>1. Make the processor run as slow as you can. Speed is the enemy.
>2. Get as much memory as needed to avoid the hard drive.
>3. Prepare to lug around either spare batteries or a huge single one.
>
>If you are carrying this around, I think you would be better off planning
>an 8 hour life span and have two batteries if needed. If your actually
>using your computer for more then 8 hours in the day chances are there is
>a power source you can tap. Consider that we have electricity in the house
>because it is cheaper and more convenient then having the number of
>batteries needed to swap them out. It is not because cords are cool.
>
>-- 
>Kirk Wood
>Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net
>------------------
>
>Seek simplicity -- and distrust it.
>		Alfred North Whitehead
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Speakup mailing list
>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>

Re: extending a synth's life when needed to be portable

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

I've seen people do things like connect AA bateries in parallel in order to
get a good ampage and it seemed to work well for them.  Don't know how this
would fair for a laptop though.

Geoff.


-- 
Geoff Shang <gshang10@scu.edu.au>
ICQ number 43634701