Alkaline Battery Life

[christo930]

Does anyone know what the alkaline battery life is for the gp2x? How about the digital versions of the alkalines? They are supposedly better than regular alkalines at high current? The Energizer 2500's usually only supply a few hours of game play and perform very poorly when using the gp2x as a card reader/writer which I don't have yet, but I'm waiting for the famous 3 dollar including shipping + an led flashligh card reader writer and I would like to know if I'd be better off with alkalines for longer trips.

Does anyone know how many cycles the energizers need before they run at full capacity? Mine are brand new and maybe that's why they are not working that great. Certainly not the 5 hours I expected from them by the message boards.

One other thing, does anyone know how much wattage this thing uses at 200mhz with the volume most of way up?
Chris

 

[Vimacs]

the life of your rechargeables greatly depends on the charger, i have a cheapass charger which makes them last only about 3-4 hours, and i got a quite expensive at3 which makes them last more then a hour more.

you should do a refresh load on new rechargeables, as in completely discharge and recharge them a few times before using em, the at3 has a automatic function for that.

alkalines wont last long and are generally a waste of money.

afaik it uses about 600ma on standard operation, which is about 1.8w

 

[Ripster]

As mentioned above... as far as I know all chargers only charge to about 80-85% of the batteries capacity when quick charged. To get it topped off you require a charger that will trickle charge the batteries the rest of the way.

Also as mentioned refreshing the batteries by fully discharging them every 5 charges or so is a good idea. Note that most quick chargers can be hard on battery life as they charge with high voltages causing higher than ideal temperatures.

I have mentioned it before and it may sound like I am a distributor for them... but the Lightening 4000N formally by RipVan100 charges and a the lowest temperatures... and has the ability to both discharge your batteries before charging and trickle charging afterwards all for a reasonable price. I got mine for $24.95us... its also really small and easy to use. So far I have no complaints... and I myself find that if I only got 4 hours out of a set of batteries it would be enough. Isn't that why we carry spares...

Oh if so inclined... the Maha's and the La Crosse are very good battery chargers if you want to spend the money.

I just wish that the GP2x gave you a better warning system to tell you that you were near the end of a charge.

 

[christo930]

the life of your rechargeables greatly depends on the charger, i have a cheapass charger which makes them last only about 3-4 hours, and i got a quite expensive at3 which makes them last more then a hour more.

you should do a refresh load on new rechargeables, as in completely discharge and recharge them a few times before using em, the at3 has a automatic function for that.

alkalines wont last long and are generally a waste of money.

afaik it uses about 600ma on standard operation, which is about 1.8w

I have several chargers. I have a radioshack fast charger that's supposedly microprocessor controlled and then I have a duracell 15 minute charger. The radioshack starts a slow trickle charge after the fast charge is done, so I usually keep them in overnight to make sure they are fully charged. The one hour charger does the same thing. Niether is a crap charger, but neither is a real high end charger (the radioshack one was 30, the other one goes for 36 with batteries, but I got it a flea market for $4 and it has lots of good reviews).

That would be at 3 volts (based on your numbers). at 2.4 volts it would draw 750 mah (P=IxE) 2.4 X 750=1.8w which would come out to about 3.3 hours if the battery is reaching it's rated amount (2500) (2500/750-3.33)
If the 1.8 watt is right, then I guess 3.3 hours is the maximum I can expect from these batteries? Has anyone got more (at 200mhz remember). I think I'm going to try the battery software (the one with the flames) and see what I get. Should I run it at 205 mhz to make up for sound? If not, how many more mhz should I run the tester at to take the power used by the sound into consideration?

Chris

Is this what people are generally getting at 200mhz with 2500 batteries?

 

[dj_orta]

i have duracell 2650 and a duracell charger (its a slow charger with an led indication of how much each battery is charged). at 200mhz i get 5 hours and 10 min. at 265 (266 seemed to make the tester program crash) i get 4 hours 20 min. these are the results of brand new batteries too. very good imo. now that they have run a few cycles im sure that they last longer.

i had the energizer 2500 and energizer fast charger before and i got around 3 hours of life with those. the charger really does make the difference. im very happy with my battery life. 5+ hours on the new gngeo beta? hell yea!

 

[christo930]

i have duracell 2650 and a duracell charger (its a slow charger with an led indication of how much each battery is charged). at 200mhz i get 5 hours and 10 min. at 265 (266 seemed to make the tester program crash) i get 4 hours 20 min. these are the results of brand new batteries too. very good imo. now that they have run a few cycles im sure that they last longer.

i had the energizer 2500 and energizer fast charger before and i got around 3 hours of life with those. the charger really does make the difference. im very happy with my battery life. 5+ hours on the new gngeo beta? hell yea!

Where did you get the charger and how much? Would you mind posting a model # for the charger?

Chris

 

[nubie]

i have duracell 2650 and a duracell charger (its a slow charger with an led indication of how much each battery is charged). at 200mhz i get 5 hours and 10 min. at 265 (266 seemed to make the tester program crash) i get 4 hours 20 min. these are the results of brand new batteries too. very good imo. now that they have run a few cycles im sure that they last longer.

i had the energizer 2500 and energizer fast charger before and i got around 3 hours of life with those. the charger really does make the difference. im very happy with my battery life. 5+ hours on the new gngeo beta? hell yea!

The Energizers treated me fine (4:45) for 2 cells, I have added a third cell and recorded 6:18, the test results are in the battery test thread and the pics are on picasaweb: http://picasaweb.google.com/nubie07

I have 3 (4?) of the 8-hour chargers that come with the 16-packs of AA batteries at Sam's Club. I measure the voltage as I unpack them from the retail box, then pair them (I still haven't found anything indelible, maybe I should try paint or an electric scriber) to the closest voltages, if you keep them in the pairs, and charge them as pairs they are fine. If you let the family take them and use them unpaired, or drain them one at a time and then charge them with the wrong pairs they will die quickly, especially if they leave them in something that continues to drain until it kills the battery.

If paired properly they should last at least 4 hours a charge, or more. The Energizers and Duracells seem about the same to me, it is a personal preference, they are both high quality.

I can't stress this enough, pair them, keep them paired, mark them, charge as a set (on an expensive charger or a slow charger), don't let people use them. Since I get the 16-Pack (w/charger and 4-pack AAA) for $25 and each set will last 4-5 hours I am fine with an 8-hour charge time.

I am considering making the most integrated Ultimod possible, basically integrating Li-Ion, internal USB/TV sockets and possibly a D-Pad onto a single circuit board (2 total with the Dpad mod). Any thoughts? I figure with a 18650 battery of 13,000mAh and a safety circuit it should be a nice mod, and integration of internal USB and Video out will make a lot of difference.

Trouble is motivation and budget, it is freaking expensive to beta this stuff and GPH should have put the options in for piddly money to begin with (even without added components the traces could have been added for free in the design phase, and we could solder in the components ourselves, or there could be an ultimate edition with this stuff)

 

[dj_orta]

i have duracell 2650 and a duracell charger (its a slow charger with an led indication of how much each battery is charged). at 200mhz i get 5 hours and 10 min. at 265 (266 seemed to make the tester program crash) i get 4 hours 20 min. these are the results of brand new batteries too. very good imo. now that they have run a few cycles im sure that they last longer.

i had the energizer 2500 and energizer fast charger before and i got around 3 hours of life with those. the charger really does make the difference. im very happy with my battery life. 5+ hours on the new gngeo beta? hell yea!

Where did you get the charger and how much? Would you mind posting a model # for the charger?

Chris

i got the charger at target. i think it was $25 but im not positive. it comes with 4 1800mah duracell batteries. i also got the batteries at target (around $12 for a pack of 4). the model # for the charger is CEF21. it shouldnt be more than $40 for the batteries and charger.

 

[christo930]

i have duracell 2650 and a duracell charger (its a slow charger with an led indication of how much each battery is charged). at 200mhz i get 5 hours and 10 min. at 265 (266 seemed to make the tester program crash) i get 4 hours 20 min. these are the results of brand new batteries too. very good imo. now that they have run a few cycles im sure that they last longer.

i had the energizer 2500 and energizer fast charger before and i got around 3 hours of life with those. the charger really does make the difference. im very happy with my battery life. 5+ hours on the new gngeo beta? hell yea!

Where did you get the charger and how much? Would you mind posting a model # for the charger?

Chris

i got the charger at target. i think it was $25 but im not positive. it comes with 4 1800mah duracell batteries. i also got the batteries at target (around $12 for a pack of 4). the model # for the charger is CEF21. it shouldnt be more than $40 for the batteries and charger.


I ran the battery testing software on a freshly charged pair of energizer 2500's after putting them in the one hour charger and here are the results.

STATISTICS:
Clock Speed: 200 Mhz
Running Time: 4:25:00
Average FPS: 81.88

Current charge: 0%
Initial internal charge: 970
Current internal charge: 633


So, it looks like it runs for 4:25 minutes at 200mhz with no sound *since the software produces no sound*. I have a slow charger that I have a pair of the same brand and size of batteries and when it finishes charging I will post the results and see if slow charging insures a full charge and makes a difference.

Maybe after I post the slow charge results and maybe an alkaline result we can make this a sticky thread for people to research batteries.

Chris
Chris