Any Battery Level Utilities Out There?

[menace]

Are there any utilites that will give you real time battery info on the GP? I hate it when it just ups and dies on me :angry:

 

[washo]

no : sorry about that...
the only way is with a FLU : the screen will start to flickert before the batteries are dead...

see you :lol:

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

It wont flicker on me, the GP32 just quits instantly.

 

[menace]

I'm really surprised--it seems like such a basic feature :blink:

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

I'm really surprised--it seems like such a basic feature :blink:

Yeah I hear you there. I have had the urge to throw my GP32 at the wall a few times when it has up and quit on me in the middle of a game.

I am not the kind of person that wants to waste erase cycles using save states every minute on the off chance that my batteries might die at any time (even worse on the high mhz emulators), and most native GP32 games dont have any "Save State" feature or similar.

Now I use a wall plug, no battery worries, but this stops my GP32 from being that portable.

You would think they would do something simple like the GameBoy's do, Make that red light above the screen green and have it turn red at %10 battery or some such...

 

[mattmagoo]

There surely could be a device cou could attach to the batteries that will tell u when they are low

Ill ask the electronics teacher 2moro at college, and if its possible i reckon i could build it in to the battery lid and add an LED

 

[Axeman]

I dont think the GP has any way of reporting the remaining battery level via software implimentation. So a hardware mod it would have to be...

 

[menace]

There surely could be a device cou could attach to the batteries that will tell u when they are low

Thats not a bad idea--just a couple of those strips from a duracell would tell you more info than we have right now...glue it to the cover, make one contact a momentary switch so it doesn't run all the time and away you go... I'll post back with experiments.

 

[dazmanultra]

A battery indicator generally works well with standard alkalike batteries where the voltage will drop pretty much linearly from 1.5v to around 0.9v over the course of a battery's life... a rechargeable battery will stay at 1.2v for most of it's recharge cycle before suddenly dropping.

 

[diablo2]

you could have a program that runs in the background that has a timer on it

when you are going to turn off your gp32 you hit a button combo that would save the last time

you could set the time for how long your batteries usually run

 

[Delsabre]

Or you could just use a stopwatch.

 

[diablo2]

yeah but then youd have to carry it around with you all the time

that might be a terrible idea if it would suck too many mhz up

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

and it wouldnt be very accurate, one day you play all 40mhz games, and the next you play a bunch of 166 SNES games, you cannot accurately time something like that on a standard. And some games use multiple CPU speeds that vary depending on whats happening in the game.

 

[diablo2]

good point

maybe you could program it to increase if you don't over clock to your max

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

good point

maybe you could program it to increase if you don't over clock to your max

How would you know what other games and apps do though? For instance, did you know that when playing GPSquares (atleast the new version...not sure about the old), its running at 40mhz but when the CPU has to think and make its move it jumps to 133mhz, then back down to 40mhz when its your turn again? The longer the CPU has to think, the longer it stays at 133, the longer you think, the longer it stays at 40. There is no way you could accuratly measure battery useage based on time.

 

[Robster]

The GP32 has an A-D converter with 8 inputs. None of them are used, although one of them is connected to the EXT connector. It would be really easy to run a wire from the batteries to an ADC input, which would then be able to measure the voltage.

I might do this, actually. Could be fun. Not sure about reading the "battery charge level", because NiCd/NiMH batteries have a different voltage to normal alkalines etc, but if you're familiar with your setup - ie. you know that your GP32 will cut out below 1.5V or whatever - then a voltage readout could be useful...

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Even if it gave a a good minute warning, enough time to save state in emulators (and save in some games). It would be plenty, I am sure that even with recharageables, there is a point that it stops putting out 1.2, it should give enough time for a warning.

 

[Robster]

Thinking about it, the critical point is not the batteries, but the LTC3401 regulator that takes the battery voltage and steps it up to 3.3V. According to its data sheet, it will shut down at around 0.8V in normal operation, but if a pair of 1.5V cells (of any type) are putting out 0.8V they're seriously flat and won't last for another minute.

I'm sure a bit of trial and error will find a point that's pretty low but will still allow a game to be saved. More details on cobbleware when I've looked at it some more.

I guess that a background routine could be made that could monitor the voltage, but the question is, how would it warn the user? It's pretty difficult to interfere with the LCD or the speakers. What a pity the power LED isn't under software control

 

[rcx21000]

If the thingy is sticking out the ext port, then you could just add a LED or something that turns on. If not, then you could add a LED beside the poer LED that turns on, and it could chnge the color a bit at least.

 

[menace]

Sounds like some of you guys know these suckers inside and out--thats great!! Could a device (a small one) be plugged into the ext. port to provide this info then? Sort of like an expansion card of sorts--it wouldn't affect gameplay and when you are done, you could simple unplug it. Does anyone know what the pinout is on the ext. port? or where to find this info?