Pandora Power Switch

[cbox]

Just got my pandora and am a little confused about the power button, I thought when you closed the lid it went into power save mode or something, so I did that and took my pandora home and then when I brought it back to work its down to like 15% power, so I guess it keeps running with the lid closed. Is there a position on the power button to go into power save mode? I'd prefer not having to charge every day.

 

[sebt3]

just give it a switch (to the right)
an other switch will resume

 

[Pleng]

Even with power save mode you wont be able to avoid having to charge every day at the moment. There's no real suspend feature.

 

[ahahah]

or you can switch it off after use. why not?

 

[Pleng]

I haven't switched off my Pandora (aside from rebooting from crashes) in about a month. It runs for a full day on a full charge with light usage, so there's really no need to switch it off - unless you're going to be away from a power source for a large amount of time.

I don't dig having to go through the full start-up sequence every time I want to make a quick note of something.

 

[ahahah]

It runs for a full day on a full charge with light usage

yes but:

I'd prefer not having to charge every day.

 

[cbox]

I've gotten used to just leaving it plugged into my pc USB cable. Then when I remove it it's almost always charged.

 

[CPUnltd]

I know that over time, laptops suffer from lower charge capacity when they are left charging for extended periods of time (so when I know I'll be keeping it on the cable, I always take the battery out to avoid shortening it's lifespan) I wonder if newer devices (with newer batteries) still suffer the same fate. Outside of laptops and netbooks, the "embedded" devices are what I'm curious about. I've never really known anyone with a smartphone that had much less charge than when they first got it, Unless they are running more power-hungry programs than from day one... but it's hard to say. Plus with the battery replacement option for cell phones offered by cellular stores, it's a it difficult to figure out without running my own experiments... sorry, don't wanna know badly enough to do that myself...

 

[Esn]

Read this, to answer all your questions:
http://pandorawiki.org/Power_modes

Don't forget: if a program freezes, you can do a hard-reset of your system. While holding the Pandora key, flick the power switch to the right. I didn't know this at first (it's not written in the user manual I got with the system), so I would take the battery out to reset the system after a program crashed and the Pandora key to close it wasn't working. That works, but is awkward.

To shut down your Pandora, you need to select it in the "start menu". If it's plugged into the wall, it's impossible to shut down your system; it will just reboot.

The Pandora can also be powered from the wall without a battery inside. Never, ever insert or remove your battery while it's still plugged into the wall. Something could get fried if you do that.

 

[CPUnltd]

nice! thanks for the info... it pretty much answers my questions...

 

[moxie]

I haven't switched off my Pandora (aside from rebooting from crashes) in about a month. It runs for a full day on a full charge with light usage [...]

Same here. Actually, I find it runs a full day on quite heavy-ish usage (several hours of FFVII on pcsx-ReArmed, plus divers other things), although I do not have wifi on, which probably helps a bit. And when I go to sleep, I put the pandora on the charger that's on the bedside table.

Yes, I take my pandora to bed every night.

 

[Prometheus]

Excellent post, Esn, but I have something to add, if I may.

The Pandora can also be powered from the wall without a battery inside. Never, ever insert or remove your battery while it's still plugged into the wall. Something could get fried if you do that.

I'm pretty sure that this does not necessarily work on all Pandoras - officially it's an experimental feature of the hardware (the OMAP hardware, I think, rather than the Pandora itself, but I may well be misremembering this part of it), and may not necessarily work on all units.

 

[CPUnltd]

if taking the battery out while the power is plugged in is bad, that would surprise me... since all laptops can handle it, I'd think it would not be "new technology" but I can't say that I've tried the same with embedded devices yet. But I am now curious.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

The chip controlling the charging was designed for embedded devices which are designed to be used with a battery always present like cell phones.
However, it does behave similar to a laptop even though that's some unreliable unofficial feature, you can remove and put in the battery while it is plugged in, but the chip reacts very slow.
If you put the battery in while it's plugged, for a short moment it will charge the battery uncontrolled, which may shorten the lifetime of the battery or even damage it.
If you remove the battery while it's plugged in, the chip needs to switch over to the unofficial directly-powered mode because the default behaviour is to always have the battery in between. The chip needs quite some time to do this, so the system will most likely reboot because of a short power cut. IIRC there's still a small chance that the system will stay up.

 

[CPUnltd]

got ya... makes sense... in that light, the batteries for embedded devices most likely either don't suffer the same drawback like laptops of charge retention loss over time from being plugged in and charging for extended periods of time (or else the design doesn't directly allow for such a flaw to be as apparent)...

 

[dsleaf67]

Read this, to answer all your questions:
http://pandorawiki.org/Power_modes

Don't forget: if a program freezes, you can do a hard-reset of your system. While holding the Pandora key, flick the power switch to the right. I didn't know this at first (it's not written in the user manual I got with the system), so I would take the battery out to reset the system after a program crashed and the Pandora key to close it wasn't working. That works, but is awkward.

To shut down your Pandora, you need to select it in the "start menu". If it's plugged into the wall, it's impossible to shut down your system; it will just reboot.

The Pandora can also be powered from the wall without a battery inside. Never, ever insert or remove your battery while it's still plugged into the wall. Something could get fried if you do that.

Yes thanks for that info. I just posted to Craigix about this very thing since 2 of 3 battery clips at bottom broke off from reset by taking out the battery. I haven't had to reset that way much but it is a bummer.

Thanks again. I may order another case (for the battery cover) then I'll have spare screws and other parts. May also, try painting some later.

 

[CPUnltd]

curious, are they selling system components individually? I'd be interested in an extra case or two as well for mods and such... but wouldn't swapping the case void the warranty? Haven't seen an official warranty document as of yet.

 

[Stainy]

So what does the power switch to the left do ? I can`t see that it does anything..

 

[Prometheus]

It doesn't, at the moment. In the future, apparently it's planned to act as a "Hold" switch, though.