[NTLK] I have a question about the way the eMate handles

[Forrest Buffenmyer]

I have a question about the way the eMate handles its battery charging task, vs. the way the Newton does.

Briefly--I recently purchased a like-new eMate off eBay. Not a mark on it; display intact with no marks or scratches. The seller had no way to power it up, so it was sold as-is.

The battery looked new, as if that mattered. It would not take or hold a charge, which is not surprising considering that it is probably at least 23 years old. But an odd thing happened after I applied the eMate Y2K patch--the battery started to accept a charge, and reached a full charge in a few hours. In fact, I was able to leave it disconnected from power for about 4 days. When last I checked it was at 23%--I probably should have connected the power adapter then, but I foolishly thought it should discharge further, forgetting that NiMH cells don't have the memory effect NiCds do.

When I came back to it 3 days ago, it was fully discharged, so I connected the eMate to power to recharge it. But again, it would not accept or hold a charge. The eMate said it was "deepToast" and that I should replace it, for those reasons.

I tried all sorts of things--it worked before, why not now? What if I had caught it before it died?

I purchased some NiMH AA-sized cells with tabs from Amazon, as I had read Frank's instruction on rebuilding the eMate's battery pack. They were set to arrive today, and that was to be one of today's tasks.

Meanwhile, I was also struggling with getting MailV to work. I had improperly installed the Internet packages in the incorrect order, so I removed everything I had installed by doing a hard reset, as I had put extra stuff on there that I didn't need. I then installed the Internet packages in the correct order, then added and configured MailV. And then, another odd thing happened.

The battery AGAIN accepted and held a charge, after a day or more of trying, but only AFTER the reset, as before. It fully charged until the orange charging light changed to green--several hours later.

So now what happens? Do I tear down and rebuild what could be a still-functioning battery pack...or do I wait until the issue shows up again? 

Does anyone have any guidance or knowledge regarding this behavior?










































-- 
Mahalo,
Forrest
Sent from my eMate 300