Technical Notes

Source: Palm Computing

Battery Life -- Z-7000

A number of factors affect the battery life of the Z-7000. Users have reported roughly 6-7 weeks of normal usage for a set of alkaline batteries, and some have estimated life in excess of the advertised 100 hours. However, certain activities or peripherals will substantially reduce battery life.

PCMCIA memory cards:

There are two kinds: SRAM and Flash. SRAM cards -- These cards are self-powered, and should cause no additional draw of power from the PDA. Flash cards -- These cards do require power to read and write information, and measurements have been made which indicate that some cards use relatively high amounts of energy while a file is being written to them. This could cause what seems to be a sudden low battery condition which is not immediately detected by the power manager, but may cause problems in writing files to the flash card. Please see the "PCMCIA Memory Card" technote.

Use of the Serial port:

In general, use of the serial port requires relatively high battery consumption, on the order of 50-75 milliamps (File Linking at 9600 baud) while transferring data.

File Transfer protocol:

Draws significant levels of current, and will substantially reduce battery life. Use of the Serial port for extended time at high baud rates draws relatively high current for the duration of the transfer. (No specific measurements have been made.)

Modems:

Internal modems are allowed to draw up to 50 milliamps to power the device, plus current required for data transfer. Use of external modems requires current at the rate of the Serial port for data transfer only.

=================================================

Return to Zoomer home page

brian@grot.com 6/28/95