Before reading, please note that this is not a tutorial. This is just my observation and editing of the power indicator. This thread is really more to pass along information to beginners more than anything else, anyways...
I'm fairly new to URC's CCP and remotes, so I don't know if this is the case for all URC remotes, but the power indicator scheme is not consistent. For the MX-980, the power indicator just seemed to be more accurate for what I'm used to seeing rather than the power indicator for my MX-6000...
The MX-980 power indicator has:
very low
low
medium
enough
full
charging
The icons above were more of what I could get used to, but I don't have a MX-980, I have a MX -6000. The power indicator for the MX-6000 has 7 stages, where as the MX-980 only has 6. So I couldn't just switch indicators, I actually had to rework the file because of the stages. The inconsistency of the stages themselves were very different and that just kept throwing me off. Let me explain:
I started with the MX-6000; it was my first remote from URC, and I had no idea the power indicator schemes were different until i got annoyed with that of the 6000. It was just so misleading for me that I had to try and figure out how to change it... then that got me wondering if the power scheme was uniform from remote to remote, and of course its not as you can see.
The default scheme for my 6000 has:
very low
low
medium
enough
full
cradle
charging
There is an obvious difference in the 2 schemes.
very low
mx6000
mx980
In my experience very low always meant almost nothing... and in the case of the mx-6000, it digresses from:
low
to very low
So we went from 1 red bar, to 5 solid full red bars... not that this is a big deal, it just seemed weird and I felt I needed to get back to a more realistic situation for me.
So, I adjusted my lows to look like this:
low
to very low
As you can see, my implementation is more representative of the the MX980 at the lower levels.
Here is another inconsistency that threw me off. At 50 percent power, that to me means half full... or... getting ready to go down hill in my mind.
Middle for 980 is:
Middle for the 6000 is:
The Middle setting for the 6000 makes the remote look like its nearly on its last leg and is about to die, better start thinking about getting it on the charger, but the battery was still in the 50+ percentile... so it was just misleading to start showing me yellow (uh oh, low power) when I had a fairly good decent amount of operating power left. The 3 green bars for the MX-980 seemed much more accurate for the amount of power left in the battery.
I adjusted mine to look like this:
very low
low
medium
Now this demonstation has to be the biggest reason why I changed my battery scheme. Most of the time my remote is nearly full so that's where I usually see my indication. Anytime I think of the word full... it means to the top for me, or nearly the top... but the standard for full for the MX-6000 is:
while full for the MX-980 is:
I cant explain why 100% juice is 4 bars for the 6000 and 5 bars for the 980, this is just strange... and it bugged me constantly and made often think that my juice was running down when actually, I had full battery.
In my opinion, the "enough" indicator level should mean 4 bars... meaning that you aren't at full capacity, but you don't need to charge any time soon either. So I adjusted that stage to indicate when my remote has 80% power, I have 4 bars which is more accurate for "enough" juice in my opinion.
My adjusted MX6000 to look like this:
very low
low
medium
enough
full
cradle
charging
As opposed to the standard:
very low
low
medium
enough
full
cradle
charging
If you dont know how to change/edit your battery indicator:
Changing/Customizing the battery indicator is easy. It's just a simple gif file with 6 or seven stages depending on your remote control model. Other models may have fewer stages, but you can easily tell by exporting your battery indicator graphic to view in a editor such as Fireworks. Simply edit the stages to appear as you want them to then import the gif back into CCP. Its that easy.
Here is my battery indicator GIF file for the MX-6000 if anyone wants it... or you can just as easily create your own if it's something you wish to do.
