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I mention that I connected my 4 rechargeable AAA batteries to the rechargeable battery connector rather than the coiled-wire battery contacts.

I'm happy to report that the rech. battery life is much longer this way. I still have 2 battery bars after 6 days, where previously I only got 3 or 4 days total use, max.

Nothing has changed about the battery discharge rate, but by using the rech. battery connection, the NG is made to adjust its voltage expectation, and not declare "low batt" and shut down until a lower voltage is reached.

The actual battery drain does not seem to be too bad. I started with 5.2V total (remote off), and I'm now at 5.13V. With the screen and backlight on, this falls to 5.05V.

Makes me wonder if the battery-eating property of the NG is caused not by the remote requiring a lot of power, but rather from the firmware setting for the low voltgage point being unnecessarily high. I should have measured the voltage on my last supposedly dead set of regular batteries removed from the NG to see if they really were low or not.

I haven't measured how much current the NG draws when it's operating, and I don't feel ambitious enough to do it, but the results from my experiment with the rechargeables suggests it doesn't really demand too much power.

I'm using 550mAH NiMH batteries, with the positive end re-routed to pin3 of the rechargeable connector. Pin3 is the one toward the top of the remote. No connection to pin2 or pin1.

people did say that battery life has decreased since the FW update, but before that (older FW) there were problems when the batteries were almost dead. So you are right, and the Pronto does not let it go as low as it used to, but it is for a reason. Also the life cycle of a rechargeable battery is different from that of alkaline.

Excellent news! I suspected that they had just "improved" their battery management. I'm sure this is doing wonder's for their DS3000 sales, but prefer your method until the price comes down.

Do you really need to disconnect the coil terminal or is it enough to have a connection to pin 3 in addition to the other one?

Barry

I didn't try it with both connections, because I'm concerned that might damage it. If you want to avoid making mods to your remote (and voiding the warranty), you could slip a piece of plastic between the battery and the coil terminal.

If you don't mind removing the case, you can bend the positive coil out of the way, so that it's not inside the battery compartment when you put the case back together. That would be easily reversible if needed later.

It may be a good idea to write a document (with pictures) about this. In that way it's clear to everybody how things work..
Can anybody do this?
If not, I can also do it, is it possible to post it in the files area ('Tools and documentation')?

Scheer,
I just applied your patch and WOW! What a difference. I was down to 1 bar (on the System page battery meter) with the 'coil' connection. After connecting the NiMh rechargeables so that Pronto knows that's what they are (per your instructions) the battery meter is back to FULL!

I think Philips did a good job of improving the battery management with this firmware release; unfortunately this required them to make use of 'better information', which they can only do incorrectly if they don't know why type of batteries they are working with.

Also, I tried leaving the coil connection there in addition to the pin-3 connection and this does not provide the desired result. Some testing with my dvm indicates that they have a germanium diode forward-biased from the coil connection to pin 3. So pin-3 has voltage in either case. It's the absence of voltage at the coil connection that tells Pronto you've connected a version of their rechargeable pack.

I hacked together a connector that will fit on pin 3 (towards the top of the remote) (and covers pin 2 to give it more stability). I placed a relatively heavy piece of plastic over the positive coil terminal (bottom-left of the remote) and glued some aluminum foil to the outside surface of that (copper foil would be more physically stable) and ran a wire from the foil to my pin-3 connector. For the most part, the wire stays hidden under the edge of the battery-case insert.

Thanks so much for this magic!

Barry

Makes me think that the setup menu needs a "type of replacable battery" option - rechargable or alkaline.

bdorfman, I'm glad you were successful, and thanks for the added info. Daniel, you are right, Philips should definitely provide a software or hardware setting to select std or rechargeable batteries, rather than trying to force the purchase of their $50 option.

After 7 days, I've still got 2 bars left! Makes me feel much better about this NG.

Daniel,

Could you please tell Philips to include this for the next software/firmeware upgrade as a priority because most Pronto users would really appreicate this.

Well,

I previously had rolled back my firmware because of extremely
low battery life and I am still using firmware 2.0.38.1.

Today my battery level after nearly two weeks was almost dead
2 bars and could not download or upload from the pronto.

I pulled out my multi meter and each NIMH battery was at 1.27V.

I then hacked together a wire and a copper conductive wire.
Hooked it all together. Pronto powered up and has 6 bars ( half
power). I have since Downloaded updates to the device 6 times
and have been using it heavily all day.

I think that the 2.0.38.1 Firmware is better than the latest
Firmware, but I also have 800Mah AAA NIMH which should
last a long time.

Thanks for the great fix...I hope they add an option to the
settings to specify rechargable NIMH battery or Alkaline.

John

I stop reading this board for a week and someone posts the best fix yet. That'll teach me.

I just hacked together a jumper from the +ve battery terminal to the rechargeable socket +ve terminal. Just some tinfoil and a small peice of paper.

The battery just went from almost dead, its reset once today to 2 bars on the battery. I'll see how long this lasts.

I'm wondering what circuit is between the 2 terminals. There's no DC connection and there's about a 0.2V drop between them when the pronto is running. It could be some voltage regulator, or maybe just a diode. (I didn't meeasure the right thing to see if its a diode..)

And does any one know where to get a connector so I could hack together something more permanant.

It's probably something used with some cordless phones. I don't have anything exactly like it here. However, it's not that dissimilar to the "Wake On Lan" connector used on some PC motherboards. If you're good with a knife, you may be able to whittle one of those cheap cables a bit narrower (take off the wings on the sides).

Just a guess, but perhaps it's a low value resistor being used as an ammeter shunt to measure the current.

No, it's a diode.