iPower

On Feb 13, 11:36 pm, "rich...@ipowerus.com" <rich... RemoveThis @ipowerus.com>
wrote:
> Hi Vin and crew.
> Sorry, I thought I did email you Vin. I wanted to let you know we have
> a dealer in Chenni called Pro Musicals.
>
> Regarding the operation voltage. This has been cofusing, but the
> factory  states that the battery voltage may vary from battery to
> battery and from charge. I confirmed this with a Smart Cable. The
> Smart Cable gives a voltage and current read out, under load, drawing
> a current of 60 milliaps. The same battery charged to 8.3,8.2 and 8.1
> at different times.
> Factory says that this is normal, and of no concern.
> Even at 8 volts the battery will deliver 500 mAh.

As I mentioned before, volt meters may give a false reading, depending
on the impedence, as the battery may need a load to start up.
I tested 9 returned batteries from a station, and found that 4 work
normally. The factory stated that 1/3 of all returned batteries work
normally.
This is a big concern, as it makes the dud rate much higher than it
should be, and gives you guys a hard time. This issue is in the
protection circuitry. I shorted out 4 new, charged batteries, for 1/2
hour, and they all appeared completely dead. All 4 turned red then
green after a few seconds in the charger.
That is what is supposed to happen. Factory says it may take up to 15
seconds to kick in. If your battery is showing unusual behavior, send
it back or call me if shipping is a real pain.

The next version will be shipping very soon. This version is all about
reliability. The engineers have upgraded components and redesigned
curcuitry to deal with issues of the past year. Initial testing is
very positive, but we won't really know until we hear from you guys.

As for the charger, although some think it is non pro-esk (no argument
from me), it has a very low return rate. We had a known problem with
the plug, (solder missing in production), but other than that very few
have come back. Once the battery is solid I will try to get upgrades
to the charger, so I do like any suggestions.

Lastly, I believe a third party tester/analizer will be on the market
in a couple of months, with an iPower setting.

Thanks for your support, and sorry for the let downs.

Richard Lintlop
richard RemoveThis @ipowerus.com
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On Feb 14, 9:36 am, "rich...@ipowerus.com" <rich....TakeThisOut@ipowerus.com>
wrote:
> Hi Vin and crew.
> Sorry, I thought I did email you Vin. I wanted to let you know we have
> a dealer in Chenni called Pro Musicals.

Hi Richard, well, maybe your email got lost in the digital cloud. Why
did you select a dealer in Chennai - the MAXIMUM market for ipower is
in Bombay! I just called them and they are selling each 9V at 37$ !!


> Regarding the operation voltage. This has been cofusing, but the
> factory  states that the battery voltage may vary from battery to
> battery and from charge. I confirmed this with a Smart Cable. The
<snip>>

But tell me why do they fail? Isn't there a discharge protection
circuit built in to stop the battery from overdischarge?

best regards
-vin
 >> Stay informed about: iPower 

> That is what is supposed to happen. Factory says it may take up to 15
> seconds to kick in. If your battery is showing unusual behavior, send
> it back or call me if shipping is a real pain.

Richard, yes, it is a pain shipping out the duds from India. How can
you help? I have just asked Adam at Audiobridge Singapore to ship me
12 more batts.

About the second version of the batteries, are they already out? I
hope they are and I am getting these new ones this time from Adam...

best
-vin
 >> Stay informed about: iPower 

Dave,

I also have an HP IPAQ PDA and have had a similar not powering up
problem but with out the ticking. It's happen to me a few times over
the past couple years. The fix for me was to put it back in the sync/
charger cradle and it would finally power up again and be fine.

Andy


>
> One is an HP iPAQ PDA, that refused to switch on just after Christmas, no
> matter which of the 3 different resets I preformed on it. It ended up just
> quietly "ticking" every couple of seconds, HP support hand't a clue, send
> it back... After it had been left "ticking" for a few hours I found it had
> powered itself back up and was working fine. It died again after a little
> bit of use but I just left it ticking and lo it came back again. It's been
> fine since.
>
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Hi Vin,
As far as I've been able to tell it is the protection circuitry that
is causing the problems. It is a bit enthusiastic in protecting the
battery and the user. The mother hen circuit checks for over discharge
of the battery, over current, over voltage, under voltage, initial
excess charge current, and the phase of the moon. In addition the
nervous protection circuit has to deal with a charger with its own
protection circuits and with various customer devices all of which
pull different currents and different shut down circuits. It enough to
drive a poor piece of silicon to PN doping.

I will say Richard has seemed very responsive and willing to both
acknowledge and work out the problems.

Best Regards,
Larry Fisher
Lectrosonics

On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:16:38 -0800 (PST), vin <soundtrane.RemoveThis@gmail.com>
wrote:


>
>But tell me why do they fail? Isn't there a discharge protection
>circuit built in to stop the battery from overdischarge?
>
>best regards
>-vin
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On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:52:21 -0800 (PST), richard RemoveThis @ipowerus.com wrote:

> This is a big concern, as it makes the dud rate much higher than it
> should be, and gives you guys a hard time. This issue is in the
> protection circuitry. I shorted out 4 new, charged batteries, for 1/2
> hour, and they all appeared completely dead. All 4 turned red then
> green after a few seconds in the charger.

It's great to see a manufacturer willing to put their head above the
parapet, acknowledge that there are occasional problems and respond
constructively.

Personally I feel a lot of the "problems" with Li-ion batteries comes from
the "smarts" required in the battery and charger, coupled with the fact
that they don't behave like other batteries because of these "smarts".

I have two devices that use Li-ion both have had power problems that
mysteriously go away *completely* if you manage to treat them in just the
right way.

One is an HP iPAQ PDA, that refused to switch on just after Christmas, no
matter which of the 3 different resets I preformed on it. It ended up just
quietly "ticking" every couple of seconds, HP support hand't a clue, send
it back... After it had been left "ticking" for a few hours I found it had
powered itself back up and was working fine. It died again after a little
bit of use but I just left it ticking and lo it came back again. It's been
fine since.

The other is a cheap MP3 player, leave it on charge for a long time via
USB powering the PC on/off and when you come to switch it on it nearly
completes the boot process then shut down saying "lo battery". Give a
short (5 min) USB charge and it's happy again for many hours so the
battery isn't really flat... The "smarts" must be getting confused.

--
Cheers
Dave.
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