Procrastination, way to rule the nation
Jan. 4th, 2004 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjpepperI have got to kick this particular vice of mine if I'm to even have a prayer of surviving my last semester.
*sigh*
Gotta run off to work as soon as I get mostly dry and dressed. I know once I get there I'm going to quite happily work my little ass off. The problem is getting there in the first place. *sigh* Sheesh, I'm horrible.
In other news, I figured out what the hell is wrong with our cordless this morning and why the battery life on it is getting shorter and shorter these days. After having the battery warning go off just after I had gotten off the phone with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
timarok (after an hour and twenty minutes - totally unacceptable, IMHO) I was like, that's it, I'm ordering a new battery. Fuck this. So I hop online for a minute to check out new batteries and how much they cost, and pop open the battery compartment to see what exact sort of beast we're dealing with, and find out that the phone has fucking nicads. *bangs head on monitor*
Um, for those of you that aren't complete and utter geeks, nicads (Ni-Cds, or nickel cadmium batteries) are rechargable, yes, but you're supposed to completely discharge the battery before recharging them otherwise what happens is you get what's known as the memory effect. I never quite got how this works on a chemical level, but what essentially happens is if you keep sticking a nicad battery back in the charger without fully discharging it, what starts happening is that the battery begins to only charge the bit that wasn't charged in the first place - ie, if you left a 10% charge on it, it's only going to charge 90% of the battery, and will still only charge 90% of the battery even if you completely discharge it again. And this is a cumulative effect, so eventually your battery capacity is going to shrink down to nil. Considering most appliances that use rechargables never really completely discharge a battery, eventually this is going to happen to all nicad batteries. Wonderful, eh?
This wouldn't be a problem if chargers discharged batteries before charging them, but so far, the only charger I've run across that does is one I saw in a Real Goods catalog ages ago. Granted it was a cool charger anyway, considering it was solar powered, but I digress. Anyway, we fucked up the phone battery essentially by always hanging it the fuck up after we were done with it. Greaaaaaat.
This whole problem could have been completely avoided if this damn phone had been packaged with NiMH (nickel metal hydride) batteries instead, which is blisfully not susceptable to memory effect. But, surprise surprise, they're more expensive. And I'm not sure if the phone charger actually works with nimhs anyway. I'm guessing it does, considering they make nimhs for this phone, but... Shit. Considering how muchsundart shelled out for this stupid phone in the first place last year it should have fucking come with lithium ion batteries and a free striptease. But I ask too much...
Going to work now.
*sigh*
Gotta run off to work as soon as I get mostly dry and dressed. I know once I get there I'm going to quite happily work my little ass off. The problem is getting there in the first place. *sigh* Sheesh, I'm horrible.
In other news, I figured out what the hell is wrong with our cordless this morning and why the battery life on it is getting shorter and shorter these days. After having the battery warning go off just after I had gotten off the phone with
timarok (after an hour and twenty minutes - totally unacceptable, IMHO) I was like, that's it, I'm ordering a new battery. Fuck this. So I hop online for a minute to check out new batteries and how much they cost, and pop open the battery compartment to see what exact sort of beast we're dealing with, and find out that the phone has fucking nicads. *bangs head on monitor*Um, for those of you that aren't complete and utter geeks, nicads (Ni-Cds, or nickel cadmium batteries) are rechargable, yes, but you're supposed to completely discharge the battery before recharging them otherwise what happens is you get what's known as the memory effect. I never quite got how this works on a chemical level, but what essentially happens is if you keep sticking a nicad battery back in the charger without fully discharging it, what starts happening is that the battery begins to only charge the bit that wasn't charged in the first place - ie, if you left a 10% charge on it, it's only going to charge 90% of the battery, and will still only charge 90% of the battery even if you completely discharge it again. And this is a cumulative effect, so eventually your battery capacity is going to shrink down to nil. Considering most appliances that use rechargables never really completely discharge a battery, eventually this is going to happen to all nicad batteries. Wonderful, eh?
This wouldn't be a problem if chargers discharged batteries before charging them, but so far, the only charger I've run across that does is one I saw in a Real Goods catalog ages ago. Granted it was a cool charger anyway, considering it was solar powered, but I digress. Anyway, we fucked up the phone battery essentially by always hanging it the fuck up after we were done with it. Greaaaaaat.
This whole problem could have been completely avoided if this damn phone had been packaged with NiMH (nickel metal hydride) batteries instead, which is blisfully not susceptable to memory effect. But, surprise surprise, they're more expensive. And I'm not sure if the phone charger actually works with nimhs anyway. I'm guessing it does, considering they make nimhs for this phone, but... Shit. Considering how much
sundart shelled out for this stupid phone in the first place last year it should have fucking come with lithium ion batteries and a free striptease. But I ask too much...Going to work now.
