Re: Charging problem with MP4 player
 

Lattesurf,

When I originally purchased the player I got four hours playtime even though the seller advertises 5hrs. I bought it at the end of last year. I haven't use it that much.

Now I can't listen to any music, when I try to access my music files, I get the egg timer and the player shuts down. I looked at some photos last night and the radio was playing, the battery level on the player was very small, the same before charging.

Over time, the battery has lost its charge and it didn't take long for that to happen. Also when I was able to charge it I could only get half hour of music playing time and the player would get very warm when I was listening to the music.

I will check what the battery is, last time I took the cover off the on off switch fell out, and it was really difficult to get it to hold in place while I put the back cover on.

I wont worry about the charger, your right the one that came with the unit, is very loose and I thought it looked a bit dodgy. The headphones sound ok, but the lead isn't long enough so you cant put the unit in your pocket etc.

Thanks for you help.

Thanks for the advice... It seems like it's much safer to use the computer's USB rather than the wall charger.. I was a little anxious at first when I got a hand on the wall charger because you're actually connecting it directly either on 220v or 110v and then the device must decrease the voltage almost 98% (should be about 5v) I was wondering at first how can a small device handle such thing... Hehe thanks for the advice... From now on, to keep my battery life span a lot longer; gotta follow your advice... :wink:

.::Lain::. , technically speaking it is possible to be done with the wall adaptor.

However, there are 2 types of wall adaptor.

1. Those that are well designed, and have safety features to prevent current and voltage surges.

2. Those that are quickly designed, using the simple voltage divider.

Well, those adaptors that comes with the player are usually of number 2, it works. But there is no safety features in it.

Oh I see... Hahaha ^^ I was just really curious about the wall charger because one time when my brother charged his player, the wall charger got really really hot and from then on he uses computer's USB and got rid of his wall charger. I got scared about my player using the wall charger. I've read a lot of post from here that wall adaptors sometimes explode... Scary O_o

.::Lain::. , those wall adaptors probably used some cheap 5V voltage regulator. So something like a 240Vac rectified to Vdc, then step-down directly to 5V.

Bad circuit! Wastes alot of power (wastes your electricity bill)! The wasted power becomes heat, lots of heat!

So this probably explains why your brother's wall adaptor got very hot.

I might just strip my wall adaptor to see what they use inside. But that'll be when i get back to aust, all my stuff is there.

Sorry for going off-topic.. :D

ok, so I purchased a new battery from ebay for my mp3/mp4 I- premium nano clone.

So far the battery indicator shows that it is fully charged, however after I listen to some music, not even a full length of one song the battery indicator dops. Is this normal?

I haven't tried listening yet to how long the new battery lasts.

Also my computer with the old battery recognised two drives E and F. The E drive was formatted.

With the new battery it recognises only the E drive and asks if I would like to format that drive. Is this normal?

Forensic , when you removed the old battery, all the power supply was stopped for the player. So, your player might have reset itself. i'll suggest a format with MP3 Utilities Disk Tools.

Regarding the battery issue, charge the player fully, then let the player play songs until the battery runs out. See how long is the maximum playtime.

I reformatted the player and as I expected It is now a 2gig or 1.90 player. So I have purchased a hacked player.

The new battery purchased through digistreet, is 250mAH, the original was 260mAH so I expect to loose some playing time, but am not sure how much exactly.

I haven't let the battery run completey down yet, but I get a feeling so far that it isn't going to give me much playing time.

Forensic , many of these replacement batteries aren't the best quality. The good quality lipo cells costs about perhaps $15-20 for about the same size as the player's. And they are mainly manufactured in the USA or Japan for RC hobby models.

But the battery you bought should last about at least 3-4hours of continuous music playback. Also avoiding charging the player via a USB hub.

Ok so I charged the player until the battery indicator was full. I charged the player via direct usb cable to computer. I got around 1hr and 40 mins of continuous music.