PalmPilot Personal (w/512K)
Actual Battery Voltage vs Current under different basic operating conditions.
Battery Voltage @ Pilot Battery Terminals (by Fluke 8060A) (V)
Current with unit OFF and out of stand
(mA RMS)
Current with unit OFF and in stand and stand connected to comp.
(mA RMS)
Current with unit ON and in stand,at applications screen, darkest intensity
(mA RMS)
Current w/BackLight Off at applications screen
(Not in HotSync stand)
(mA RMS)
Current at applications screen w/BackLight On
(mA RMS)
Wether or not alarms are set do not appear to affect this (measureably).
Results are same with computer on or off.* (see note below)
 
screen @ min intensity
screen @ darkest intensity
 Notes (with screen at darkest intensity):
 screen @ darkest intensity, with pen (or finger… they're both the same.. I tried) continually sitting upon the Address book icon (also get same results in Graffiti area too)
 screen @ darkest intensity, with up button held down
 screen @ darkest intensity
3.10
 
 
 
14.616
15.640
 
37.360
33.460
46.580
3.00
2.072
4.338
16.608
15.504
16.256
 
 
 
 43.720
2.50
1.760
3.256
21.454
18.382
19.716
 
43.520
38.720  
53.100
2.30
 
 
 
19.932
21.120
 
 
 
 59.660
2.20
 
 
 
21.020
22.640
 
 
 
 
2.10
 
 
 
22.680
24.140
Low batt message (clean system) no battery apps installed
 
 
 
2.00
1.554
3.108
29.580
26.160
29.180
Batt Bar approx. 3 rows of pixels above bottom, Unit will still power up, recieving Low batt messages  
55.560
47.280  
69.660 
1.90
 
 
 
23.680
26.620
Extremely low batt warning, but unit will still power up  
 
 
 
1.85
 
 
 
 
 
 Unit continues to operate but once powered down it will not power up.
 
 
 
1.80
         
Unit continues to operate but once powered down it will not power up.
     
1.65
 
 
 
 
 
 System is still stable
 
 
 
1.60
 
 
 
 
 
 If pen touches screen, unit shuts down. Soft Reset may be required even with much higher voltages restored
 
 
 
1.57
         
Processor is unstable- system is still running but not reliably.. sometimes locking up (with no user intervention)
     

* This is Due to the Pilot holding the DSR line on its serial port high at all times. (for a further explanation, see Revision Notes under Rev. 1.0.4) The results in this category are independant of the computer being ON or OFF. However, this waveform pattern showing the extra current, reverts back to the pattern of the unit OFF and out of the stand if the stand is disconnected to the computer. This is Due to the Pilot holding the DSR line on it's serial port high at all times.


Last Modified: April 1, 1997
Email: vhadley@ee.utah.edu