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Battery life - PhysicsNerd - 05-17-2007

What is the estimated battery life span of a Hp 50g assuming that you use the calculator for a couple hours everyday? I've had my calculator for no more than 2 months (I think) and the low battery sign has already appeared and thus I had to change the batteries. Is this normal?? It seems rather low because my Ti has a battery life of at least a few months or mabye even a year or so.

I'm glad that they went on before I took my test because I would have been in a hassle changing them during a test. Also, if you activate the key beeps from MODE do they drain your batteries a lot faster? I like these beeps as they inform me when I accidentaly press down a button or something. Thanks.

Edited: 17 May 2007, 5:14 a.m.


Re: Battery life - Les Wright - 05-17-2007

Sounds normal to me. I have a 49G+ and was chagrined to find that a fresh set of alkalines drained down to the lowbat warning in a few weeks even if the calc just sat around. Indeed, the way the calc ate batteries inspired me to not even use it, since I cringed at the waste of plowing through disposable batteries.

I have mentioned already several times here that, to my great satisfaction, 1000mAh Duracell rechargeables give me very satisfactory service, especially when I combine them with a quick charger and regularly back up my memory to SD card. The 49G+ is well used now, and I like it so much I may actually invest in 50G eventually.

I understand that the battery consumption of the 50G is similar. I also understand that some users are very satisfied using NiMH rechargeables in the 50G. This could be the solution for your exam situations--a full charge certainly will give more than just a few hours of use, so if you go into a test with a freshly charged set in the calculator you should be fine. Edwin Cordoba's BatStatus application for 49G+ is very informative for me, but I am not sure it would display correct information in the 50G, which takes four cells vs. three.

I do believe the "beep on" setting would increase battery drain. I also believe that displaying the clock also increases battery drain.

I don't understand why it would be inconvenient to change batteries during a test. Are you not allowed to keep fresh batteries on hand? Does opening up the calculator during a test arouse the suspicion of the examiner? Also, do you use the calc with the beep setting on, and if so does this not disturb your colleagues?

Les


Re: Battery life - Tom (UK) - 05-18-2007

Sounds similar to when I was using my HP49G. It did get annoying to have to buy new batteries every few months - something I didn't need to do with previous HP calculators. I can't comment on TI calcs battery use.

Strange that displaying the clock takes much power, the timer will be running if it is displayed or not, the LCD display shouldn't take much power - so the circuit updating the screen must be drawing much more power than it really needs - perhaps the main processor is running (but idle) on a much higher clock than is necessary.