Ok group, I took my Mt out last night for her maiden voyage. everything seemed to work fine using 1g sandisc ultraII cards running 16/44.1. I did get somewhat concerned about the battery life and I want any or everyones opinion on what is the absolute best external battery setup with preferably a very small foot print.
Robert
I found this out... if you are good with a soldering and heat shrink and even with a limited understanding of electronics (as is my case) you can easily make a simple battery extender that will run the MT. If you are NOT into the hacking idea, the the Digital Concepts PP-99 is the way to go... I waited till buy.com sent me a nice coupon and got mine cheap... Buy.com Sku: 90146586 (they are sold out at the moment, search froogle.com maybe). If you get this unit, you will need a cable to go from a Size "N" Coaxial DC plug out of the PP-99 to a usb mini 5 pin to go into the MT, I believe Todd R can help you with that if you are not comfortable making one... see
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=49744.0 . Radioshack sells the plug for $2.59 and it is crap... Part# 274-1573, I have not found a nice right angle one yet, Digi-key.com has one made by CUI (PP-002B) / Digi-Key # CP-004B-ND . You can then take a USB cable, USB B 5-pin mini,
http://bgmicro.com/prodinfo.asp?sid=089682870370370470110216171&prodid=CAB2112&page=1&cri=usb&stype=3 and solder the positive to the center of the plug and the negative to the shield.
There are more and more products hitting that market to extend the battery life of the iPods that also use the 5Volts... and many have a simple USB output that makes life very easy. This one has a LED flashlight built in...
http://www.semsons.com/unbaexwiusbp.htmlIf you want to give it a go yourself, it really is quite simple, read this
http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/psu_5v.html and this explains the USB pinouts...
http://pinouts.ru/data/USB_pinout.shtmlI am going to detail all the hacks (and products I found) at this page...
http://fecundswamp.peanutonastring.com/usb/index.html right now it is just the pictures, I will fill in the text in the next week.
I hope this helps.
be well,
mjr