Topic: JB3 internal battery recharging time

[jesse]

Looking to upgrade to the JB3 in about a week.  I'll be going for the 40gig model as I will be taping high sierra this year and last year brought home over twenty 80min minidiscs.   The only place I can find theese online is ebay for 290 plus shipping and am pretty sure that nowhere around me sells them.  My question is how long does it take to recharge the batteries.  I found alot of info on the JB3 but nothing on this.  I also assume that 2 batteries can be charged at the same time?  I'll be using the car adapter(don't know if this effects recharge time vs.  wall wort) as this will be my only option in the field.  From reading other threads I gather that 3 batteries would produce about 10h of recording time  and this would have me covered for a day of taping.  From what I understand there is no external charger for this so If I wanted to charge while taping I would have to get another JB3.  Thanks for the help and happy taping.

[Humbug]

I can only answer some of your questions:

1. Charging time: I almost never run down the two batteries below 2 bars (about 50% usable charge). Charging time is probably 6-8 hours to get back up to full cap.

2. Two batteries can be charged at the same time.

3. One battery will last 2.5-3 hours, two batteries around 5 hours, maybe a little more. Again no real experience, the most taping I've done in one night is about three hours.

4. Dont know of an external charger - but have you considered external power? Some people have rigged up external batteries - check the njb3 forum and search for this:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/njb3tapers/

[F.O.Bean]

2 internals will get ya a sure 6 hrs if ya cycled them correctly when you got them, i can get prolly about 6 hrs and 40 mins before she shuts down on me

[philR]

how does one cycle the batteries correctly?  newbie here.

[F.O.Bean]

whehn you first get them youre supposed to let them charge fully, let the discharge fully, then charge fully, discharge fully, then charge whenever, occassionally, depending on what kind of batts you have, an occassional discharge is needed, let it die fully, then charge fully

[philR]

cool, thanks. and +T

[joemango]

You don't need to cycle lithium batteries.  Ni-Cd batteries, sure, but not lithiums or Ni-MH batteries.

[Brian Skalinder]

You don't need to cycle lithium batteries.  Ni-Cd batteries, sure, but not lithiums or Ni-MH batteries.

In theory, perhaps, but direct experience with NiMH tells me this is hogwash.  My Maha Powerex NiMH AA 2000 mAH rechargables' performance started going down the drain in a big way.  I cycled 'em a couple times and - voila! - performance returned to optimal.

I believe this quote is attributed to Yogi Berra:  "In theory, theory and practice are the same.  In practice, they're not."

[Todd R]

I've gotten 6 to 6 1/2 hours on two batteries on several occasions.  As to charge time, I really thought it was more like 2 to maybe 3 hours to charge.  Definitely not 6-8 in my experience.

[ChrisV]

Yeah, I think generally for 2 batteries in it gives a range of 5-6 hours(depends on how much you use headphone and make sure to have IR off, etc.).   So 1 battery would probably be 2.5-3.   10 hours for 3 batteries is definately pushing it, would expect 9 be the most you could get if lucky.

[Sterling]

Paging Dklein....this guy has the answer I'm sure.

[jesse]

Thanks for the help I knew  there were enough JB3 users out there to tackle this one.    Todd R youre saying 2-3 hours to charge, is this with one or two batteries?   I'm having second thoughts on the JB3 mainly for archiving reasons.  Once  I erase a show from my JB3 hard drive all I will have is a shitty CD-R.  Where as with DAT I'll always be able to re-transfer in the future if needed.    

[Karl]

Jesse, what I do with my important shows is back them up on 2 CD-R's, not one.  It gives me better peace of mind

[Brian Skalinder]

I'm having second thoughts on the JB3 mainly for archiving reasons.  Once  I erase a show from my JB3 hard drive all I will have is a shitty CD-R.  Where as with DAT I'll always be able to re-transfer in the future if needed.

You have two primary options for peace of mind:

[1] Burn an audio and 2 archive copies for yourself.  Takes, what...all of 5min and $0.32 per disc?  Out of necessity, I burn two copies - one on DVD for easier, more convenient storage of lots of shows, and another on CDR so I can take it to work and host BTs (no DVD-ROM on my work PC).

[2] Share!  I share all my recordings with friends, and most of them I also BT so I know there are always 50+ copies out there should I need to recover.  There's no better backup than an off-site archive.

[jesse]

Well I decided to go with DAT and am buying a D100 and 7pin from Sox-man for a great price.   Which is good because that's what I wanted in the first place I was just thinking about saving money with the JB3.   I must admit that the whole JB3 battery thing was a turn off for me when I can power my D100 off a cheap DIY Dsled.  I'll be using it for festival taping on occasion and not having to worry about battery time w/D-sled will be nice.   Skalinder as for bit torrenting I'am a total virgin.   I know that there is lots of information on ts about this, but never needed it before as I wasn't willing to subject people to my shitty MD  tapes.