MiFi and Charging
krelvinaz
Enthusiast - Level 2

Manual doesn't really cover this, actually it really doesn't cover much of anything.

 

I would have assumed, that you could turn off the MiFi so that when charging it, it is all going towards charging.  I had it connected to my Toshiba Netbook with the netbook off, but it plugged into the USB port.  The Toshiba will do charging on USB ports when it is off.

 

The MiFi had the Green On button on, but there doesn't seem to be a way to turn it off, so it charges.

 

3 hours after I left it like that, I checked it and basically the battery was dead... so it is not charging.

 

Now I have it connected to the AC charger, but even then it still has the service light on.  I want it offline so that I get fully charged before I leave in the morning.

 

How do you do that?

 

Manual examples... Pg 5 shows the device and the three items (power, USB, Service Status)... but then there is nothing that goes into any detail about any of those.  PG 11 says plug in the AC adapter and charge it at least 2.5 hours to ensure a full charge.  How do I know there is a full charge??

 

Then there are 30+ pages that have nothing to do with the device at all.  How got get assistance... Wouldn't need assistance if they provided some real documentation.

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Re: MiFi and Charging
dave1812
Contributor - Level 1
Unfortunately there is no way to turn off MiFi when it charges.  Crazy, but true.
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Re: MiFi and Charging
krelvinaz
Enthusiast - Level 2

hmmm... okay.

 

I just purchased an external battery system to deal with this.  4hrs assuming you get that much time is not enough as the netbook lasts up to 9 hours.  If I am out in the field, I don't want to have to plug into an outlet for power because many time there is no power available.

 

The external battery system I've been told it will run the MiFi for at least 12 hours and can be used to provide power for just about anything like that (Cell phones for example).

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Re: MiFi and Charging
dave1812
Contributor - Level 1
When I first looked into MiFi I ran across a website that offered an external battery pack for it.  Could you let us know how well it works for you, once you have a chance to use it a few times for, hopefully, more than 8 hours?  Which brand/model did you get?  thanks!
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Re: MiFi and Charging
krelvinaz
Enthusiast - Level 2

It is called a Tekkeon TekCharge Rechargeable Li-Poly Battery.

 

I should have it tomorrow and will be playing with it over the weekend.

 

I saw it on EVDO Forum but didn't get from there.

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Re: MiFi and Charging
dave1812
Contributor - Level 1
Cool!  Thanks so much for the info!
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Re: MiFi and Charging
krelvinaz
Enthusiast - Level 2

Started the test this afternoon at Noon.

 

Setup my Toshiba Netbook (nb205) which is plugged into the wall and configured to not turn off.  

 

It is connected to the MiFi via WiFi and is on one of my weather pages which I reconfigured to refresh every 2 minutes.  Each page causes about 22 HTML requests and generates about 90k worth of data.

 

The MiFi is plugged into the the extended battery on it which I charged to full last night.

 

I will let this run until the MiFi runs out of power.

 

This would pretty much simulate my type of usage during the day while in the field.  I'm on a long time, but not really doing a lot of connectivity.  Normally, when I'm in the field, I don't plug the Netbook in at all, so being on for a long period or stretch of time would be unusual, but having the MiFi accessible regardless would be necessary.

 

 

I plan on trying another test tomorrow where I would use the most network usage I typically do, which would be using SlingMedia to watch a TV broadcast.  I don't do it very often, and never do it for a long time, but it will be a good test of a heavily used connection.

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Re: MiFi and Charging
krelvinaz
Enthusiast - Level 2
I ended the test at around 14 hours. I didn't want to leave the Netbook running unsupervised so I turned everything off.

At that point, the extended battery was still not showin signs of quitting and the MiFi itself was 100% charged.  So if the extended battery had quit right then, the MiFi would have kept going another 3-4 hours getting it close to 18 hours.

At 10 hours, I increased the number of web pages being accessed by 4 for a total of 5.  This kept access via the MiFi constant.

At 12 hours, I added a Slingbox Media stream which played a TV channel until I turned it off.

I don't really see much point in doing any more testing as this is much longer than I would ever use the device at one time and the Netbook if I were in the field would have needed to be plugged into the all by then.  If I could do that, they the entire setup would have kept on going indefinately.

The MiFi never dropped signal during the entire test.
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Re: MiFi and Charging
dave1812
Contributor - Level 1
thanks for reporting the results, which sound fantastic.
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Re: Miff and Charging
Tech_Addiction
I'm retired military and just purchased a battery charge system from the PX.  It's made by Symtek Inc (http:/www.symtekinc.com).  It's called TekFuel MD.  It will charge any 5.0V or 5.8V portable device.  It comes with a bag of adapters for practically anything.  Ipod, Motorola, Micro USB, Mini USB, Samsung, Nokia, coaxial.  It says it will recharge a device 5 times on a single charge.  It has 4 Led's for monitoring charge state, and a test button for checking charge state. It recharges using, you guessed it, a 5V micro USB charger.  This thing is killer and the price was $59.00.  They even throw in a bag with pull strings to keep all of the adapters in.  It also comes with all of the foreign AC plug adapters.
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