New Microsoft Tech Makes Battery Changes a Breeze
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From: Paul Carpenter on 3 Jul 2010 19:00 In article <14046eb0-14fb-40ea-98f1- 293ebbcd982e(a)e5g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, zwsdotcom(a)gmail.com says... > On Jul 3, 1:12 pm, Paul Carpenter <p...(a)pcserviceselectronics.co.uk> > wrote: > > > Considering the amount of battery operated equipment where I have had > > to clean or re-bend the contacts to make it work, this looks like a > > scheme with VERY flimsy mechanical mounting. > > I think you need to look a bit closer. The contacts are mechanically > one-piece with no tangs sticking out. The spring force is provided by > the leads. Not according to picture on MS site and their brouchure PDF, they are small wires from the contacts (two types shown). > What isn't shown in the pictures - and I ASSUME this to be true - is > that once the lead hits the PCB it goes through a right angle and is > either soldered to a significant length of meaty PCB trace, or clamped The ones I saw shots of require the moulding to hold them and no evidence of a spring, and require tight tolerance battery length, with no spring they will deform on a few changes. > to a contact area by the screws that keep the housing together. The > Wii controller uses a very similar mechanism (among other devices of > course), minus the polarity-agnosticism, and it seems very robust. > Passes all our tests anyway. Considering the tolerances on an AA battery when I was last dealing with a battery manufacturer (looking at size tolerance testing equipment), the tolerances are quite large. Especially when you have to deal with almost any manufacturer. I suspect this will be another tie in, 'only works with batteries made by company X and Y' who of course will work out to be the most expensive or lowest performance. -- Paul Carpenter | paul(a)pcserviceselectronics.co.uk <http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/> PC Services <http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/> Timing Diagram Font <http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/> GNU H8 - compiler & Renesas H8/H8S/H8 Tiny <http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate
From: Andrew Smallshaw on 4 Jul 2010 08:59 On 2010-07-03, Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer(a)cs.nmsu.edu> wrote: > Andrew Smallshaw <andrews(a)sdf.lonestar.org> writes: > >> No I can see why people never thought to do it - it depends on the >> batteries themselves having the proprietrary ends. If you were >> sat there considering a housign for a particular battery this would >> not occur to you since it is not applicable. > > From a brief read, this doesn't look like proprietary ends. It seems to > just depend on the standard geometry of normal cylindrical batteries. Good point. On re-reading the article I see you're right. -- Andrew Smallshaw andrews(a)sdf.lonestar.org
From: bigbrownbeastie on 4 Jul 2010 12:16 isn't this a solution to a non-problem. How many people see the embossed image and still get it wrong? The cost of the royalty could be as much as a lossless rectification, if one really cared about such a feature.
From: rich12345 on 4 Jul 2010 13:17 On Jul 2, 3:36 pm, Don McKenzie <5...(a)2.5A> wrote: >it allows batteries to be inserted into any gear either way around. > > all done in the connection contacts, no circuitry involved. > People who don't understand how to read the clearly imprinted battery insertion diagrams on electronic devices shouldn't be using electronic devices! Like putting an automatic choke and electric start on a chainsaw. Watch how many people cut their limbs off. R
From: Jon Kirwan on 4 Jul 2010 14:42
On Sun, 4 Jul 2010 09:16:11 -0700 (PDT), bigbrownbeastie <bigbrownbeastiebigbrownface(a)googlemail.com> wrote: >isn't this a solution to a non-problem. How many people see the >embossed image and still get it wrong? My wife. Despite knowing well and trying hard, still gets it wrong at times. Not every device has symbology that is entirely legible, either. A few have given me a struggle just to find them. >The cost of the royalty could be as much as a lossless rectification, >if one really cared about such a feature. From the OP's post: "The InstaLoad technology will be licensed on a royalty-free basis, Microsoft said." Jon |