Workarounds for 360LX CF card battery drain?

I know right ? I’m glad I could help.

I think the KEY to memory card power consumption would be if/when the 360LX tells the card to go to sleep. And if the HP wakes it periodically.

- Sleep/in-use power consumption of CF cards varies by brand, model, size, type, build date. I have seen claims of old, small CF cards with low power consumption. Do some research and testing.

- You can try toggling any sleep / light-sleep / deep-sleep functions. I think enabling light-sleep should just lower power consumption while the HP is "in use" but who knows how that logic works.

- Try fully shutting down the 360LX when not in use. The HP PalmTop Paper suggested keeping older HPs plugged in when not in use; personally I would keep these off mains for voltage spikes.

- If you are using a CF-SD card adapter, those are notoriously bad quality. So could be draining power on their own and/or preventing the 360LX from correctly putting the slot into a sleep mode. Alternatively, if you can find an adapter that ejects the SD card easily without removing the SD card, you could experiment with that.

- I wouldn't try removing the CF card too much as the pins inside the HPC won't last forever.

- The 95LX had some DOS control of the serial ports with SERCTL {/O|/W|/1}. but I don't know if the 360Lx had similar for all the ports.

http://www.hpmuseum.net/pdf/TheHPPalmtopPaper_V3B1_48pgs_1994_OCR.pdf

Edited by AximUser 2023-08-12 6:06 PM

I may have jumped to a conclusion that the card was the problem.

I'm using a Lexar 64MB CF card. I switched to using it with a PCMCIA adapter instead of in the CF slot because I was afraid I'd break the pins and/or lose the dumb plastic cover. The PCMCIA slot seems a lot more sturdy and I like the ejection button, as opposed to tugging with a fingernail to remove a card from the CF slot.

I also stopped using knock-off PSP "5V 2A" power supplies because they are very wimpy and drop out all the time; just turning on the backlight causes them to switch off--the plugged-in icon disappears from the tray. It seems they are just about good enough to charge a PSP battery when the PSP is off.

I got the the USB cable suggested above and use it with a genuine Apple iPad USB wall charger and it works much better than the old PSP power supplies: my power problems are more or less solved on the 360.
Also, having been fully discharged and recharged seems to have been good for the Amazon Basics: they appear to be holding a bit better. I can put up with a weekly battery swap.

For external charging of AA and various Lithium rechargeable batteries, I use an X-Tar VC4 universal charger. You can find them on Amazon for about USD 20. Seem to work much better than Walmart 2-at-a-time battery roasters.

A "Charger Doctor" USB ammeter shows that the 360XL uses 200-300 mA (at 5V) while charging the batteries.


How do you fully shut down 360LX? Pull the batteries, incl. the coin cell? There's nothing in the menu or control panel about shutting down.

Unbranded charging bricks are a problem for volatile, incorrect power delivery. Many of these bricks are not safety certified so come supplied with elevated risk of fire and shock. I use the Apple or Samsung bricks from reliable sources, so they are unlikely to be knockoffs, but there are other good ones. Youtuber DiodeGoneWild is an expert on these bricks so is a good place to see how bad these can get.

I briefly met the top engineer at the world's largest battery maker; he told me that heat was the main problem for batteries. Essentially, heat can reduce performance and lifespan. Essentially, slow charging and discharging can extend battery life. So, we try to charge our devices with small power bricks, without covers, in cool rooms. That can take a long time for an iPad. Of course, there is a popular movement to rapid charging and newer chemistries. That said, heat typically decreases the lifepan of electronics at an accelerated rate, so it is tough to make the case against basic physics IMHO.

For my Eneloop AA and AAA cells, I purchased a Panasonic wall battery charger in Japan. That seems well-built and I assume matched for these batteries; it works on mains across the world. According to the instructions, it works best charging an even number of batteries (e.g. not inserting one or three cells but rather inserting two or for cells).

I don't know what the best way to shut down the 360LX is so someone else here may be able to help. All the doors have a limited number of open-close cycles, and plastics tend to get brittle (maybe exposure to time, light, air, chemicals, etc). So it makes sense to minimize using them IMHO.

Edited by AximUser 2023-08-13 4:03 PM

I have had amazing success literally over night with the EBL AA's that have a mini usb port on them and theres a wire USB charger with 4 connectors to charge up to 4. I Really only use my 360LX and my Casio A-11 6mb unit. So this is perfect.

I give 5 stars (as of writing this ive noticed at least a 30%+ increase in battery on both units, maybe more. Crazy just last week my 360LX was flaking me with batteries and i finally just bought these EBL's and im happy i did. Good stuff folks, good stuff.

Im getting into getting my old units connected to BBS's. I got a 14.4 PCMCIA modem. Just need to re run the phone line and fix something thats wrong with it. Has a noise in it and i think it just needs to be re done, which im up to. I wanna get back on BBS's like i remember. :-) Yes i am a nerd.