You probably noticed the detailed power requirements for charger and batteries is on the label on the bottom of the Mobilon. You don't want to stray from those...
If you are powering up a Mobilon for the first time after a HARD reset
(caused by the loss of ALL power including both batteries and external AC
), the Mobilon will often take many seconds to start. You shouldn't need to push the On button more than once. It only looks like nothing is happening for several seconds, but the Mobilon should eventually start if it has battery and/or AC power.
The yellow charging light will turn off when the battery is fully charged. If you turn on the unit using AC power but with no battery installed, the yellow light will flash rapidly. If you turn on the Mobilon while you are charging the battery, the yellow light will turn off - the battery WILL NOT charge while the Mobilon is turned on.
When/if you replace the cells in the Sharp battery pack, you should use the same size as in the pack
(A-size
). AA's won't supply enough power. If you don't have another source, try www.batteriesamerica.com. Order the SANYO 1.2V 2700mAHr AU NiMH battery cells
(with solder tabs
). If your pack has a bad thermal fuse/10k diode resistor that you are not going to replace, you are better off buying a recelled pack or having yours recelled.
There is a charging control circuit inside the Mobilon that sometimes fails. If that happens the Mobilon cannot recharge a good battery pack no matter how long it is on external power. A flashing yellow light on the Mobilon means a bad
(or missing
) battery pack and/or a bad charging circuit. The circuit is on a separate replaceable board in the Mobilon PV-5000, but it's on the main circuit board of the HC-4600
(so not replaceable
). Failure of the thermal/polarity circuit in the battery pack also causes the yellow light to flash rapidly.
You can find a manual for the Mobilon at
http://csdsupport.sharpsec.com/public/validated/dnld.cfm/Hc-4500?id...
That's not exactly for the HC-4600 but the HC-4500 is almost the same.
If you read the above manual, you will notice the battery case for the HC-4100, which uses 2 removeable AA's. It will not work on the HC-4600
(even though it fits on the HC-4600 nicely
). The power connections are different, and there is a very small internal power switch hidden in the HC-4600 case that is not turned on if the HC-4100 case is attached.
The Sharp memory module to upgrade the HC-4600 units from CE 2.0 to CE 2.11 is a desirable rarity. I would check the system on each of your units to make sure you know what you have and value it accordingly. A fully functional HC-4600 with the ROM upgrade to CE 2.11 installed would be in much more demand than the original CE 2.0 units.
Hope that's helpful.
Dan