Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!ron From: RON@psuvm.psu.edu (Ron McCarty) Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith Subject: Re: Questions on Zenith-183 batteries and power supply Message-ID: <91085.134052RON@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: 26 Mar 91 18:40:52 GMT References: Organization: Penn State University Lines: 33 In article , da0g+@andrew.cmu.edu (David Apfelbaum) says: > > My Zenith-183 (8088, 10M harddrive) is suffering from a dead battery. >Because of the way the power system is designed, the computer is >unusable. (The circuitry that detects a low-power situation and >inactivates the computer is wired solely to the battery.) > I don't understand. My 183-92s batteries have been dead for almost a year now but it hasn't prevented me from using the machine. I simply removed the battery pack and use it exclusively on ac with the powerpack. I have had no problems doing this. > > But there is another problem. The computer charges the battery-pack >whenever it is plugged in -- Not just when the power is off! As a >result, the battery pack gets seriously trashed! According to one This is why i didn't bother to buy new batteries. Given the deficient design of the machine (the fact that the batteries are always charging) I could see that the new batteries were just going to get trashed the way the originals did. And you are right, using it off batteries until they die is not the way i want to use my machine. I usually have access to ac and prefer to have the machine plugged in. The batteries (when I ha had them) were a nice backup when the power went off or for those rare occasions when i didn't have access to ac. Ironically, it is the fact that i always used ac rather than the batteries that destroyed the batteries. Ron McCarty Penn State Erie