is my Autocom drawing power from my MP3

[Farmboy]

Got myself a nice little Creative Gen stone for about £40 the other month.

Supposed to have a load of battery life ( 10 hours + ) but when i plug it into my Autocom after charge i maybe get 2-3 hours MAX and sometimes less.

Charging via USB, i leave it plugged into my Autocom on the bike when not in use. Autocom is wired into the battery permanent

COuld the autocom be draining the battery if left plugged in, I am sick of getting these Mp3`s, its the third ive had this year one lasted for a week then packed in the other had a battery life of about 5 songs and this seems not much better.

I thought I could plug the USB into my bike to charge it when riding but you cannot listen to it when its charging

All I want is to listen to music, WHere I go on trips i dont always have the facility to charge via mains,

Got a real old 256mb one with batteries but thought we might have moved on since then.

Any suggestions other than buying yet another one appreciated

Chris

 

[hommes]

R u taking the

 

[Farmboy]

seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to me

Obviously you know the answer so care to enlighten me

Or are you just bored and had nowt else to do today

 

[Greg Masters]

The volume level on your mp3 player does slightly affect the power consumption but if you turn the mp3 down, you get a poorer signal/noise ratio.

Continuous use does usually shorten battery playing time.

It could just be that the battery on the player is not very good. Can you fit a new one (Maplins have a good range)?

The Autocom won't be drawing any 'power' from the mp3 player other than the output from the audio out.

I now prefer stuff that takes ordinary alkaline batteries - I can alway go to the shops and buy new ones!!

Greg

 

[Farmboy]

Know what u mean Greg - I will be taking my old one along with a pocketful of batteries,

I thought that nowadays the battery life would last more than 2 - 3 hours and yes I do believe the hype on the box that says upto 14 hours battery life ( must be when its turned on but with no volume in a darkened room )

Hopefully some kind person will letme charge mine up along with my phone when I am away next week

 

[scots_jon]

The autocom is indeed drawing power from your MP3 player when it is playing, it's just not doing anything useful with it.

The amount of power it takes will depend on the impeadance of it's audio input (perhaps GSRich will enlighten us here). Your MP3 player will get best battery life when it is driving low volume into nice high impeadance headphones. If you use it to drve low impeadance headphones then the battery life will suffer.

Depending on the input impeadance of the autocom, you could try addign a 1k resistor in series with each channel. This could improve the battery life, or just reduce the volume depending on the autocom input impeadance.

 

[GSrich]

Chris as per instructions really "DO NOT WIRE DIRECT TO THE BATTERY" as your system is always live and will drain your bike battery within a few days. You will need to wire the system to a switched power source which I have covered many a time for the GS's whether 1200 or 1150.

The ipod or any MP3's batteries will not be drained via our systems as they are only there for the audio connections. So by plugging in your MP3 will not drain its battery quicker by plugging it in.

Rich

 

[bustupbiker]

I have a Zen V plus thingy that will give me about 8hours on the ear plug thingies and 3 1/2 if plugged into the Auto Comm...

 

[Farmboy]

thanks for the replies guys.

I didnt mean it was always on when wired just a permanent fit, it is switched as per instructions i just didnt explain it very well.

sounds like i am getting normal battery life from it then, gotta say I was hoping for better but there you go.

I am away for 2 weeks and with 8 hours a day riding in a foreign country with no real access to elastictrickery looks like i am gonna go back to my old battery one.

thanks anyway, i will just have to wait for a new zumo for my tunes in 5 years time