On March 5th, 2010 Vincent G. wrote: I have a problem, let me explain you... I am actively looking to buy a replacement battery for my Roomba Vacuum and I know it is possible to buy a NiMh battery. While looking at the different battery quality between NiMh manufacturers, some sellers have claimed that component quality between manufacturer ends up in better NiMh batteries.
What should I know that helps me to select a manufacturer when times come to buy a new NiMh batteries?
A seller also claimed that China and South Korea should be avoided and that Japan makes better NiMh batteries. I am aware that he's selling Japanese cells battery so he was not really objective. When I asked him to support his claims, he couldn't give me any source that proves it.
What makes a good NiMh battery? Thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Vincent G.
Doctor Atomo to Vincent;
When I talked to a manufacturer, they said the more nickel they use a NiMH battery the higher capacity and longer lasting they are. The more nickel in a battery the heavier the battery is. If you have them in hand generally the heavier they are the better. This is not something you know by looking at an ad however...
I wouldn't say that batteries from China or Korea are bad. I know that China makes some of the highest quality products and some of the crummiest. It depends upon what the reseller decides to purchase. It is true that consistently, the highest rated batteries are made by Sanyo, a Japanese company. However they are also very expensive.
Usually the end user judges the quality of a battery by its milliamp-hour capacity, but, importantly, not all batteries actually have the advertised capacity, this is where you can get in trouble.
I have found Tenergy brand batteries to be the best price to quality ratio. I use a La-Crosse battery charger;
http://www.lacrossetechnology.com/900/index.php
which charges the batteries, then discharges them and measures the actual capacity of the battery in Milli-amp hours. It only does AA and AAA batteries, it costs around $75. There are other more expensive chargers that test C and D and 1/2 D etc.
Have you found this site?;
http://www.robotreviews.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=231
Good luck!, Please let me know what you do!
Doctor Atomo
Vincent G. wrote back;
After you answered me, I did a comparison of every Roomba Battery on the market for series 500 (those at 3300mAh). I contacted all sellers, and compiled their data. My XLS file is interesting to see differences in weight between them. I also did a test comparing the weight of the cheapest 2700mAh NiMH battery on available on eBay and the highest quality 2700 NiMH battery available on eBay manufactured by Sanyo. The results confirmed your hypothesis of the weight versus quality... { ...the cheapest NiMh battery weight was 18,5g and the best quality NiMh from sanyo was 27g.}
While doing my searches, I discovered a 3500mAh battery, (200mAh above the highest quoted on the web) and tried to contact the manufacturer to see if I could order from him, but I was left without answer... after all that done, I was occupied by some other projects, but I eventually expected to continue later trying to find the best replacement battery available for my Roomba 560.
About your link, at first I thought it was about building replacement batteries for series 400, but I did clicked it today, and realized it was possibly for series 500 also. I will look through this later. Thank you for your precious help, Vincent
Friday, March 12, 2010
Acronis True Image Tutorial: Using a custom disk image made from a factory restore disk to restore an OS quickly. (clone disk)
Friday, March 12, 2010 On Tue, Mar 9, 2010, Kenny Gong wrote:
Hi. I downloaded the Acronis trial version so when you have time walk me thru how to copy on to the cd. I was experimenting on it and it told me my cd was only 3-4 gig but the file was about 25 or so gig. It told me to down size the file so it will fit onto the cd. Anyways, when you write, I am computer illiterate, so please be as simple as you can, and I will try my best to follow.
Thanks for all your time in helping.
Doctor Atomo wrote;
Ken, the file I included with your Toughbook is a single file for use with an external hard drive. This is much easier than using a Disk Image stored on DVDs, or especially CDs! It sounds like you are using DVDs which is good. A single layer DVD has a 4.5GB capacity while a CD has only .7GB (700mb). I would suggest getting a USB adapter for external hard drives;
This is one of my most important computer tools! Trust me, even if they charge you a little more for shipping to Canada it will pay for itself the first time you use it! The style pictured above is an alternative to the more common external hard drive enclosure. For this type of work I find it far superior to the enclosure type of USB external hard drive adapter. Most importantly, you don't have to keep disassembling to switch drives! Also the one pictured will accept SATA and IDE/PATA drives. All the enclosures I have seen are only for one of the types. A picture of my hacked enclosure.
Assuming you don't decide to buy the cable you will need to make a new disk image. There is no way to break the original image into pieces. First make sure you have a nice clean Disk Image to start. This means get the machine you want to clone running just like you want. Make sure you have only the software that is working well and you want to keep. Uninstall any software you do not want on your new machine, using Control Panel, Add And Remove Programs (your Toughbook is running XP, other OS have similar controls).
It is a good idea to have a minimum of extra software for a nice stable back up. Get all your updates. The machine I sold you should be configured to get Automatic Updates, but just in case go over to Windows Update. You will need to be using Internet Explorer, not Firefox. Click Express.
After updates, look in All Programs for Easy Cleaner. Run Easy Cleaner, click on Registry, Find.
and delete any entries for software you do not need starting up when you start your computer. This does not remove the program, it only stops it from starting as soon as you turn on your computer. This is probably the biggest thing you can do to make your machine perform better. Almost every bit of software you add to your system thinks it is the main reason you own a computer and of course you want it to start up as soon as you start your computer! Lol, of course this is not the case, most software you just want running when you want to use it!
Next go to All Programs, Auslogics Registry Defrag . It will defragment your registry and help your computer run faster. You will need to restart your machine for the effects to take effect, but don't worry about that. It will automatically do it next time you start your machine. Lastly, go to Start, Run, type "defrag" without quotes and defrag your hard drive (click defrag).
Restart your machine. Now make your Disk Image (backup) before doing anything else with your machine. Run Acronis, click on Create Backup. I don't have the program installed, I usually run it in DOS from a disk, but the important things are;
You need to make a Full Back Up, not Incremental. You need to use Image Archive Splitting, and use Fixed Size, 700mb for CD's or 4.5GB for DVD's. This is assuming you are not using an external hard drive and need your backup put onto multiple disks (not recommended, although I have successfully done it). If you are using the Single Archive (recommended) method ignore this step. You will need to save your Archive(s) to your local disk C: I make a folder in My Documents. The program will warn you that you are saving to the same disk as you are backing up. This is okay, as you will be copying the files to save elsewhere afterward. After the image is saved you will need to Validate the Archive, to make sure the image is not corrupt. Do not skip this step, I have had a significant percentage of corrupt files in which case you need to start all over. A corrupt file will not install. Next you will need to copy the files to your chosen media (disk(s).
After all the disks are completed you should Validate the entire Archive once again, not as important this time if you are going to install right away onto another computer, because if you have a corrupt disk you will know soon enough. However if there is any chance you will not be using the Archive right away you will need to Validate in case your original computer needs to be restored!
Now, to Restore, or copy the Disk Image to a new machine you have two choices. The greatest feature in Acronis is the ability to use a CD running Acronis in DOS.
With this you can put an image on any machine whether it has an operating system installed or not. Acronis has a feature to Make Bootable Disk, to make a DOS Disk and take advantage of this feature. Unfortunately, I have never been able to successfully create a bootable ISO. Ever. This is just a personal shortcoming and should not put you off from trying! You will need a program which is able to create and burn an ISO (Nero for one although there are many free programs out there). I personally just use the original, purchased Acronis disk, which also will boot to DOS. This program is also worth it's weight in cold cash, and is one of the few programs which I don't bother to find a free equivalent. It can be had on ebay for around $30.
Your other option assumes you have a functioning machine you want to put a new image on. Download Acronis Trial Version to the new machine and tell use it to Restore from your Archive. In either case the disk with the Archive will need to be in the system for Acronis to find upon start up. This means put the disk in the disk drive, or plug in the usb cable from the external hard drive, now turn the machine off (not restart) and start the machine up. Your machine will need to be set to boot from the Optical Drive with the Acronis Boot Disk in it.
At the first screen, press f12 to enter the Boot Order Screen if your machine supports it, otherwise enter the Bios and change the Boot Order there. Change the Boot Order to Optical Drive first Save, and Start. If you are using a Disk Image stored on Optical Media, at this point you will need to replace the Acronis Boot Disk with your first Disk Image disk. If your Disk Image is on an external hard drive you may ignore this step.
It can take a while to load the drives into the bar on the left, did you remember to have the drive with the Disk Image plugged in when starting the machine? If not you will need to open optical drive and put it in now, or plug in your external drive and shut down, using the red X in the Top right corner. Your system will restart and Acronis will read the drive.
Select Primary Active Partition to restore (this will include the Master Boot Record and Track Zero although it looks like it will be left out, I think if you check the MBR and Track0 box it will only restore those parts!
Choose the disk to restore the image to. In this case it is New Volume (C), the internal drive on the laptop. It's a 60gb drive shown as 55.89. New Volume D is the drive containing the Disk Image I want to put onto the laptop drive. It is also a 60gb drive.
One more thing. This program, while amazing and indispensable, is not without its bugs. If you have problems, try again. Restart the program. Restart the computer. Sometimes I have had to try a few times, but it has always worked in the end. Also I have to once again say that while it will will work with multiple CDs or DVDs, it is much easier and far faster using the single file method from an external hard drive. If you have any problems, let me know!!
Here is a link to detailed instructions with screenshots; http://tinyurl.com/Acronis-Instructions
Good luck!
Doctor Atomo
Hi. I downloaded the Acronis trial version so when you have time walk me thru how to copy on to the cd. I was experimenting on it and it told me my cd was only 3-4 gig but the file was about 25 or so gig. It told me to down size the file so it will fit onto the cd. Anyways, when you write, I am computer illiterate, so please be as simple as you can, and I will try my best to follow.
Thanks for all your time in helping.
Doctor Atomo wrote;
Ken, the file I included with your Toughbook is a single file for use with an external hard drive. This is much easier than using a Disk Image stored on DVDs, or especially CDs! It sounds like you are using DVDs which is good. A single layer DVD has a 4.5GB capacity while a CD has only .7GB (700mb). I would suggest getting a USB adapter for external hard drives;
This is one of my most important computer tools! Trust me, even if they charge you a little more for shipping to Canada it will pay for itself the first time you use it! The style pictured above is an alternative to the more common external hard drive enclosure. For this type of work I find it far superior to the enclosure type of USB external hard drive adapter. Most importantly, you don't have to keep disassembling to switch drives! Also the one pictured will accept SATA and IDE/PATA drives. All the enclosures I have seen are only for one of the types. A picture of my hacked enclosure.
Always start with a clean workplace!
Assuming you don't decide to buy the cable you will need to make a new disk image. There is no way to break the original image into pieces. First make sure you have a nice clean Disk Image to start. This means get the machine you want to clone running just like you want. Make sure you have only the software that is working well and you want to keep. Uninstall any software you do not want on your new machine, using Control Panel, Add And Remove Programs (your Toughbook is running XP, other OS have similar controls).
It is a good idea to have a minimum of extra software for a nice stable back up. Get all your updates. The machine I sold you should be configured to get Automatic Updates, but just in case go over to Windows Update. You will need to be using Internet Explorer, not Firefox. Click Express.
After updates, look in All Programs for Easy Cleaner. Run Easy Cleaner, click on Registry, Find.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
This will find all the invalid registry entries and clean up your OS. When it's done click Delete.
Next while still in Easy Cleaner, go to Startup
and delete any entries for software you do not need starting up when you start your computer. This does not remove the program, it only stops it from starting as soon as you turn on your computer. This is probably the biggest thing you can do to make your machine perform better. Almost every bit of software you add to your system thinks it is the main reason you own a computer and of course you want it to start up as soon as you start your computer! Lol, of course this is not the case, most software you just want running when you want to use it!
Next go to All Programs, Auslogics Registry Defrag . It will defragment your registry and help your computer run faster. You will need to restart your machine for the effects to take effect, but don't worry about that. It will automatically do it next time you start your machine. Lastly, go to Start, Run, type "defrag" without quotes and defrag your hard drive (click defrag).
Restart your machine. Now make your Disk Image (backup) before doing anything else with your machine. Run Acronis, click on Create Backup. I don't have the program installed, I usually run it in DOS from a disk, but the important things are;
You need to make a Full Back Up, not Incremental. You need to use Image Archive Splitting, and use Fixed Size, 700mb for CD's or 4.5GB for DVD's. This is assuming you are not using an external hard drive and need your backup put onto multiple disks (not recommended, although I have successfully done it). If you are using the Single Archive (recommended) method ignore this step. You will need to save your Archive(s) to your local disk C: I make a folder in My Documents. The program will warn you that you are saving to the same disk as you are backing up. This is okay, as you will be copying the files to save elsewhere afterward. After the image is saved you will need to Validate the Archive, to make sure the image is not corrupt. Do not skip this step, I have had a significant percentage of corrupt files in which case you need to start all over. A corrupt file will not install. Next you will need to copy the files to your chosen media (disk(s).
After all the disks are completed you should Validate the entire Archive once again, not as important this time if you are going to install right away onto another computer, because if you have a corrupt disk you will know soon enough. However if there is any chance you will not be using the Archive right away you will need to Validate in case your original computer needs to be restored!
Now, to Restore, or copy the Disk Image to a new machine you have two choices. The greatest feature in Acronis is the ability to use a CD running Acronis in DOS.
Acronis True Image Home running from Dos Boot Disk
With this you can put an image on any machine whether it has an operating system installed or not. Acronis has a feature to Make Bootable Disk, to make a DOS Disk and take advantage of this feature. Unfortunately, I have never been able to successfully create a bootable ISO. Ever. This is just a personal shortcoming and should not put you off from trying! You will need a program which is able to create and burn an ISO (Nero for one although there are many free programs out there). I personally just use the original, purchased Acronis disk, which also will boot to DOS. This program is also worth it's weight in cold cash, and is one of the few programs which I don't bother to find a free equivalent. It can be had on ebay for around $30.
Your other option assumes you have a functioning machine you want to put a new image on. Download Acronis Trial Version to the new machine and tell use it to Restore from your Archive. In either case the disk with the Archive will need to be in the system for Acronis to find upon start up. This means put the disk in the disk drive, or plug in the usb cable from the external hard drive, now turn the machine off (not restart) and start the machine up. Your machine will need to be set to boot from the Optical Drive with the Acronis Boot Disk in it.
At the first screen, press f12 to enter the Boot Order Screen if your machine supports it, otherwise enter the Bios and change the Boot Order there. Change the Boot Order to Optical Drive first Save, and Start. If you are using a Disk Image stored on Optical Media, at this point you will need to replace the Acronis Boot Disk with your first Disk Image disk. If your Disk Image is on an external hard drive you may ignore this step.
Select Recovery,
In this case my Disk Image is in New Volume D.
It can take a while to load the drives into the bar on the left, did you remember to have the drive with the Disk Image plugged in when starting the machine? If not you will need to open optical drive and put it in now, or plug in your external drive and shut down, using the red X in the Top right corner. Your system will restart and Acronis will read the drive.
My Disk Image is labeled T43.tib. .tib is the Acronis True Image Home extension.
T43.tib selected
Choose Restore Disk [s or Partitions]
Select Primary Active Partition to restore (this will include the Master Boot Record and Track Zero although it looks like it will be left out, I think if you check the MBR and Track0 box it will only restore those parts!
Choose the disk to restore the image to. In this case it is New Volume (C), the internal drive on the laptop. It's a 60gb drive shown as 55.89. New Volume D is the drive containing the Disk Image I want to put onto the laptop drive. It is also a 60gb drive.
Select Restored Partition Type; I use Primary, you might be able to use Active also. I haven't tried it, I think Logical would be just for storage, not System.
Restored Partition Size; I want only the active Partition so I drag the bar all the way to the right and make sure the Free Space After box says Zero.
No I do not want to restore another Partition.
I have already Validated the Archive, so I leave the Validate Backup Archive box unclicked. Otherwise it will take twice as long to finish.
Ready for the actual restore process. Proceed!
Its working!
Success!! It took about 20 minutes! Compare that to about a full day to get to this stage using the factory Restore Disks and running all updates, installing software, running updates, etc!
Now remove the external drive or optical media and close Acronis. Your machine will restart.
Into your new Operating System!
Because this IBM T43 is a different model than the one I used to build my custom T43 Disk Image, it has some different hardware, such as optical drive.
Luckily the T43 Restore Disk, which this image is made from includes most of the drivers the T43 might need, and the Found New Hardware Wizard can actually find them!
This machine is also a 15inch 1400x1050px model rather than the 1024x768 model, to display properly go into Control Panel, Display, Settings and slide the Bar to the right.
Next let's go into Device Manager and look for any Unknown Devices, System, Hardware, Device Manager.
Ah ha! The Yellow Question Mark shows a missing driver, in this case VGA Video Controller.
Amazingly, the excellent IBM O.S. actually can find the needed driver automatically! Unheard of! After Reinstall Driver check the Install The Software Automatically box.
Wow!
One more thing. This program, while amazing and indispensable, is not without its bugs. If you have problems, try again. Restart the program. Restart the computer. Sometimes I have had to try a few times, but it has always worked in the end. Also I have to once again say that while it will will work with multiple CDs or DVDs, it is much easier and far faster using the single file method from an external hard drive. If you have any problems, let me know!!
Here is a link to detailed instructions with screenshots; http://tinyurl.com/Acronis-Instructions
(link shortened using (http://tinyurl.com)
Doctor Atomo
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