Just got my HyperMac battery (with pics)

[abluesheep]

I actually have yet to test out my 60watt, but I'll get on it today and report back what my times are.

ooo, please do! I would love to find out whether I have a faulty unit (fingers crossed)!

 

[ooo]

Okay, I have some numbers, but I didn't do a great test as I messed up my dropbox sync between my two computers so I've been trying to fix it the whole time.

Basically I had the screen down to 50% brightness and I was syncing my dropbox.

1st bar lost after 40 minutes
2nd bar lost after 1hr 20mins.

After this I turned off the sync / wifi. No applications were running the computer was basically just sitting idling.

1 bar after 3 hours.
50% charge left on my internal battery. 6.5 hours later with internal battery telling me I had 2 hours left.

Now this isn't a really accurate test and I apologize for that. I'm recharging my battery at the moment and I'm going to give it a real test where I'm actually using my computer instead of letting it sit, idle and drain.

From what you can see, it gives you a good 8 hours with a 60 watt battery which was what I expected from a MacBook Air seeing as my internal battery gives me 3.5 hours usually. However, the problem is these results are from an idle computer using 5% CPU and 1gb of ram.

I'll do a retest in a bit. The numbers seemed quite troubling when I was actually using the computer. I was losing a bar in approximately 40 minutes. Which means The battery would only last about 2-3 hours.

 

[ooo]

Seems my testing days are over. Basically this was my first complete charge. When the battery arrived it was already basically fulled charged. I just did the test and started recharging my battery to attempt another test and my AC adapter exploded inside. Hey, at least I got three bars out of four on my battery pack.

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/4569/charger1i.png

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/7625/charger2.png

Edit >> Seems that my battery discharged itself or something. The three bars I had when the charger broke are no more. Another question, does the AC charger and the battery have a quarter of an inch gap when plugged in?

 

[ooo]

Thanks for the quick response. I decided to take the adapter apart. Here are the photos, thank god for the protective casing.

 

[Wotan31]

...you're kidding, right? A folding solar panel would be unreliable and large, and a gas or diesel generator requires...gas or diesel.

What makes you think a solar panel has to be large and unreliable? Or are you just making things up? There are several small, efficient, (and reliable ) folding solar panels that are specifically made for powering mobile electronic devices.

And congratulations on figuring out that a gas or diesel generator requires gas or diesel. Did you figure that out on your own? Your car takes gas or diesel too so what's your point??

OP didn't mention in his original post what his intended usage was, so we were all left to guess.

 

[ooo]

60 Watt Battery Usage - Attempt #2
-----------
Model: MacBook Air
Brightness: 50%
CPU Usage:15-20%
Free Ram: 1gb ram
Apps Running: Tweetie, Firefox, Netnewswire, Adium
Volume / Bluetooth: Off
Wifi: On

Time - Description
12:10pm - full battery
12:18 - three bars
12:30 - still three bars
12:50 - 2 bars/3 bars - third light blinks a few times
1:20 - 2 bars
2:00 - 1bar/2 bars (flickering)
2:30 - 1 bar
2:50 - 1 bar
3:00 - 0 bar
5:30 - Air's internal battery is completed dead as well

Conclusion: With the hypermac plugged in I was able to get approximately 3 hours of battery life. I realized when the MacBook Air was running off the internal battery, the computer adjusted the brightness accordingly to prolong the battery life. I usually get about 3.5 hours with my air, but that's because I keep lowering the brightness. This time I kept it at a steady 50% and I was only able to get 2.5 hours. I'm sure I can drag the hypermac a tad longer if I adjusted the brightness accordingly. Now if only we could see the % left in the battery from our computer without having to press on the button, that would be amazing.

 

[madoka]

I was another one of those users with a defective AC adaptor. Is there any way to buy a second AC adaptor? I don't like the thought of my $300 battery turning into a door stop over a bad capacitor.

 

[ooo]

They will be sending out replacements next week.

Starting next week, we will contact and send out a new replacement AC charger to all affected users irregardless of whether they contact us or not. Users are advised to dispose the old AC charger immediately and use the new replacement AC charger immediately.

 

[madoka]

No need to buy. I will send another one to you. Use the one I'm sending you as your primary charger.

Thanks for that.

I am writing from my MBA with 100hw battery. I had the screen on about 90% brightness and the Hypermac battery lasted 9 hours before reverting to my internal battery which will last about 4 hours with 50% brightness. I believe if I kept the screen brightness to 50% the entire time, I should easily met the 16.7 hours advertised with this battery. I think if I was more judicious with my power settings, I could probably go over the advertised time. Thumbs up!

 

[ooo]

Umm, curiously yours holds 1.1 more charge than the 60 watt, but you can get an extra 6 hours and your using 90% battery. What are the settings, what applications are you using, etc? I'm curious as to know why there is such a huge discrepancy in the numbers.

 

[mkaake]

Could I suggest (not owning a hypermac battery), that the best way to maximize your battery life is to keep the hypermac unplugged until your laptop is low on charge, plug it in, and then unplug when you are nearing a full charge again? It seems that this would keep the laptop running in battery mode for the maximum amount of time, at the expense of having to fiddle with a cord every now and then...

Just a suggestion (again, not having one myself to try it)

 

[MacModMachine]

Could I suggest (not owning a hypermac battery), that the best way to maximize your battery life is to keep the hypermac unplugged until your laptop is low on charge, plug it in, and then unplug when you are nearing a full charge again? It seems that this would keep the laptop running in battery mode for the maximum amount of time, at the expense of having to fiddle with a cord every now and then...

Just a suggestion (again, not having one myself to try it)

would not make one difference...when the battery is charging and laptop is running it is consuming more power than just keeping the battery charged.

like if the laptop consumes 45watts...and it takes 30 watts to charge the battery then thats 75 watts total,

if the hyper mac is unplugged the laptop is consuming its battery,

if its plugged in when the battery gets low then its consuming 75watts from the hypermac,

where as if its used to keep the laptop running while the battery is charged then it would only consume 45watts.

same deal either way you do it.

those are just numbers i pulled out of air...there not the real consumption wattages...just to show you what i mean.

 

[soms]

That's awesome looking. I need to pick one of these up, I've got 3 big long plane trips coming up in the next few months and this would REALLY help with the boredom.

One question: do they get really warm?

 

[madoka]

Umm, curiously yours holds 1.1 more charge than the 60 watt, but you can get an extra 6 hours and your using 90% battery. What are the settings, what applications are you using, etc? I'm curious as to know why there is such a huge discrepancy in the numbers.

Since I am usually out for about 8-10 hours a day and the battery can last 17hours, I put my MBA on the performance setting with 90% brightness. It does not sleep, dim the screen, or turn off the HD. I am using wifi at a cafe and mostly surfing on the net with some occassional word processing.

 

[madoka]

One question: do they get really warm?

I've randomly checked and I don't remember it ever getting past lukewarm. In fact, often I find it to be cold.

 

[alphaod]

I've randomly checked and I don't remember it ever getting past lukewarm. In fact, often I find it to be cold.

It's especially cold on an airplane.

I didn't even use mine my whole flight. I was able do about 5 hours of work, watch 3 two-hour HD films and still have about 50% of the battery left. That's longer than my tests which means the battery just needed some cycling and conditioning before reading it's potential. I'm very happy with the purchase.

However I just saw that post regarding the defective capacitors which got me worried for a bit as my charger gets very hot (too hot to touch) when it's charging the battery. Also my LED indicator never turns red; it stays green the whole time and the only way I know it's done charging the battery is the adapter isn't hot anymore.

 

[jgrove]

I want to order one of these but no one has replied to my email?

I would like to smallest of them, but there are out of stock, can i ask when they will be back in stock?

Cheers

james at planet-images.com

 

[pufftissue]

Can you use your laptop for 20 hours in a row? I would sleep some on a transcontinental flight. And when I'm sleeping, I'd charge the battery.

I consider battery life of 5 hours to be plenty fine for me. And the new macbook pros just might get that. The 7 hours has got to be fake. But I do believe pulling 5 with 50% screen brightness may be alright.

 

[elgrecothefinn]

MacAir with Hypermac 60Wh

I'm facing the same issues with my hypermac external battery. Charging takes serveral hours and the additional working time for my MacAir is much less than expected. Working with excel/word; light on 50% I can work for 3h. With the hypermac on 4.5h. I worked till the internal battery is down than I connected the hypermac. It gots quite hot but ok. It started to charge the mac with the hypermac and after 1 1/2 hours is was over. When I started the recharge with the power cord the LED 1,2 and 3 were on after 30min. This seems to me quite strange. Does anybody has the same experience? My AC Adapter gets very hot but at the moment no problem.
The battery is quiet expensive as we know paying also for shipping it's 250 USD in total. At the moment I can't tell that I'm satisfied. Mainly because the expected extra time is not given by the external battery. Sorry for telling this but at the moment I can't recomment. Very good idea, very good price for the selling company but......

 

[ooo]

Just returned from WWDC and the hypermac was a great investment. Some rooms didn't have power outlets and it was faster to charge my air using hypermac instead of running the internal battery dry. The battery life isn't as great as I hoped for, but it's a great charger for USB devices.

Now I'm just wondering where my AC adapter replacement is.

 

[elgrecothefinn]

The HyperMac 60Wh battery is 1.62 times the capacity of the MacBook Air 37Wh internal battery.

If you are getting 3 hours from your internal battery, it makes sense to obtain 4.5 hours (1.5 x 3 hours) from the HyperMac 60Wh.



It is hot because a lot of power is moving out of the HyperMac to (1) power your MacBook Air and (2) recharge your MacBook Air internal battery.

You must understand that the HyperMac did not only power your MacBook Air for only 1.5 hours, it was also recharging your MacBook Air internal battery. So after 1.5 hours, you actually have a fully charged MacBook Air internal battery that can last for another 3 hours, bringing to a total battery life of 4.5 hours, which corresponds to the battery life of the HyperMac 60Wh.



That is normal. The charging cycle is not linear. The charging current is much higher when the battery is near empty and very small when the battery is almost full. Again the heat depends on the amount of charging current flowing into the battery so it can be hot at the start.

Hi,
well it not seamed to be the problem. The Hypermac doesn't reload anymore since yesterday. The LED is not showing any signal and after replugging several times I have no reaction. After reconnecting with MB air I'm sure that the batterie has not reloaded. Is there any test which I can do? Please do not tell me I have to ship the battery back to the states?

Are there any other users with this problem ? Serial Nr. 2009A 2057
Model: MBP-060

Kind regards

 

[pinoyplaya]

I'm just curious, what is the practical application of a device like this? Bringing your laptop into a cave is about the only thing I can think of. Plenty of power converters to power your laptop in a car, on a boat, on a plane, even with just a car battery on the floor. If I'm truly away from all sources of electricity for that long, I'd look to a folding solar panel if I'm on the move. Or a small gas (or diesel or cng) generator if I'm stationary.

So don't take this the wrong way, I'm just curious.

There are many ways you can use this. This is pretty much a portable battery. Common Sense, what do you think why you would need a portable battery?

Look it up.

 

[getz76]

I always thought this was a better idea than an additional battery.

I did not realize that HyperMac was the same company as HyperSpace. I have been using HyperSpace drives for a couple of years now; traveling photographer's and event shooter's best friend.

 

[leelith]

At the moment I'm not really satisfied with my MBP-100 100W which is supposed to have a life of 13.3h (I have a 2007 MBP 15''). I expect that it will last a bit less, maybe about 2-3hours less, but in a low utilization (mainly for development), the maximum time I can get from my battery + the HyperMac battery is about 5 hours, which is a huge difference from 13.3h.

I contacted the HyperMac support, and they are shipping another adapter as there are problems related to it as I already saw on pictures.

I hope it will resolve this problem, because the battery gets down very fast, and I can not have the use of my MBP as I would.

L.

 

[madoka]

I am writing from my MBA with 100hw battery. I had the screen on about 90% brightness and the Hypermac battery lasted 9 hours before reverting to my internal battery which will last about 4 hours with 50% brightness. I believe if I kept the screen brightness to 50% the entire time, I should easily met the 16.7 hours advertised with this battery. I think if I was more judicious with my power settings, I could probably go over the advertised time. Thumbs up!

I never did receive that extra adaptor.

Of much greater concern though, is that my Hypermac battery no longer lasts anywhere near where it used to. Before it would do 9 hours straight, but now it's down to 5 hours.

Could the bad adaptors screwed up the battery cells? It was working fine before my adaptor died. Now, I've tried all sorts of different scenarios and still only get about 5 hours before it dies.

When will you get more of the 100wh batteries in stock? I'd actually like to swap the one I have and buy a second one.