Essential PowerBook Strip is a control strip module that displays detailed information about your PowerBook's battery. The information if gives you will help you determine, with precision, the state of your battery and how much battery power you have left. It also replaces Apple's "HD Spin Down" module and Apple's "Sleep Now" module.
To install Essential PowerBook Strip, place it in your system's "Control Strip Modules" folder and restart.
Battery is fully charged
When you see this battery icon it means that your internal battery is fully charged and that your PowerBook is plugged in.
Percentage of the battery remaining:
When you unplug your PowerBook, you see a percentage of battery power remaining. Your PowerBook keeps track of your battery's voltage. When your PowerBook is running off it's internal battery, the voltage level in the battery drops. When the voltage level drops to a certain point, your PowerBook is forced into sleep. IMPORTANT NOTE: Apple doesn't let your PowerBook drain it's battery completely before forcing sleep. Depending on what type of battery you are using, you may find that your PowerBook forces sleep around 15% or even 25%. This is normal. Go ahead and run off your battery until your PowerBook forces sleep. The % you see when your PowerBook forces sleep will be consistent for that battery.
Battery is charging:
This is pretty simple. If you see the battery charge icon, that means that your PowerBook's battery is charging.
No battery is installed:
When you see this symbol, it means that your PowerBook can not detect a battery. Most likely, you don't have a battery installed.
Internal hard disk indicator:
If the internal disk is spinning, you will see three lines above the battery. If the internal drive is not spinning, you will not see the lines. This is useful when you are in a noisy place and you can't hear whether the drive is spinning or not. In the above picture, the internal drive is not spinning.
What's in the menu?
Spin Down Hard Disk
This will turn the power to your internal hard disk off. If the hard drive is already spun down, it will read, "Hard Disk is off". You can now save control strip space by removing Apple's "HD Spin Down" control strip module.
Sleep PowerBook
This is a handy way to sleep your PowerBook from any application. You can now save control strip space by removing Apple's "Sleep Now" control strip module.
Usage
Your PowerBook keeps track of how much battery power it has used since you unplugged it. That's what usage is. It's useful because you can monitor exactly how much "usage" you can get out of a battery. For example, on my Duo 280c, I can expect to get about 3500 "usage" out of a fully charged NiMH Type III battery. This lets me know to a very accurate degree how much battery power I have left. If this sounds a little confusing, just run your PowerBook off it's battery and check the "usage" every few minutes.
Watts
Do you ever wonder how much battery power you save from dimming the screen, from spinning down your hard disk, or from processor cycling? Watts will tell you that. On my Duo, when I have my screen brightness all the way up, the hard drive spinning, and the hard disk doing a huge file copy, my PowerBook uses about 12.2 watts. When I have the screen dimmed way down, and hard drive not spinning, my PowerBook uses about 7.8 watts. That's almost 40% less battery power being used! When I have the screen dimmed way down, and hard drive not spinning AND processor cycling in effect, my PowerBook uses about 3.5 watts. That's almost 75% less battery power being used! Different PowerBook models use different amount of battery power so you'll need to determine what is high and what is low for your particular model. NOTE: The watts is only valid when your PowerBook is running off it's battery.
Volts
Volts shows you the current charge in your battery. When my battery is fully charged, it holds about 14.06 volts. My PowerBook forces itself to sleep when the battery's charge is around 11.0 volts. If you have a battery that is suffering from memory effect, volts helps you because it shows a lower voltage on a full charge. For example, right now my battery is suffering from memory effect. I can tell this because my battery is fully charged and it is holding only 13.73 volts. Normally it holds 14.06. When this happens, it's time to recondition your battery. Lithium-Ion batteries and lead-acid batteries do not suffer from memory effect. NiMH and NiCad batteries can suffer from memory effect.
