Thursday, July 31, 2008

Ah! The smell of burning electronics.

It looks like this test is over now. The TableKiosk MP3400 blew up on me.

This morning, everything was going well. The MP3400 was charging well from the Sunlinq...

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...but later in the day, when I was charging the Q1 Ultra from the MP3400, it all went wrong. The MP3400 overheated in a big way...

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I had left the Q1 Ultra connected to the MP3400 in the boot/trunk of the car while I went out to pick up some beer and when I came back the unit was incredibly hot. When I took it out of it's case, it was clear that it had overheated as the plastic on the inside of the case had melted onto the battery. Part of the grille had melted too.

I left it to cool for 20 minutes and it looked like it was working again but it didn't last long. Its completely dead now. No lights, nothing!

Lesson learned. Don't try and use the MP3400 in 32 degrees heat inside the protective case, inside the boot of a car.

Fortunately the Q1 Ultra is still working although i'm down to 60 minutes battery now. There's no way to charge it up until I get home on Saturday evening. Here ends another Solar-UMPC test. Now where's that beer I bought....