Had my Sansa Fuze for almost a year - now only getting an hour's worth of playback?

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Fuze™
1

I’ve read the forums and there do appear to be a lot of battery life issues with the Sansa Fuze. Mine seems a lot worse than most people’s. Even by bringing the screen brightness right down and using the minimum of scroll wheel usage, it still only gives me an hour.

I’ve tried charging my Sansa Fuze for 5 or so hours, the display on the screen shows a half full battery, which depletes very rapidly.

:cry:

Any ideas?

2

@fzoe wrote:

I’ve read the forums and there do appear to be a lot of battery life issues with the Sansa Fuze. Mine seems a lot worse than most people’s. Even by bringing the screen brightness right down and using the minimum of scroll wheel usage, it still only gives me an hour.

 

I’ve tried charging my Sansa Fuze for 5 or so hours, the display on the screen shows a half full battery, which depletes very rapidly.

 

:cry:

 

Any ideas?

If it’s not quite a year, try to return it…even charging off the computer should take less than 5 hours for a full charge and one hour’s playtime is a bad sign.

3

Question -  What were your recharging habits?  Did you recharge it often?  Or, did you recharge it only when it was almost totally discharged?

I’ve always heard that rechargable batteries will slowly imprint to the voltage change they go through, effectively narrowing the voltage swing they are capable of.  The net effect is that over time the total amp-hours they can hold is continually decreased.   This may depend on the type of rechargable battery.  Does anyone know what type is in the Fuze?  I have always used Energizer NIMH rechargable batteries in other devices and they do behave this way.

I let mine discharge to, or close to, zero each time I use it.  When I’m through listening to it I just put it down without turning it off.  At night I plug the fuze into my stereo system in the bedroom and let it go all night long.  I turn off the stereo system (not the Fuze) when ready for sleep.

4

@mikeinkaty wrote:

Question -  What were your recharging habits?  Did you recharge it often?  Or, did you recharge it only when it was almost totally discharged?

 

I’ve always heard that rechargable batteries will slowly imprint to the voltage change they go through, effectively narrowing the voltage swing they are capable of.  The net effect is that over time the total amp-hours they can hold is continually decreased.   This may depend on the type of rechargable battery.  Does anyone know what type is in the Fuze?  I have always used Energizer NIMH rechargable batteries in other devices and they do behave this way.

 

I let mine discharge to, or close to, zero each time I use it.  When I’m through listening to it I just put it down without turning it off.  At night I plug the fuze into my stereo system in the bedroom and let it go all night long.  I turn off the stereo system (not the Fuze) when ready for sleep.

It’s been my understanding that the newer batteries, like the ones in the Fuze and Clip, respond better to frequent top-ups than to being run low and recharged again. I never run my Sansas below 60 or 70% charge before I recharge, and there’s been no loss of life. I have done battery life tests which bear this out.

5

mikeinkaty wrote:

I’ve always heard that rechargable batteries will slowly imprint to the voltage change they go through, effectively narrowing the voltage swing they are capable of.  The net effect is that over time the total amp-hours they can hold is continually decreased.   This may depend on the type of rechargable battery.  Does anyone know what type is in the Fuze?  I have always used Energizer NIMH rechargable batteries in other devices and they do behave this way.

This certainly was true with N-Cad and similar batteries of the past. The Li-Ion & Li-Poly batteries used today do not suffer this ‘memory’ syndrome and in fact benefit from frequent small chargings to ‘top them off’ as Marvin indicated.

The only caveat to this is that it is recommended that you ‘deep-cycle’ your player’s battery once a month or so, but this is mainly to keep the battery charge indicator on the player more in calibration.

6

Lithium polymer batteries such as the one in the Fuze work best if they are not drained completely before charging. Going many cycles without letting the battery drain below 60% though will probably make the battery gauge get less and less accurate with time. Letting the battery run down to around 25% or so will probably recalibrate the battery guage. This is recommended at least once every 20-30 charge cycles.Letting the battery run down too low might cause permanent damage to it.

7

Did you try charging it on another computer?  My old laptop charged it before I even used it (as per the instructions) but took forever.  Then charged it once more.  After that it didn’t charge it at all.  Bought a wall charger for home use (until I got my new netbook which charges it fine).  Did you try a wall charger or car charger?