Lazer Swarm Forum

Riley and crew,

Was able to tag the lazerswarm gear out yesterday and played several games.

Everyone was impressed with how it all works, and really enjoyed it.

One thing that I've noticed in playing around with the gear, and this might be the laptop I'm using, is that it has hiccuped a couple of times when I start games. One time, it was functioning during the hosting process, then stopped, then about 60 seconds later, started working again.
Other things that I've noticed is that some LTTO gear will freeze when joining. That could be low batteries on my part (in the LTTO).

Some questions that I have are as follows:

• How long do the batteries last in the device?

• Do the batteries drain while the device isn't being used?

• Should the batteries be removed between games?

Thanks,

redbyrd64 wrote:One thing that I've noticed in playing around with the gear, and this might be the laptop I'm using, is that it has hiccuped a couple of times when I start games. One time, it was functioning during the hosting process, then stopped, then about 60 seconds later, started working again.

Could you describe more about what happened? What exactly stopped?

redbyrd64 wrote:Other things that I've noticed is that some LTTO gear will freeze when joining. That could be low batteries on my part (in the LTTO).

When it froze, what was on the screen? What happened when you pushed the trigger or the menu buttons?

redbyrd64 wrote:

• How long do the batteries last in the device?

I haven't really tested that (I can't think of how I would). The batteries are only used to power the IR emitters and those are only flashed very briefly (on the order of milliseconds and at 50% duty cycle) and relatively infrequently (once or twice a second at the most). The batteries should last quite some time.

redbyrd64 wrote:

• Do the batteries drain while the device isn't being used?

Effectively, no. The transistor that acts as a switch has a typical leakage of 300pA (picoamps) or 0.0000003mA (milliamps) when it is off which is incredibly low. A battery just sitting on a shelf self-discharges faster than it would be discharged by 300pA.

redbyrd64 wrote:

• Should the batteries be removed between games?

I would recommend removing the batteries if you plan on storing the Command Center for more than a month. Stored batteries can sometimes leak and cause corrosion of the battery terminals. You don't need to remove the batteries otherwise.

Basically on the hiccups, it stopped trying to join taggers. The lights on the device stopped working, after about 30-60 seconds, it started again.

The LTTO taggers show that they are joining, but the timer countdown on them stops and the tagger has frozen. I can restart it.