I downloaded the new version of the 3000 firmware on Thursday night. Put a newly charged set of NiMH batteries in the 3000 (meter showed half charge, as usual). Updated the firmware with no problems and figured that with the fixes in this version the batteries would run for at least a week even though the battery indicator was still at a half. Saturday night the battery indicator was down to flickering between "LOW" and one bar and then the 3000 rebooted. So, it would appear that this great, new firmware version has done absolutely nothing.

I then looked up the instructions for the battery case mod and put in the new wire. The batteries that were "too low" to even run the 3000 are now magically between 3/4 and fully charged. I'll have to watch the indicator and see how long I can go on one set of batteries with the wiring mod.