Juice Defender is definitely NOT intuitive!

I'll need to post several answers to address different aspects. The UJ part that I found most useful is to control sync'ing and preventing apps from accessing the internet, so I'll start with that:

In Juice Defender,
-Click APPS button
-Click CONFIGURE APPS underneath that.
-In the popup list that appears, it will list ALL the apps that are installed on the phone, to the right of each app is the up/down arrow set that starts as Grey, which means not controlled by JD and can connect freely to internet.
- Click 1 - to Green = sync on the schedule you set for JD
- Click 2 - X through the arrows = NEVER connect to data/internet
- Click 3 - returns to Grey = uninhibited
-So go through your list and set each app's sync control. If in doubt, I leave grey. But I've pretty much set all AT&T bloatware to Never connect, some apps, like gReader to sync via the JD schedule; other apps like Weather, Gmail, Handcent, I leave grey so that they sync whenever they need to.

Now create the sync schedule you want the "Green sync" apps above to connect to the internet.

-The DATA button should be LIT, if it isn't click it so that it is lit.
-Then click SCHEDULE underneath it
-Then move the slide bar that shows until it shows the schedule you like. I've set my schedule to "Enable Data for 3m every 1h"
- Thise means that JD will activate your data connection for 3mins every hour so that the Green sync apps from the above can connect to sync.

I leave WIFI unlit, as I don't worry about battery drain...but if YOU'RE concerned about battery drain, then you can enable/disable Wifi on a schedule too...
-Click Wifi
-in the 4th row, there will appear some controls to control how you want wifi to behave. Click each setting and read the message that appears at the bottom 1/3 of the screen to set Wifi behavior.
EDIT ---When you finish, click DATA again, and clcik PREFER WIFI, so that when JD activates its data connection, it will try first to connect to an active Wifi connection and after 5 seconds THEN connect to mobile data if no Wifi connection is around.

That's all I've got for now to get you started. If you have a specific question, just ask.

I'd suggest just clicking each control and reading the little description. You'll be able to muddle through the rest, I'm sure.

The hardest one to understand was how to control the App sync/connection behavior that I listed first.

HTH

EDIT:
Juice Defender (Free) only controls the sync of only ONE app and some of the Wifi/Schedule settings don't work or are limited in some way.
Ultimate Juice (Paid) controls sync of multiple apps and all settings are activated fully.

 

A user's suggested settings for JuiceDefender:

Sharing my Juice Defender settings - PPCGeeksl

 

Based on usage, I'd be content.

 

9 hours of use before drain sounds pretty respectable to me. That's a lot of Juice! I don't know if Juice Defender can defend batteries from human usage.

I've found JD, or UJ to be an essential app to preventing drain, but that's because I use it sparingly (not because of battery drain fear, but I usually only use it when I need to. I used to have to recharge every 16 hours, otherwise the battery would drain in my sleep. Now I'm able to go nearly 2 days.

 

Sorry for a newbie question. Is there any way to turn on/off 3G manually in Juicedefender? Like the 3G toggle button widget. Thank you.

+EDIT: Found the answer. Add widget manually by long pressing at home screen.

 

9 Hrs of battery while streaming radio for 7 hrs? That's pretty stout if you ask me.

 

Good stuff BookLover. Thank You.

 

You're welcome!