Hi Oscar, I got it sorted
to autoload the tp_smapi module on boot I changed the following line in file /etc/sysconfig
from
MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT=""
to
MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT="tp_smapi"
and to set the start and stop battery charge %age thresholds to 40% and 90% respectively, i used the following commands (which are remembered after reboot):
echo 40 > /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh
echo 95 > /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh
I'm going to use Acronis to restore OpenSuse back to it's config before my meddling and perform a step-by-step install of tp_smapi from scratch so that i may post step-by-step instructions for other ThinkPad users.
Best regards,
Mark