Radio Battery Rotation

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Jim1348
Posts: 542
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:52 am

Radio Battery Rotation

Post by Jim1348 »

This post actually related to Kenwood TK-5400 battery rotation. We have, at work, five TK5400 radios. They, obviously, are not Motorola type IMPRES chargers. These radios typically sit in the charger all of the time. Essentially, they are used to monitor our local digital, trunked 800 MHz system.

I am trying to determine the bet way to "cycle" the batteries to, hopefully, extend the battery life. So far, I am thinking of having the dogwatch remove the radios from the charger and leave them on with the volume low. Then, the next night, have them re-insert the radios into the chargers. I am just looking for feedback to see what people think of or if they have a better idea of how to extend battery life.
Jim1348
Posts: 542
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:52 am

Radio Battery Rotation

Post by Jim1348 »

These are NiMH batteries.
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Bill_G
Posts: 3087
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:00 am

Re: Radio Battery Rotation

Post by Bill_G »

Buy a spare set of batteries. Run the radios on the desktops until the low battery alert, and then swap batteries. If that happens to coincide with the start of third shift every night, perfect.
rix_in_KC
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Posts: 2
Joined: Fri May 26, 2017 11:08 am
What radios do you own?: XTS5000

Re: Radio Battery Rotation

Post by rix_in_KC »

If the radios are truly used for monitoring 24/7, you could always use a battery eliminator[1]. Keep the batteries in rotation with your other radios, and have one rotated in occasionally that you can throw on it when you need to take it out of the room.

[1] - https://www.osibatteries.com/p-22299.as ... th-dc-cord -- Random one found off the internet
motorola_otaku
Posts: 1854
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2004 7:03 am

Re: Radio Battery Rotation

Post by motorola_otaku »

Before we (my employer) switched to APXes from Kenwoods we replaced batteries annually. They lived in chargers on the trucks, got used for the duration of an incident, and went right back on the truck... precisely what IMPRES was designed for. More often than not they would also be left turned on in the chargers, which killed both batteries and chargers over (a short period of) time.

Your situation is not ideal and there is no good solution that won't result in prematurely-cooked batteries. If your local P25 system isn't Phase II you could look at the Unication pager... they can live all day long plugged into USB power, plus there's an amplified speaker base available.
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