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I have acquired a few "new old stock" XTS3000/5000 batteries. They are all real Motorola batteries:
- NTN8294A dated 812 LU and 928 LU and Nicads
- NTN8299A dated 804 LU and NiMH's
I had assumed that the XTS3000 was a relatively "new" radio - which would have suggested that the batteries were dated 2008 week 12 etc. But I was surprized to find that the XTS3000 dates back to 1996!! - so all the batteries could be 1998/1999
Any ideas?? I've measured the voltage of the uncharged batteries. With no load, the Nicads range from around 4.5 to 6.5v while the NiMH's are 0v.
Last edited by g8tzl2004 on Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Two years later and I have got round to charging one of the XTS NiMH batteries, dating I think from 1998 but brand new old stock.
The NiMH battery voltage was 0v...completely flat..unlike the 1999 old stock NiCads which had retained some voltage.
I thought I would try just placing the battery in an Intellicharger 2 and see what happened. The voltage gradually started to climb from 0v but very slowly. After 2 hours it had reached 4.4v
At this point I thought that maybe only 3 internal cells were actually accepting a charge (rather than all 6 cells), so I decided to zap the battery with a 12v 20A Lead Acid battery for a few seconds. This did the trick and the cell voltage rose to around 8v.
I have now placed the battery on the Intellicharger 2 and its been charging for about 1 hour and the LED is still red...which is a good sign, I think!!!
My question is...if I had just left the battery in the charger would the voltage have eventually increased to , say 8.4v or was I better off zapping the battery?
My experience with other old batteries suggests that if you don't zap the battery and only a few cells start charging, they can severely overheat..I guess the "active" cells are getting too much voltage/current which should really be spead across all 6 internal cells?
In future should I immediately zap the battery if the voltage does not get up to, say 7v within a few minutes?
g8tzl2004 wrote:
My question is...if I had just left the battery in the charger would the voltage have eventually increased to , say 8.4v or was I better off zapping the battery?
In my experience no, the battery would never have taken the charge. I too have momentarily zapped batteries with 12 volts to enable them to take the full charge. However the battery would be dead after sitting for a day. If the battery needs 12 volts to jump start it, it's got one foot in the grave, & the other on a banana peel. GARY N4KVE
Well after 2.5 hours the IntelliCharger 2 LED has gone green.
The 1998 XTS NiMH is just slightly warm.
I am hoping that a 2.5 hour charge is a good sign!!! A new old stock 1994 MTS battery only charged for 8 minutes before the green LED..although I think it continued to trickle charge and I get about 5 hours RX using scan mode.
I'm thinking that maybe the IntelliCharger starts with an 8 minute medium charge and then switches to fast charge mode ONLY IF the internal resistance of the battery is not too high. The 1994 MTS battery's internal resistance is probably too high so it will not fast charge and just goes green and trickle charges.
I have previously found that old batteries loose the ability to supply high current loads without an excessive voltage drop thereby causing the battery alert to sound. On low loads, like RX, the battery will often last a long time. A very simple quick fix (for ham use) is just to lower the TX power output from,say, 5W to 1W or 2.5W. I have several old batteries which work great at 1W and last for hours but if you use 5W, the battery cannot supply enough current without triggering the low battery alert. In general, the range difference between using 1W and 5W is not as great as many people think!!!
UPDATE: I decided to leave the 14 year old XTS NiMH battery on charge overnight..as per the usual instructions to leave the battery charging overnight in order to "initialize" the battery. I guess the idea is to make sure each of the 6 internal cells gets a full charge.
When the battery had finished its 2.5 hour fast charge, the battery voltage was around 8.4v (measured with the battery on the charger). The following morning, the voltage had increased to 8.47v and 3 hours later it was still 8.47v...so I guess the battery is not going to take any more charge.
I did a brief test TXing at 5W and there was no immediate battery alert...a good sign..although I need to see how the battery holds it charge over a few days and whether it will continue to supply enough current to provide 5W without an excessive voltage drop after the battery is partially drained.
It will also be interesting to see how the battery takes a 2nd charge!! So far the 14 year old NOS battery is looking better than I expected. The battery is also a green sticker IS Intrinsically Safe battery... and is "Assembled in America". I wonder if a "Made in China" XTS battery would still work after 14 years?
I picked up 4 made in China XTS RNN4006B batteries at a hamfest for $2 each. They were 4 years old, & each obviously had 1 dead cell. I would charge them in My AdvanceTec conditioning charger & would be good for a conversation for maybe 5 minutes, until the crickets would start to chirp. However, the battery would continue to last for a week in the rx mode. Sure I got my money's worth, so I can't complain, but it's a shame that 1 cell died in all these genuine "M" Chinese batteries. Funny, the batteries still look new. GARY N4KVE
Maybe use 1W rather than 5W. I do this all the time with my stuff.
I've also either switched off the battery alert or changed it to 1 chirp ever 60 secs rather than say, every 5 secs !!!
I've also got a couple of "Made in China" Impres batteries...they look like real Motorola batteries but sometimes I wonder if they really are genuine!!! As XTS's are top end radios and used by government agencies and the military, you would think that they would use only USA made batteries?? There is also lots of fake Chinese stuff around. I had a HT1250 which had a real old and "dirty" PCB (it looked like it had come off the scrap heap) but everything else was fake including battery, charger, antenna and case. The battey, charger and antenna were obviously fake while the case was very close to the real thing but not quite!! I could only tell becasue I had a 100% real one to compare it against!!!
Gee, I think its cool you have the time to waste on an old battery.
Personally, when I bounce the cost of my time versus the waste of time to get an old battery going and the replacement cost, I find it hard to justify.
Particularly if you expect the battery to give any kind of performance comparable to a new one.
I found a dry cell Eveready battery ( a D cell ) in a wall once. The voltage on it was 0.3 volts. The date was June of 1942. Did I use it? No.
Speaking of cheap batteries, I just scored two Jedi batteries off "that auction site" for only $17 plus shipping. They are genuine Motorola NIMH batteries, and are rated at I believe 2000MAH. I received them a week later and they both had a 2002 date code on them. The seller claimed they were just NOS shelved batteries that a PD ordered, never used, now had to get rid of due to the date. I tried them both on my MTS after running them on my Impres charger and they BOTH lasted for almost two days straight on RX. Pretty impressive. I think I got my moneys worth !
