Batboard

While I understand that Nicad and NiMH batteries need to be cycled to recondition them, I always though that lithium batteries did not have any "memory effect" and you can top them up without having to cycle them with no issues.

Does the Impres charger automatically attempt to recondition a lithium battery...or is it only with NiMH batteries?

I guess one benefit of an Impres lithium battery will be that you can get some indication of capacity.

#1 benefit of IMPRES (in my opinion) is user notification of faulty batteries.

g8tzl2004 wrote:While I understand that Nicad and NiMH batteries need to be cycled to recondition them, I always though that lithium batteries did not have any "memory effect" and you can top them up without having to cycle them with no issues.

Does the Impres charger automatically attempt to recondition a lithium battery...or is it only with NiMH batteries?

I guess one benefit of an Impres lithium battery will be that you can get some indication of capacity.

You should research Li battery charging methods. The days of simply applying a power source to a battery through a resistor or light bulb are gone. To gain the advantages of Li - higher capacity per weight - requires some precision charging management to preserve the cells to their maximum lifetime.

I'm aware of the issues with Lithium ion batteries and the various backup systems included in the charging management circuit to prevent overcharging and possible explosions!!

But you can buy a non-Impress Motorola lithium battery which does not have the "advantages" of an Impres lithium battery.

With an Impress NiMH battery, the advantages of Impres includes automatically cycling the battery to maintain maximum capacity...so you can resolve issues caused by constantly topping up a 70% full battery.

But with an Impres lithium battery, there is no need to automatically cycle the battery as there are no "memory effects"...so the only advantage of an Impres lithium battery is having an indication of battery capacity....or an I missing something??

The biggest advantage with LIon and newer technologies is more mAh in a smaller size. Other options are only available because of the reduced cost.

But why pay extra for an "Impres" lithium battery rather than just using a non-Impres lithium battery?

I'm not sure Motorola even sells non-Impres LIon batteries, at least not for the TRBO and Astro product lines. Also, what Bill_G said.

Impres batteries for our XTS5000 last an average of 4 to 6 years in police. They are assigned their radios. Non impres last 2 years.

In fire service, we see 3 years average but that is 1300+ charges. They usually have 30 re-condition cycle.

This is why you buy impres, the re-condition cycle, won't charge a too cold or hot battery either.

But you don't need to recondition a lithium battery.....only Nicad and NiMH batteries need reconditioning?

My XPR3500 uses an original Motorola "non-Impress" lithium battery....the battery looks identical to my XPR7550 Impress lithium batteries except there is no "Impres" printed anywhere on the battery.

I was just in a two day radio class Friday and Saturday. We discussed the IMPRES batteries and chargers. The instructor stated that there is still value in running the IMPRES batteries completely dead from time to time. What do people here think about that? I had originally been told that this was unnecessary with IMPRES technology.

When I hear stuff like that, I always tend to ask... what are the qualifications of the instructor?

g8tzl2004 wrote:But you don't need to recondition a lithium battery.....only Nicad and NiMH batteries need reconditioning?

Ugh, this drives me bonkers... you're not conditioning an IMPRES battery, you're calibrating it. The full discharge/recharge cycle is necessary to keep the charge percentage value accurate.

The label on the base of my XPR Impres charger says "steady orange = reconditioning"

So it should say "recalibrating"

I haven't looked into the mechanisms behind it, but the new 'Impres2' marketing materials indicate a 40% increase in overall battery cycles for Impres2 LiON batteries when paired with an Impres2 charger, compared to 'standard' LiON batteries and chargers...so there are apparent advantages despite what you've been led to believe about the memory effect with LiON.

So does the power management circuit in an Impres battery "disable" the battery when the capacity falls below, say, 80% of the original battery capacity?

Rather than let the user decide to replace the battery, the Impres system just kills the battery even though its "80% good"?

They will keep working below 80%. They will work until they will not charge. We have Impres batteries for MTS2000 that are 1/2 capacity after 10 years.

g8tzl2004 wrote:So does the power management circuit in an Impres battery "disable" the battery when the capacity falls below, say, 80% of the original battery capacity?

Rather than let the user decide to replace the battery, the Impres system just kills the battery even though its "80% good"?

No. What leads you to this conclusion?

One day the Impres battery charges OK...but the next day the charger will not charge the battery....flashing red light

What has changed? Why is the charger rejecting the battery?

g8tzl2004 wrote:One day the Impres battery charges OK...but the next day the charger will not charge the battery....flashing red light

What has changed? Why is the charger rejecting the battery?

Does it charge in a non-Impres charger? There is a relatively complex circuit board within the battery case as well, all it takes is a component failure or break in connection.

g8tzl2004 wrote:One day the Impres battery charges OK...but the next day the charger will not charge the battery....flashing red light

What has changed? Why is the charger rejecting the battery?

Could be for a number of reasons. Here is a good link: http://batteryuniversity.com/