Batboard

Hello. What chemistry is the Impress battery? Nicad, nimihi, or Li ion? Or is it it's own newer type. I know someone here will know. Thanks. GARY N4KVE

the answer is "all of the above"

Impres batteries are available in all three chemistries - just depends on the part # of the battery.

some are nicad (cheaper) - some are NIMH (more $) - some are LION ($$$$$$$$$$$$)



doug

Go for Li-Ion (You'll thank me later)

Go for Ni-Cad (You'll thank me later)

Go for Li-Ion. But don't short it out, otherwise...

There is no one battery chemistry that is "best"

If you must have maximum talk/run time, then look at NiMH or Li-Ion.
If you need to work in cold environments then go NiCad.
If you don't need extremely long talk time then NiCad is most economical.

Generally, NiCad will give you 600 to 800 charge cycles.
NiMH 300-400 charge cycles
Li-Ion about 300 charge cycles.

So you can see if a NiCad costs $60 then your cost is about $0.085 /cycle
If a NiMH cost $70 then cost per cycle is about $0.20.
If a Li-Ion costs $85 then cost per cycle is about $0.28.

Again, the decision is based on items such as required usage and economics (not just the up-front cost).

The new 2.75Ah Li-Ions all the way...

You're just taking cost and cycle life into consideration. My B-rev LiIons have about 1.5x the capacity of the NiCds, they're half as thick, and they weigh less than half as much. That translated into a welcome relief when the radio is strapped to me.

Plus, Li-Ions are actually good for about 400 cycles. You're also not taking into account the fact that the LiIons won't be cycled as much, since they have far greater capacity.

Let's look at the overall power given out per battery lifetime:
(2.75Ah) * (0.9 - you can't discharge a battery completely) * (400 cycles) = 990 cumulative Ah
(1.5Ah) * (0.9) * (600 cycles) = 810 cumulative Ah

Using your costs:
$85 / 990 = 8.5 cents/cumulative Ah
$60 / 810 = 7.4 cents/cumulative Ah

From someone who used to run the 3.5Ah NiMHs, the Li-Ions are the only way to go.

tvsjr, it's about time someone with some good sense on the subject posted on this thread

I'm still waiting for /\/\ to come out with a Li-Ion IMPRES battery for the XTS2500 and XTS3000/5000, will they be releasing one soon? I don't see any online or in the BSB...

I was talking public safety application, not hamster type.

Doesn't matter if it is a a NiCad that is 80% dead NiCad at the end of a 12 hour shift, or it is a Li-Ion that is only 50% discharged, the officer (fireman) will charge the battery every single day regadless.

Once agian, my main point is that the correct battery type is application specific.

Once agian, my main point is that the correct battery type is application specific.

Exactly. In our worst-case application here, we have LE, SAR, fire, maintenance, and research personnel that hike into the park backcountry for anywhere from 1 to 8 days at a time and have no access to additional batteries or chargers. Therefore they need every little milliamp-hour they can get, and weight is of the essence since they're backpacking and can't realistically carry a bunch of AA cells or extra batteries without adding a bunch of weight to their pack.

Testing with Li-Ion batts on other non-/\/\ radios (in general) has shown that the Li-Ion batteries are more favorable by backcountry users than any other chemistry simply because of the lighter weight, relatively low maintenance, and on average they last longer per charge over time than other chemistries with similar capacity.

And as RFguy says and how it works here with our frontcountry LE folks, as long as it lasts 8 hours on one charge on an average day, it's going to get thrown on the charger daily, and the 1800mA NiMH IMPRES batts seem to work fine for this. And guys are claiming their batteries are lasting WAY longer now, but it's because IMPRES is doing the battery maintenance as they go, as opposed to depending on the personnel to do it themselves when they had non-IMPRES batts - a practice that is/was forgotten and seldom followed - and explains why they were having such crappy luck with battery life (i.e. leaving batts in the charger or on the shelf unattended for weeks/months at a time).

At IWCE a few years ago, the rep for Cadex gave me a book named 'Batteries in a Portable World' by Isidor Buchmann, VERY informative book about all aspects of portable radio batteries, despite the bias towards its company...

Every time I see that Cingular commercial on TV with the girl/guy getting angry because of their voice getting cut off due to a 'dropped call' reminds me of how angry folks get when they unkey and their radio goes 'beep beep'... hehe

Personally all I use is NiMh impress
Our shifts are 12 hours long and being in a tropic enviroment NiMh manages a lot better when a cop leaves his radio on the dash for four hours.+ all our batteries are ruggadized intrinsicly safe.

But as RFguy points out it depends on the application.
+ all our batteries are ruggadized intrinsicly safe.

RFguy wrote:Go for Ni-Cad (You'll thank me later)

RFguy wrote:I was talking public safety application, not hamster type.

Doesn't matter if it is a a NiCad that is 80% dead NiCad at the end of a 12 hour shift, or it is a Li-Ion that is only 50% discharged, the officer (fireman) will charge the battery every single day regadless.

Once agian, my main point is that the correct battery type is application specific.

I know you didn't just recommend NiCads for an application where they would be regularly recharged before reaching full discharge?

I know you didn't just recommend NiCads for an application where they would be regularly recharged before reaching full discharge?

I believe that we are talking Impres batteries here.

The Impres system makes signifigant allowance for depth of discharge and auto reconditioning.

escomm wrote:tvsjr, it's about time someone with some good sense on the subject posted on this thread

So who's the person with the good sense?

kj7xe wrote:I'm still waiting for /\/\ to come out with a Li-Ion IMPRES battery for the XTS2500 and XTS3000/5000, will they be releasing one soon? I don't see any online or in the BSB...

Yep, they've been out quite awhile. Actually, the XTS3000/5000 battery just went to revision B, and Moto added a spare 1Ah in the process. The new ones are exceptional.

NTN9862B is the part for the XTS3000/XTS5000. Beware, they aren't cheap... $150 list/$90 NSO. But they're absolutely worth the cost, IMO.

Sorry, I don't know anything about the 2500s. According to the impres system PDF on BusinessOnline, there are only NiMH impres units available for the 1500/2500.

At the end of the day it's easier to replace a battery than a cop.
Unless your really cash strapped NiMh is the go.
Nicad if you are in a cold enviroment.
Li-Ion is not advanced far enough for my liking yet.
When sitting on Rx fine but during a heavy operation with lots of talk time going on our Li-Ions just don't cut it and the guys want the old batteries back.
We dropped our Li-Ion test and stuck with NiMh

Bruce1807 wrote:When sitting on Rx fine but during a heavy operation with lots of talk time going on our Li-Ions just don't cut it and the guys want the old batteries back.
We dropped our Li-Ion test and stuck with NiMh

Funny that high-current devices, like, oh, laptops have been using LiIon for years.

I worked a July 4 parade this year with a 9862B on each of my XTSs... about 6 hours of comms, and the VHF one (heavy usage) indicated 80% capacity remaining.

I've worked a 12-hour commercial structure fire with *heavy* TX usage (20-20-60, if I had to guess)... still had 20 or 30% remaining when we cleared.

Go ahead and buy those NiMHs... leaves more LiIons for me!

what sort of enviroment are you in
Humidity?
heat?

On another note your fire service uses non IS equipment?
No way would ours accept anything but full IS radios.
Dealing with car wrecks where fuel is everywhere.
We also have the unusual in that our airport station is also the main domestic station, althought they operate seperatly all crews are cross trained, hence we also deal with avgas spills, jet spills etc.
Nothing but IS ion our fleet, in fact almost all users have moved to IS so everything is interchangable.
I can't believe a FS uses non IS stuff

LiIon batteries have no trouble with heavy currents.

Heaps of people run lithium ion cells in electric RC planes. The motors in a small electric plane often pull 10A or more, from batteries around 1.5Ah.

Thats why LiIon is not IS

Vertex have IS LiIon 3Ah batteries for their VX-P920 digital portable.

FNB-V92LIIS

Can't find anything on what classes it is for

Damn...And I thought I was passionate about batteries

We'll be unveiling a 5400mAh, Li-Ion in the next few months. It will be approx 1/8" to 1/4" thicker than a regular XTS3000/5000 battery, but being Li-Ion it will weigh less than a NTN8294BR or a HNN9031B. The estimated weight will be between 7-8 oz.

I'm VERY curious to get feedback on these. I wish I had them yesterday .

As long as you fix your website before it comes out, because I want one!

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From what I have seen, the Impress system should be best for Ni-Cad
batteries. The design of the system was to prevent battery memory effect.
That is the big killer of Ni-Cad batteries. The memory effect does not happen
In Li-Ion or NiMh. The next big problem is charge cycles. Ni-Cad has the best charge cycle life span, followed by NiMh and Li-Ion.

What I like best is about the Li-Ion is it Weights the least of each battery type versus
battery capacity. I don’t think the Impress system of charging will effect the life span of
either Li-Ion or NiMh batteries. The charge life left in each battery, read by top tier
Radios, is a nice feature, battery fuel guage. I wish my 5100 did that.

Great thread

mm

The 5400's appear to be available now according to your site..

mr.syntrx wrote:As long as you fix your website before it comes out, because I want one!

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LMAO! ...I know. It does that to me at work all the time. Of course it's always while I'm on the phone with a customer and need to find a battery. The easiest way to remedy that is to erase your temporary internet files. As for having it on the site already, well...I was told that it was to see how much interest it would generate in the product. You can place an order but will have to wait until we complete our pre-production testing before it will be shipped. If anyone is interested in putting the screws to one, send me an email and I'll inform you as soon as they hit regular production (about 8 weeks from now). And of course...If you are Gov or volunteer, I'll apply the applicable discount.


BTW...Although employed by BatteryZone, I don't work at the corporate location. I can be reached at 800-792-1738.

Sounds good - though I am concerned at the extra size, will it fit in my charger?

MattSR wrote:Sounds good - though I am concerned at the extra size, will it fit in my charger?

I suppose that would depend on the charger. I'll post the exact dimensions as soon as I have them.

MWalkerZone wrote:

MattSR wrote:Sounds good - though I am concerned at the extra size, will it fit in my charger?

I suppose that would depend on the charger. I'll post the exact dimensions as soon as I have them.

I would hope they would fit in any standard Motorola charger (shoe-type, NTN1177E gang, impres single, or impres gang)... if not, find the engineer who designed the units and fire them.

Exactly - Some cup chargers are a tight fit, an extra 1/8th of an inch would mean you have to take the batt off the radio to charge it..

MattSR wrote:Exactly - Some cup chargers are a tight fit, an extra 1/8th of an inch would mean you have to take the batt off the radio to charge it..

I'm hoping that's not the case. However, we did not have a choice but to add thickness to the case to make the higher capacity cells fit.