Batboard

There is a E-bayer selling the single Motorola Impres WPLN4111 charger, and in his add he stated that his units come flashed with the most current firmware v 3.4. He also makes mention that firmware version 3.0 is troublesome. Anyone have an idea whats wrong with firmware version 3.0 and what benefit 3.4 has over 3.0 ?

Thanks

Dan..

yeah, that's me selling the v3.4


v3.0 will corrupt the internal firmware inside the impres battery - requiring the battery to be sent to motorola for repair/swap out.


anything prior to v3.4 doesn't support the xts 2500 batteries either.....


doug

batdude wrote:yeah, that's me selling the v3.4


v3.0 will corrupt the internal firmware inside the impres battery - requiring the battery to be sent to Motorola for repair/swap out.


anything prior to v3.4 doesn't support the xts 2500 batteries either.....
doug

yea I figured that it had to be someone in the board. Just wondering, I have a version 3.0 did Motorola recall that version for a free firmware upgrade and will they replace batteries that this version corrupts for fr ee??

Dan..

Everything i have experienced with impres is a joke. Who the hell had the nerve to make this contraption. someone was a great salesman when they pitched that crap. All i found with impres is that it is an over priced sales gimmick. i can almost get three nicad or nimh batteries for the price of one impres. I finally went out and got all new (NON-IMPRES) chargers and batteries and it cost me the same if i would have just got new impres batteries. I cant believe that crap!

methinks you are uneducated on the impres concept.


batteries that automatically recondition themselves only when required...

batteries that provide their capacity / life remaining / # charge cycles on the radio display....

chargers that are adaptive and firmware upgradeable....not to mention the sheer fact that you can charge no less than FIVE (?) different radio platform types on a single charger..............

saber
astro saber
jedi
tetra
xts 2500/3000/3500/5000 series



hmmmmmmmm


sounds good to me - and there are lots of these chargers fielded by the batboard community (no thanks to me!) and you're the only one complaining about them....

yes, the technology is expensve... however, i've bought brand new impres batteries (never charged and in warranty) on ebay for $17 each.





doug

batdude wrote:sounds good to me - and there are lots of these chargers fielded by the batboard community (no thanks to me!) and you're the only one complaining about them....

I'm looking at six impres-enabled radios/batteries sitting in my gang charger right now... the 9862B Li-Ions work incredibly well, the charging is great, and they last *forever*.

Let's see... one almost-nullo member bitching about the technology... thousands of happy customers. Gee...

I always leave it up to the customer. Its your money,spend it how you see fit.

Of course, being a Battery Zone employee, you have a bit of a slanted view on the matter.

I've got a fair amount of my personal money tied up in my impres system (one gang charger with displays, a few single units, four 9862Bs, etc.) and it's worth every penny. And I would never buy BZ batteries... I've had extremely bad luck out of them, at least on Jedis.

http://www.proventough.com/pdf/Motorola ... _Paper.pdf

Motorola batteries are designed to higher specifications, perform better, and can take significantly more abuse. What good is a capacity warranty when the battery falls apart the first time it's dropped?

We bought BZ batts for our old saber fleet. Nice and light (subby's) but pretty much died after a year. Cheap to buy for a small fleet. I managed to bring a couple back from the dead with the impress charger, but now last for about 15min (well past their prime however).

I have a couple of M batts from 1996 that still hold a good charge, but they are starting to go into fail mode.

tvsjr wrote:Of course, being a Battery Zone employee .

There is no Battery Zone employee named jbaker.......

Will wrote:

tvsjr wrote:Of course, being a Battery Zone employee .

There is no Battery Zone employee named jbaker.......

Just a guess based on his username.

batdude wrote:anything prior to v3.4 doesn't support the xts 2500 batteries either.....


doug

doug, im sure motorola is claiming that, but every 2500 impress battery we have is working fine in our ancient impresses, fuel gauge and all. I have yet to do any uplifting on any of them.

Will wrote:

tvsjr wrote:Of course, being a Battery Zone employee .

There is no Battery Zone employee named jbaker.......

Baker@bz wrote:Batdude, I can do the NTN4595 at 75.00 or the NTN4593 at 65.00. Take your pick. You specified OEM but if your interested I can do a 3000mah Ni-MH (same configuration as the 4595) for 50.00. My e-mail is [email protected].

co-incidence?

Well-placed sources say that JBaker is indeed a BatteryZone employee, an allegation supported by additional evidence from Grem.

It seems Will's wrong, again. Color me shocked. </sarcasm>

escomm wrote:http://www.proventough.com/pdf/Motorola ... _Paper.pdf

Motorola batteries are designed to higher specifications, perform better, and can take significantly more abuse. What good is a capacity warranty when the battery falls apart the first time it's dropped?

Takes a while to DL, but interesting reading material.

specialeddie1 wrote:And no motorola batteries are not designed to better specs anymore. They are getting there cells from china now! How does that make you feel?

So what? All politics aside, you can get crap from China, and you can get very good product from China. It really has nothing to do with origin. It depends on the specs you hold your supplier to and how you manage your quality control. If you can find a Chinese cell supplier that meets all of your specs and that can do it at a cheaper price than someone else, guess who'll get chosen?

Remember, just because it comes from China doesn't automatically mean it's crap. In some high-tech areas, they're getting better, and getting there fast.

Cheers,

Dan

How can you found out the Version of firmwear in the charger?

Re: Chinese cells- They are coming from factories with the same ISO-ratings as the Japanese factories. Certain batteries have been coming with Chinese cells for years and I have yet to notice a significant difference in failure rates or warranty rates at all. I actually just tested a NiCD GP300 battery for a customer that was sold in August '02 and put through 5-day-a-week charge cycles and it rates at 52% capacity. Not bad for a 4-year old battery.

Re: Charger firmware. Look on the bottom and see if you still have the label. You'll see a V03.00 or something to that effect. You can also see the firmware version (also get the LCD's firmware version too) by using batdude's LCD-display hack

i am going to go on a stretch here.


IMHE (in my humble experience) - fleet BEAN COUNTERS will buy the cheapest battery that they can find... especially when you are talking about 2000+ batteries on a fleet change out... where an $8 / battery price break makes a BIG difference.

what the bean counters sometimes fail to realize would be the differences in battery manufacturing standards and the vast range of perceived "quality" by end users in the field.

Once that first set of 2000 aftermarket batteries fails at about 12-18 months (usually just out of warranty) - *SOME* figure it out.... that hey - if we would have bought OEM batteries, they last at least 1.5x-2x as long and only cost 10-20% more.... hmmmmm.

there is something to learn here. this is something that the morons who control the negotiations on the construction of your system never seem to understand or know about....

when requesting a bid on a system build out - you are FOOLISH not to specifiy or request a HUGE break in price on high-useage consumables (i.e. batteries/antennas and the like)

on contract, some of the impres batteries... like the NTN9862 2000ma LION IMPRES pack... (more on this in another thread) retail @ $150 each.

dealer cost is around $135 .. depending on quantity ordered and that particular dealers price cut(s) with national parts.

one particular contract that i have access to prices this battery @ $101 each.... that's a 33% discount over retail, and a smokin' deal for a 2000ma battery with IMPRES technology.

to provide another example, the HNN9033 1875ma NICAD IMPRES retails at $150, dealer cost is $68 and the contract i have access to prices them out at $45 each.... again, this is a 66% price break off retail... awesome!


**THAT WAS A SMART NEGOTIATION**


bottom line is that there is HUGE markup in Motorola OEM batteries..... some are on the order of 400++% from what you can guess "cost" is compared to wholesale and retail.... (i would guess that a 2000ma IMPRES LION pack costs M about $15-$20 to make from start to delivery)

i challenge any of the aftermarket battery guys to make a 1875ma NICAD battery - and sell it for $45 - with the same quality and warranty (24 months on IMPRES NICADs)... sorry guys - it CAN'T BE DONE.


on another topic... just to relay info... i contacted pacific wireless about their 1900ma LION Saber battery (2" tall) - the ad in MRT stated "COMPETITIVE PRICING"... guess how much they are from a pac wireless dealer? $108.00 each.... not such a good deal i suppose.




doug

MotoTech wrote:How can you found out the Version of firmwear in the charger?

Look on the bottom, It should say something like V3.40 or whatever

Throw a motorola battery as high as possible over concrete.
Now do the same with a copy.
The results will speak for themselves.

http://www.motorola.com/governmentanden ... 3%2006.pdf

look at the comparrison and that should answer your questions