Battery issue

[bellersley]

Hi guys. I'm trying to diagnose a problem with a friend's GP68 radio.

When it charges on a rapid charger all night, the radio complains of a low battery right away. However, the radio lasts a full 8 or 9 hours of use before it dies.

The charger that came with it was one of these ebay knock-offs. It says on the bottom of the charger that it's a 220V charger however he was told it is for sure a 120V unit. The charger isn't a problem any more as I did an oops by plugging it into a 220V source. Magic smoke! (without the battery in the charger).

I'm thinking that one of the cells in the battery has gone south and is showing the radio lower than normal voltage. I'm not near a meter so I can't check it right now. Any other ideas, aside from that?

Thanks!

[escomm]

My first idea is that it's a cheap knockoff charger. Do you have another charger to compare against?

[Tom in D.C.]

If five out of six cells are good, really good, that is, and
have charged up to their max of maybe 1.44 volts each then
the pack has 7.2 volts available, which would probably be
plenty to run the radio for quite a while.

I vote for the pack having one dead/shorted cell.

[bellersley]

Tom, that's exactly what I had figured.

escomm, I tried charging the battery on a known good charger and it does the same thing, so I doubt it's a charger issue. The battery is a 2001 date code so it's probably about time for replacement anyway.