Batboard

Motorola XTS3000 XTS5000 Disposable Battery Shell
part # NTN9177 OR NTN9183
has anyone got one or used one
please any and all info would help

What would you like to know about?

Battery life? Durability?

As far as battery life is concerned, my wife has used them a couple of times and has reliably gotten about 7-8 hours out of them. That was without scanning though IIRC.

ok......i was just a lil worried about useing it....cuz it said 9V but whe you put in 12 AA bats they are 1.5 volts so that comes out to 18 volts...dbl what the case has on it.....

The cells are probably arranged into two groups producing 9V each, with the two groups connected in parallel.

The XTS alkaline unit is a pain in the neck to
get on and off the radio, IMHO, if it makes
any difference to you, but it will provide close to
5000 mAh.

I manage a mutual aid radio cache that uses these. The slang term is clamshell pack. They are good & bad. They require 12 AA batteries which means they are heavy. It makes for a lot of work for a COMT to get them loaded with batteries, and also to order enough batteries to keep them running for an incident. It makes the radio about 1" taller & about 3/4" thicker, so it's not real pocket friendly. They go together kind of funky on the radio & there are two real good opportunities to pinch yourself when putting them on the radio (do not press the base against your stomach when mounting the pack to the radio - try it, you'll only do it once). It is kind of hard to get the one cell on the other side of the holder out of it's slot. If crews forget to replace it, it will significantly shorten future pack life. They force the radio to operate on low power, which can cause a range issue when folks are using chest packs with the antenna strapped against their body.

With 12 fresh quality batteries they last a real long time. Just for fun I left a radio on with a pack & it ran the radio, scanning for 3 days. After 1 operational period (12 hrs) of continuous use on a incident we change the batts out & put them out for the crews to have (FREE BATTS). These used batteries have plenty of life left in them.

There is a known issue that sometimes they will get hot and catch on fire. Motorola denies that they will do this, but out of 752 originally purchased, about 200 had to be replaced. It is spectacular when it happens and fortunately if it will happen to a particular pack it will happen while it is being loaded with cells so we've never lost a radio do to a failure.

All in all it was just an effort by Motorola to compete with the BK radios (that have a much better AA clamshell solution) for lucrative NIICD contracts.

RG

ok allen thanks for the info....that helps our alot .. here is what pack i have part # NTN9177 OR NTN9183

I would have thought I would never be confused for Alan Brunacini - thanks

Anyhow, not sure about the part number of the ones we have. I can check in a few days & let you know. Motorola assures us that the non-existent shorting problem has been resolved, and the replacement packs have worked without issue so anything new should be okay.

I'm serious about the pinching. I pressed one against my stomach to close it last summer and I still have a mark.

It is not a good solution for daily use. It's bulky, heavy, and if you are footing the bill for batteries, it will get expensive quickly.

Regards

Robert

I'm SO SORRY robert.......i will be useing my as a "back up" thanks for the update and please let me know

Did you look here, I think this is the same thing.

http://www.batteryzone.com/detail.tpl?S ... ifications

bulletproof-791,

I have the same part numbers as you - Kit Number NTN9177 or NTN9183, both numbers on the same item.

Robert

ok robert thanks for the info....the 1 i have work really good just had no idea if anyone elae had any problems....thanks again

Does anyone know why and how the NTN9177/9183 clamshell battery cuts the Tx power in half on
the XTS3000 or XTS5000. They use 12 cells which have 2 each in parallel and thus the voltage available is
6 x 1.5 VDC or 9 volts for a 7.5 volt radio. Anybody know why Moto does this?

Mike

MtComm wrote:Does anyone know why and how the NTN9177/9183 clamshell battery cuts the Tx power in half on
the XTS3000 or XTS5000. They use 12 cells which have 2 each in parallel and thus the voltage available is
6 x 1.5 VDC or 9 volts for a 7.5 volt radio. Anybody know why Moto does this?

Mike

Alkaline AAs have sufficiently high internal resistance to make delivery of the power necessary to run the radio at full output a way to ensure a quick death of the batteries. Kenwood does similar, but simply states that you must program the channels at low power.

Lithium AAs would resolve the power delivery problems... but I don't know of any way to force the radio to remain at 5W output.

Thanks for the reply. I believe that two alkalines in parallel have more current capacity than any of the
rechargeables and more Ah's. How does the radio know to cut the power back to half power?

Thanks, Mike

UpDate:

Clamshell AA battery holder for XTS5000 radios. CAM8299-OR from Battery Zone, about $24.99 ea., also in black.

Just got some for a customer and they look good.