I am looking for feedback on which batteries people have had best luck with. Is NICAD or NIMH better for radio -why?
What brands or suppliers of batteries have people had good or bad luck with? I need to replace the batteries a couple of my ht's and have found so many different prices from different places I was hoping to get some ideas on what is good and what to stay away from.
Batteries- NICAD or NIMH - Origanal or After market
Moderator: Queue Moderator
HI:
Unfortunitley, you may get as many opinions
on this issue as there are types of batteries.
In short, you should select a battery based
on Duty Cycle and what the users needs are.
if you are a average user, and only using your
radios time to time, the good old trusty Ni-cad
Battery from the Origainal Company ( Like Motorola )
is not a bad idea....( they now have a 18 Month warrantee
on most batteries )
Not to say [ Aftermarket ] batteries are poor, its just
been my observation over a couple of decades, many
aftermarket mfgs will use a varity of Primary Cells.
One time they may use Panasonic cells ( which are
very good in my opinion ) next time, you might find
Hitachi Cells....next time who knows.
In view of Motorola's approch....I have to say even they
use a varity...Some good / some not so good....But when
one can buy @ wholesale, get a 18 Month Warrantee, and
even get a date code [ exceeeding ] the date purchased,
you get a pretty good bang from your bucks.
Beware of [ Counter-fit ] Motorola batteries....Some of those
are made in China, have a attractive price, but only last
3 to 6 months...Motorola will not warrantee those batteries.
Generally made for the HT1000 / GP300 series batteries, and
look identical to the ( /\/\) ones...
Metal-Nickle Hydride Batteries, are good batteries too
for a spacific application.....They work great up until the
alram beep is herd on the radio, then they die like a discharging
capictor ! 5-10 seconds later, radio goes dead....Ni-Cads discharge
at a much slower rate....
Also, Metal-Nickle Hydride Batteries/ Ion batteries require
intellachargers to charge properly in most cases.
When in doubt, buy the Proper Battery for your radio. If its
Motorola, hunt around, you can sometimes get a better price
than user ( which is horribly expensive )
Monty
Unfortunitley, you may get as many opinions
on this issue as there are types of batteries.
In short, you should select a battery based
on Duty Cycle and what the users needs are.
if you are a average user, and only using your
radios time to time, the good old trusty Ni-cad
Battery from the Origainal Company ( Like Motorola )
is not a bad idea....( they now have a 18 Month warrantee
on most batteries )
Not to say [ Aftermarket ] batteries are poor, its just
been my observation over a couple of decades, many
aftermarket mfgs will use a varity of Primary Cells.
One time they may use Panasonic cells ( which are
very good in my opinion ) next time, you might find
Hitachi Cells....next time who knows.
In view of Motorola's approch....I have to say even they
use a varity...Some good / some not so good....But when
one can buy @ wholesale, get a 18 Month Warrantee, and
even get a date code [ exceeeding ] the date purchased,
you get a pretty good bang from your bucks.
Beware of [ Counter-fit ] Motorola batteries....Some of those
are made in China, have a attractive price, but only last
3 to 6 months...Motorola will not warrantee those batteries.
Generally made for the HT1000 / GP300 series batteries, and
look identical to the ( /\/\) ones...
Metal-Nickle Hydride Batteries, are good batteries too
for a spacific application.....They work great up until the
alram beep is herd on the radio, then they die like a discharging
capictor ! 5-10 seconds later, radio goes dead....Ni-Cads discharge
at a much slower rate....
Also, Metal-Nickle Hydride Batteries/ Ion batteries require
intellachargers to charge properly in most cases.
When in doubt, buy the Proper Battery for your radio. If its
Motorola, hunt around, you can sometimes get a better price
than user ( which is horribly expensive )
Monty
Last edited by Nand on Sun Jan 18, 2004 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
Normally I would agree with Nand but in the case of P1225 portables I have seen some customers radios coming in with aftermarket NiMh that are a direct drop in replacement. I believe that they were JBro brand but they seem to be holding up much better then that piece of crap Nicad that Motorola has been shipping with their portable. I have had a lot of problems with Motorola Nicad P1225 batteries 
MicorRT
Our experiance here on hundreds of portables of various types, HT1000 Sabre, GP, SP, and on and on, the Motorola batteries are the best with a realy good warantee with the Multiplier replacement batteries a second.
Allways stay clear of the bargan batteries and the cut rate suposed Motorola batteries, the are not worth the savings. There are several places selling "Motorola" batteries that are old stock, out of factory warranty or knock offs.
Allways stay clear of the bargan batteries and the cut rate suposed Motorola batteries, the are not worth the savings. There are several places selling "Motorola" batteries that are old stock, out of factory warranty or knock offs.
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Tom in D.C.
- Posts: 3859
- Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2001 4:00 pm
- What radios do you own?: Progreso soup can with CRT
batteries...
No one has mentioned this yet to answer the question which was posed by the person who started this thread.
A Nicad battery is believed by many persons to have a memory, which means that if measures are not taken to overcome the factor (such as charge/discharge cycled reconditioning) the battery will be unable to discharge normally. OTOH, Nickel Metal Hydride batteries supposedly don't suffer from this defect, and in addition have more capacity, ounce for ounce, than a Nicad, so you might have a Nicad cell which is rated at 1800 mAh and a same-size NiMH cell rated at 2400 mAh or even more.
I charge both types of battery in Motorola 4734 Saber intellichargers and they work fine and seem to last forever. If I think of it I let the NiMH sit longer after the green light comes on which is supposed to raise it from 80% to 100%, but I can't tell if this actually happens.
Tom,W2NJS
...in D.C.
A Nicad battery is believed by many persons to have a memory, which means that if measures are not taken to overcome the factor (such as charge/discharge cycled reconditioning) the battery will be unable to discharge normally. OTOH, Nickel Metal Hydride batteries supposedly don't suffer from this defect, and in addition have more capacity, ounce for ounce, than a Nicad, so you might have a Nicad cell which is rated at 1800 mAh and a same-size NiMH cell rated at 2400 mAh or even more.
I charge both types of battery in Motorola 4734 Saber intellichargers and they work fine and seem to last forever. If I think of it I let the NiMH sit longer after the green light comes on which is supposed to raise it from 80% to 100%, but I can't tell if this actually happens.
Tom,W2NJS
...in D.C.