Whistler TRX-1 Battery question

Got my TRX-1 scanner couple weeks ago now. Bought Energizer rechargeable batteries from Walmart. Noticing consistently that after a full charge (overnight) that the batteries only last about 1 hour.
Light level is set to "LOW" but I do leave it on because I can't see the display without the light.


Better brand of batteries to use? Nature of the beast?

Best advise I can give you, charge the batteries in a good quality battery charger. I have used Energizer batteries in the past, they are good for a little while, but do not have that good longevity IMO.

Some genius wrapped some of the Energizers in metallic conductive material for the green ones and will fail sooner, rather than later, once dead they work as great "weights" in scanners. You might wanna take a look at the Eneloops & Imedions on Amazon, they are a lot better w longevity and "ScanTime" and even take a look at a really smart charger that can do cells individually like Maha c9000 charger, it comes highly recommended by many owners. Appx: 1hr vs 11hrs is the difference in quality & 4 months vs 22months in longevity especially with the quality charger.

Ed6698 said:

Best advise I can give you, charge the batteries in a good quality battery charger. I have used Energizer batteries in the past, they are good for a little while, but do not have that good longevity IMO.

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Yes! USE AN EXTERNAL CHARGER. All Whistler's barely puts a charge into batteries. It will take weeks to fully charge 2xxxMa set of batteries.

in the manual

it says you can set the charge time. what is it set to ?
also that does not mean how long it takes to fully charge them. it is the time they get a 500 Mah charge.
it also says to use an external charger when possible to maintain the batteries.
radios just send a charge to the batteries even when fully charged. why cook them ?
a smart charger stops when an individual cell is full.
and a good charger can be set to show you how much the cell can hold.
they change over time. my 2500 are down to 1600 to 1000 after a year.
but i also never plug my radio in, this is florida, land of lightning.

idea

Weeks?!!!,I use a 2AMP 5 volt USB charger(plugged into the scanner) and it charges all night from 12PM to 10AM, I can use it 8 hours,with light level on low and the LEDs off except for my town,(3 channels) Volume is set at 20. Its a Duracell 2400MAH batteries I use and they are green and brown looking shiny. Scratch the tops and bottoms of all the batteries for best contact. Current son,Current! PS I think it should COME WITH THE SCANNER THIS CHARGER!

k2ool said:

Weeks?!!!,I use a 2AMP 5 volt USB charger(plugged into the scanner) and it charges all night from 12PM to 10AM, I can use it 8 hours,with light level on low and the LEDs off except for my town,(3 channels) Volume is set at 20. Its a Duracell 2400MAH batteries I use and they are green and brown looking shiny. Scratch the tops and bottoms of all the batteries for best contact. Current son,Current! PS I think it should COME WITH THE SCANNER THIS CHARGER!

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I remember seeing a post a while back that Whistler's only allow like 14mA to charge no matter what the power level of the USB 5v supply is. If you have a GRE made unit then those charged at a much higher value.

TAbirdman said:

Yes! USE AN EXTERNAL CHARGER. All Whistler's barely puts a charge into batteries. It will take weeks to fully charge 2xxxMa set of batteries.

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TAbirdman said:

I remember seeing a post a while back that Whistler's only allow like 14mA to charge no matter what the power level of the USB 5v supply is. If you have a GRE made unit then those charged at a much higher value.

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The slow charge rates were for the WS1040. The WS1040 is where the 14 mA came from, but it is not necessarily the same for the WS1080 onward.

Spitfire8520 said:

The slow charge rates were for the WS1040. The WS1040 is where the 14 mA came from, but it is not necessarily the same for the WS1080 onward.

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I imagine the California Energy Commission places constraints on the charging circuitry of all Whistler scanners.

As others have said get a decent charger and charge them externally. After you kill those batteries get some good eneloop brand NiMH batteries (or their rebranded variants). Other options would be conversion to Lithium-Ion or polymer.

These are my favorites for my PRO-668. Should work just as well in the TRX-1.

k2ool said:

Weeks?!!!,I use a 2AMP 5 volt USB charger(plugged into the scanner) and it charges all night from 12PM to 10AM, I can use it 8 hours,with light level on low and the LEDs off except for my town,(3 channels) Volume is set at 20. Its a Duracell 2400MAH batteries I use and they are green and brown looking shiny. Scratch the tops and bottoms of all the batteries for best contact. Current son,Current! PS I think it should COME WITH THE SCANNER THIS CHARGER!

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I just tested my TRX-1 battery life last night. Using 3 2300 OEM 396XT batteries, and 1 Eneloop 1900 battery, with the light set on full time low, no LED's, scanning active system medium high volume level, turned on at 10PM, and the scanner auto shutdown at 7AM. Very disappointing, I was expecting at least 20 hour of runtime. :-(

Picking up my 2500mAH Eneloop Pro kit this weekend.......comes with smart charger that can charge 4 AA or AAA batteries independently, so I can charge 3 396XT/436HP batteries also.

Paul

Anderegg said:

I just tested my TRX-1 battery life last night. Using 3 2300 OEM 396XT batteries, and 1 Eneloop 1900 battery, with the light set on full time low, no LED's, scanning active system medium high volume level, turned on at 10PM, and the scanner auto shutdown at 7AM. Very disappointing, I was expecting at least 20 hour of runtime. :-(

Picking up my 2500mAH Eneloop Pro kit this weekend.......comes with smart charger that can charge 4 AA or AAA batteries independently, so I can charge 3 396XT/436HP batteries also.

Paul

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You will never get 20 hours, the best I ever got out of the Eneloop Pros is about 13.5 hours and that was on a new set, using a Maha charger also.

By the way mixing rechargeable batteries is not a good idea.

Only using that config because the batteries haven't arrived at BestBuy yet, and my Unidens (3 each!) were my only battery source for now

13.5 hours sounds sweet!

Paul

I got hooked on this brand when I learned of them through a photography group. The are one of the best performers for external flashes and I have been using them for years. I would also recommend an external charger. The Maha's are good, but I use the one below that has very nice features for the price.

Batteries
https://www.amazon.com/Powerex-MHRA...=1469245459&sr=8-2&keywords=powerex+batteries

Charger
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RSOV50/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The powerex 2700mAh are ok, but depends on application. If you have high drain and continous use they would be a good choice. If the application fits, the price is right. The newer LSD batteries like the eneloop are more useful in a wider variety of applications. i use them in camera flashes and rhey are fine, and probably better in any external remotes. I'm not a heavy flash user though so they support my use-case perfectly.

The lacrosse 700 charger is one of my main chargers in the past i'd buy them in kits for $24-26. Technically though some of my other chargers are better according to several tests by professionals, and can offer more analysis features. For just regular people though that just want to recharge their batteries the 700 is good as long as they can get the batteries in there fast enough and remember to hit the button to change the charge current to 500mAh. The charger defaults to 200mAh and that's too slow for most people with current batteries and may be a problem with older batteries that are not maintained causing missed termination. It would be better with todays batteries if the charger defaulted to 500mAh for easier plug and play. Most battery people are recommending one step up in a charger.

For a scanner that was being used exclusively from batteries wuth a high duty cycle i'd opt for a couple sets of regular eneloop over the pros and keep an extra charged set. The LSD is not so important for continous use application, but the batteries are of high quality and versitile. The pros are better and more cost-effective in higher drain devices like transmitters and such.

Anderegg said:

Only using that config because the batteries haven't arrived at BestBuy yet, and my Unidens (3 each!) were my only battery source for now

13.5 hours sounds sweet!

Paul

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If your scanner is relatively active i think you'll see quite a bit under that estimate. I think your test with the oem batteries is typical. You might get a bit more with the eneloop pro, and the charger will keep them working well as they age.

You guys were right. Externally charging the batteries was it. When I installed those new rechargeable batteries and charged it in the scanner here and there and a few overnights even, the batteries would very quickly die after less than an hour. After buying new rechargeable batteries with wall charger, I'm scanning away 2 hours later with still a full battery charge showing on the display

Any charger that charges cells individually is the best way to go. I have 2 of these, been using them for a few years now.

https://www.amazon.com/PowerEx-MH-C9000-WizardOne-Charger-Analyzer-Batteries/dp/B003DIGKOG

I would imagine using a wall charger would be better then trying to charge in scanner.

Comp-100 said:

If your scanner is relatively active i think you'll see quite a bit under that estimate. I think your test with the oem batteries is typical. You might get a bit more with the eneloop pro, and the charger will keep them working well as they age.

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I just tested my new Eneloop Pro's on the TRX-1.......yep, ran for 13.5 hours before beeping and dying. Only beeped for about 2 minutes before shutting off though.

Paul