SDS100/SDS200: Battery dying fast

[FoeHammer]

I have 2 batteries for my sds 100 with the external charger , they seemed pretty good at first lasting quite a while , now it seems they deplete much faster , I run with the display in black & white mode & only coming on when there is a signal , its there some way to recalibrate or rejuvenate these batteries ? I dont usually leave them on the charger , I dont know if its memory effect , bad cells or what but they are fairly new , I haven changed anything in the radio that would be depleted them any faster , its kind of disappointing , what if I lower the voltage cutoff run it down & then charge them ? or is that a bad idea ?

 

[palmerjrusa]

I have the SDS100 with the original smaller battery and the larger capacity cell provided by Uniden for free. I also bought the external charger that came with an additional larger battery.
Being as efficient as possible I get around 5 hours with the smaller cell and about 8 hours with the larger cell.

With Li-ion cells you have to keep them within a certain voltage range. The lower the voltage you allow them to experience the more stress you place on them. I set the voltage alarm on my SDS100 to 3.6V instead of 3.2V to prevent stressing the battery. When the voltage is at 3.6V you only have a few minutes before it reaches 3.2V.

I continually cycle between using my two high capacity cells and haven't noticed any degradation in their performance.

I would do a check on how long you are getting with the larger cell, it should be around 8 hours being as efficient as possible.

 

[palmerjrusa]

I have 2 batteries for my sds 100 with the external charger , they seemed pretty good at first lasting quite a while , now it seems they deplete much faster , I run with the display in black & white mode & only coming on when there is a signal , its there some way to recalibrate or rejuvenate these batteries ? I dont usually leave them on the charger , I dont know if its memory effect , bad cells or what but they are fairly new , I haven changed anything in the radio that would be depleted them any faster , its kind of disappointing , what if I lower the voltage cutoff run it down & then charge them ? or is that a bad idea ?

Li-ion cells don't exhibit the memory effect.

 

[nessnet]

1. B&W mode will make no difference.
   It's the backlight that sucks juice, not the color of the display.
   Not keeping the backlight on is good practice for longer batt life.
   
   2. NiCad batteries have "memory effect" - these are Li-Ion as palmerjusa states and the advice they give is accurate.​

 

[palmerjrusa]

1. B&W mode will make no difference.
   It's the backlight that sucks juice, not the color of the display.
   Not keeping the backlight on is good practice for longer batt life.
   
   2. NiCad batteries have "memory effect" - these are Li-Ion as palmerjusa states and the advice they give is accurate.​

I did a test run on my SDS100 with the display on continually and only on when the squelch opened. It didn't make as much difference as I expected. If I'm remembering correctly only approximately 30 mins difference, i.e. 30 mins longer with the display only on when the squelch opened.

 

[FoeHammer]

ok well I thought I had my display set to only come on with signal , but it seems to stay on after a signal triggers it now , ill have to check the settings & see whats going on here

 

[WB9YBM]

I have 2 batteries for my sds 100 with the external charger , they seemed pretty good at first lasting quite a while , now it seems they deplete much faster , I run with the display in black & white mode & only coming on when there is a signal , its there some way to recalibrate or rejuvenate these batteries ? I dont usually leave them on the charger , I dont know if its memory effect , bad cells or what but they are fairly new , I haven changed anything in the radio that would be depleted them any faster , its kind of disappointing , what if I lower the voltage cutoff run it down & then charge them ? or is that a bad idea ?

When a battery gets old "sludge" collects at the bottom of the cell(-s)--in worst-case scenerios this will cause internal shorts. Since you mentioned that they're new, maybe it's just a matter of having less-than-perfect batteries to begin with (stranger things have been known to happen).

 

[palmerjrusa]

ok well I thought I had my display set to only come on with signal , but it seems to stay on after a signal triggers it now , ill have to check the settings & see whats going on here

On my SDS100 with the display set at 70% brightness and only on when the squelch opens, the vol. at 5 and monitoring a busy P25 trucked system I get around 8 hours of use before the voltage drops to 6.2v. I checked this again recently and it was still around 8 hours so my large capacity cells seem to be holding up well.

 

[nanZor]

Some tips for keeping what you have healthy, and also a way to gauge (other than just shortened operating time) loss of capacity:

Degradation, other than just from normal use, comes from heat, and *time* spent at the extremes of charge/discharge.

Heat: if you are comfortable, so are the batts. If you are uncomfortable, then the batts will accellerate the problems listed below:

If you have spares, don't keep them fully charged (even if removed from the charger) for more than 2 weeks at a time. Use them a little bit - get them "off the top" so to speak. Operationally, I leave mine at about 80% charge if not being used for more than two weeks. Others may want to keep them lower like at 50% or so.

If discharged, especially if set to the lower voltages, don't let them sit around like that. Get them back on the charger to get *some* charge back into them to get them off-the-bottom. You don't have to fully recharge, just get something into them to get away from the lowest extreme.

Nerd info: (I'm one). Too much time spent at the extreme full charge results in secondary reactions (those not involved with charge or discharge) that "plate" or clog the SEI layer. Think paper-towl and turkey gravy as a very poor analogy. At the lower extremes of discharge, too much time there results in materials being pulled from the anodes/cathodes structure, contaminating the electrolyte, such as it is. Not good.

Measure: Most consider batteries for replacment when they have degraded to only provide about 80% of their original capacity. If you let a battery fully recharge, remove it from the charger, and let it sit overnight / 12 hours or so and take a voltage measurement with an accurate voltmeter to see what it "settles" to. If the single cell has settled to less than 4.0v (give or take), then you have reached the 80% capacity point. Use a quality voltmeter, not the radio - which will put a load on it. We are interested in "resting" voltages after 12 hours.

Of course this is not lab-accurate. BUT, it will allow you to *baseline* your battery performance a little bit and keep tabs on it say month to month or whatever your timescale for doing this is.

 

[kruser]

When a battery gets old "sludge" collects at the bottom of the cell(-s)--in worst-case scenerios this will cause internal shorts. Since you mentioned that they're new, maybe it's just a matter of having less-than-perfect batteries to begin with (stranger things have been known to happen).

That was a problem with the old NiCD cells. They would develop 'whiskers' and short the cells. Applying a high current and higher voltage to a shorted cell for a fraction of a second would often burn the whiskers open and allow the cell to work again. They would usually short out again though if you let the cell voltage drop too low so it was only a temporary fix until new cells could be installed.

I've not heard of a similar problem with Lithium cells of any type.

 

[palmerjrusa]

Some tips for keeping what you have healthy, and also a way to gauge (other than just shortened operating time) loss of capacity:

Degradation, other than just from normal use, comes from heat, and *time* spent at the extremes of charge/discharge.

Heat: if you are comfortable, so are the batts. If you are uncomfortable, then the batts will accellerate the problems listed below:

If you have spares, don't keep them fully charged (even if removed from the charger) for more than 2 weeks at a time. Use them a little bit - get them "off the top" so to speak. Operationally, I leave mine at about 80% charge if not being used for more than two weeks. Others may want to keep them lower like at 50% or so.

If discharged, especially if set to the lower voltages, don't let them sit around like that. Get them back on the charger to get *some* charge back into them to get them off-the-bottom. You don't have to fully recharge, just get something into them to get away from the lowest extreme.

Nerd info: (I'm one). Too much time spent at the extreme full charge results in secondary reactions (those not involved with charge or discharge) that "plate" or clog the SEI layer. Think paper-towl and turkey gravy as a very poor analogy. At the lower extremes of discharge, too much time there results in materials being pulled from the anodes/cathodes structure, contaminating the electrolyte, such as it is. Not good.

Measure: Most consider batteries for replacment when they have degraded to only provide about 80% of their original capacity. If you let a battery fully recharge, remove it from the charger, and let it sit overnight / 12 hours or so and take a voltage measurement with an accurate voltmeter to see what it "settles" to. If the single cell has settled to less than 4.0v (give or take), then you have reached the 80% capacity point. Use a quality voltmeter, not the radio - which will put a load on it. We are interested in "resting" voltages after 12 hours.

Of course this is not lab-accurate. BUT, it will allow you to *baseline* your battery performance a little bit and keep tabs on it say month to month or whatever your timescale for doing this is.

Replacement at 80%?
There's still a lot of life left when the cell is only exhibiting 80% of its capacity!

I know how to treat Li-ion cells well and I'm surprised at the variance between batteries.
I owned a top of the line iPod and soon after I started using it the cell's capacity fell to around 40% of what it should have been...it bummed me out for Apple products.

Meanwhile, I own an Amazon Fire Kindle that was purchased more than six years ago (one of the very high definition tablets that Amazon made for a short while). I 've used this tablet daily for years, it's in use daily (started charging it up this morning as I do every morning), and I'm still getting close to the maximum hours stated for when this tablet was new. The battery app I used to monitor it's health still says it's in very good shape. At this point I'm way beyond the expected useful life cycle of a Li-ion cell.

 

[palmerjrusa]

I have the SDS100 with the original smaller battery and the larger capacity cell provided by Uniden for free. I also bought the external charger that came with an additional larger battery.
Being as efficient as possible I get around 5 hours with the smaller cell and about 8 hours with the larger cell.

With Li-ion cells you have to keep them within a certain voltage range. The lower the voltage you allow them to experience the more stress you place on them. I set the voltage alarm on my SDS100 to 3.6V instead of 3.2V to prevent stressing the battery. When the voltage is at 3.6V you only have a few minutes before it reaches 3.2V.

I continually cycle between using my two high capacity cells and haven't noticed any degradation in their performance.

I would do a check on how long you are getting with the larger cell, it should be around 8 hours being as efficient as possible.

On my SDS100 with the display set at 70% brightness and only on when the squelch opens, the vol. at 5 and monitoring a busy P25 trucked system I get around 8 hours of use before the voltage drops to 6.2v. I checked this again recently and it was still around 8 hours so my large capacity cells seem to be holding up well.

This should read "I get around 8 hours of use before the voltage drops to 3.6v.", not "I get around 8 hours of use before the voltage drops to 6.2v."

 

[WB9YBM]

Some tips for keeping what you have healthy, and also a way to gauge (other than just shortened operating time) loss of capacity:

Degradation, other than just from normal use, comes from heat, and *time* spent at the extremes of charge/discharge.

Heat: if you are comfortable, so are the batts. If you are uncomfortable, then the batts will accellerate the problems listed below:

If you have spares, don't keep them fully charged (even if removed from the charger) for more than 2 weeks at a time. Use them a little bit - get them "off the top" so to speak. Operationally, I leave mine at about 80% charge if not being used for more than two weeks. Others may want to keep them lower like at 50% or so.

If discharged, especially if set to the lower voltages, don't let them sit around like that. Get them back on the charger to get *some* charge back into them to get them off-the-bottom. You don't have to fully recharge, just get something into them to get away from the lowest extreme.

Nerd info: (I'm one). Too much time spent at the extreme full charge results in secondary reactions (those not involved with charge or discharge) that "plate" or clog the SEI layer. Think paper-towl and turkey gravy as a very poor analogy. At the lower extremes of discharge, too much time there results in materials being pulled from the anodes/cathodes structure, contaminating the electrolyte, such as it is. Not good.

Measure: Most consider batteries for replacment when they have degraded to only provide about 80% of their original capacity. If you let a battery fully recharge, remove it from the charger, and let it sit overnight / 12 hours or so and take a voltage measurement with an accurate voltmeter to see what it "settles" to. If the single cell has settled to less than 4.0v (give or take), then you have reached the 80% capacity point. Use a quality voltmeter, not the radio - which will put a load on it. We are interested in "resting" voltages after 12 hours.

Of course this is not lab-accurate. BUT, it will allow you to *baseline* your battery performance a little bit and keep tabs on it say month to month or whatever your timescale for doing this is.

There are also a few good references out there; the most recent one I came across is "A Better Battery Charger" in the January 2019 issue (pages 51-4) of CQ Magazine, which discusses battery memory, charge rates, charge levels, and building a battery charger that won't over-charge (the article has a schematic).

 

[kruser]

There are also a few good references out there; the most recent one I came across is "A Better Battery Charger" in the January 2019 issue (pages 51-4) of CQ Magazine, which discusses battery memory, charge rates, charge levels, and building a battery charger that won't over-charge (the article has a schematic).

That's the info I need, a charger that won't overcharge for some of my older radios that were designed when NiCad was the only thing around.
It can get tricky charging Lithium or even NiMH cells in many of the old portables that did not have removable cells without disassembling the battery packs.
Switching those old radios to NiMH is probably the safest by far but you will sure burn up cells if you don't watch the charging.
Thanks for the CQ mention, I need to grab that one and see what it says.