TYT MD-380

[kc4jgc]

This week I'd purchased this UHF DMR/FM HT from a friend who'd won it in a raffle last fall. After spending a couple days of getting acquainted with the HT & making a couple contacts, the battery pack ran out, of course.

Here's the problem; the battery pack apparently will not charge in the supplied charger, even after carefully following the instructions in the manual! The light is green (charge complete) the second the the BP is placed in the charger. Breaking with stated procedure, I turned the HT on. The light started to slowly flash red/green. I kept it like this for quite a while. Did not charge at all.

I'm going to call the friend later today; in the meantime I thought I'd ask the gallery here if anyone had experienced the same issue and had a solution.

Ideas?

TNX ES 73,

Sent from my Classic using Tapatalk

 

[w2xq]

If I understand what you ask, a charger should behave as follows:

1. The charger turns red upon inserting a drained BP.
2. The charger turns green when when the BP is fully charged.
3. The charger will not support a radio turned on.

For the little bit of money and to minimze aggravation, i would just get a replacement charger and a second battery. I use buytwowayradios.com in SC for quick delivery, but that's me.

HTH a bit.

 

[kc4jgc]

If I understand what you ask, a charger should behave as follows:

1. The charger turns red upon inserting a drained BP.
2. The charger turns green when when the BP is fully charged.
3. The charger will not support a radio turned on.
{/quote]
Yes, that's how it SHOULD behave. Although it would seem to be my luck it's not behaving properly now, I'm going to ask the friend if the charger had ever behaved this way and what he did to correct the problem. The HT was sold to me with the BP fully charged.

For the little bit of money and to minimize aggravation, i would just get a replacement charger and a second battery. I use buytwowayradios.com in SC for quick delivery, but that's me.

HTH a bit.

TNX Tom; It will be an option. Once I talk to the friend (I see he's out of town on an emergency trip) and learn something, I'll decide on the next course of action. In the meantime I've ordered the battery eliminator for this HT.

 

[Ubbe]

There's a voltage sensor in the charger and when the voltage reaches the value that equals a fully charged battery it turns green and stops charging. A flashing green/red LED indicate battery fault. It seems that one cell in the battery have gone bad. Keep the battery in the charger over night and then turn on radio to discharge it and turn off again and charge. If the LED doesn't turn red after a couple of days then the battery are beyond any type of repair.

But you haven't actually seen that the charger actually works. It could also be the wall wart that have gone bad and are probably the first to suspect. It's a standard 12v supply so you can use anyone from a scanner or whatever you have at hand to use as a test.

/Ubbe

 

[buddrousa]

One of my md380's had a battery go bad that did the same thing replaced the battery and the problem went away

 

[kc4jgc]

The friend thinks he may have given me the wrong charger. He had no issues with charging before the sale. As stated before at the time of sale it was fully charged. When he gets back home we'll do a charger swap to see if that works. Does TYT have similar looking chargers that have different outputs? The output on this is 8.4v 400-450 mAh.

The other thing that strikes me as odd is the charger LED lights up green the second I plug it into the wall. Is that normal for these chargers? I wouldn't think anything would light up until the BP is inserted. The LED still stays green when the BP is inserted and HT turned off. This is why I believe the charging unit is not charging at all. So Ubbe, I've been operating under the assumption that the charger is bad. I hope to find that out for sure later in the week.

 

[Ubbe]

It's green without a battery as the voltage are not pulled down by the battery. It is a very simple charger that just outputs a voltage and when it goes to the max value it turns green but pulled down by battery to a lower value it turns red. 8,4V are the correct voltage without a load.

/Ubbe

 

[kc4jgc]

Update:
After talking with the friend he had told me that he had been charging the BP with an ICOM charger. The charger that came with the HT never worked! I went ahead and made a second purchase in as many weeks from buytwowayradios.com. THANKS TOM FOR THAT TIP!! I first purchased a battery eliminator which allowed me to power up mobile and to program codeplugs. I then purchased a replacement desk charger Sunday; just received it today. Placed the BP in the charger; it's charging!

You're right Tom; quick delivery both times. Awesome service.

BTW, I'd opened the original charger up a few nights ago; found that only 2 of the terminals were connected. The center terminal, which I'm guessing would have been monitoring the charge status wasn't connected to anything. I'm not opening the new one up to see if I'm right though....

 

[Ubbe]

As I explained there's no third terminal involved. The charger have a minus and plus terminal and without load the LED is green as the voltage goes to it's maximum at 8,4volts. If the battery voltage are lower when inserted in the charger the LED turns red and will charge until the voltage reaches 8,4v which then will turn on the green LED and the charger keeps the battery voltage at 8,4v.

/Ubbe

 

[kc4jgc]

Thanks for explaining (again). I'm at a loss what the problem is.... A look at the board showed nothing burned out. Guess it's a defect....

 

[w2xq]

Glad the tip on the buytwowayradios.com helped. For me, it would have been easier to buy a battery and charger at the outset. Clearly you have more patience than me. I'm too old...