I see those batteries are made in China, and those are definitely lithium-ion polymer batteries for those pouches reveal them as so.
SDS100/SDS200: 2nd swollen SDS100 battery in 1 year
- Thread starter W5ATX
- Start date
As numerous posts have suggested, swelling batteries (SDS100) might lead to fire and or explosion… I am NOT of that opinion. But I am also not someone who can speak to the technical aspects of these batteries. So, I ask that some techno wizard knowledgeable in the care and feeding of the Uniden offering weigh in and finally put a stop to all the miss-information floating around. I emphasize the following… I haven’t seen ANY post that reported one of these batteries did anything more than swell. The batteries DO NOT catch fire and or explode. If they did we would have heard by now. And since we haven’t, it’s time to get the straight poop on WHY they ONLY swell when they go bad. Trust seems to be the only missing piece of information regarding these batteries.
That being said, it’s commendable, those who have take the extra steps to assure they don’t damage their radio or burn the house down. They state simply “Until I know for sure the batteries are safe, I’m not leaving one in my SDS100 unattended, and I am certainly not leaving it in my brand new $54K automobile!” Maybe a bit of an overkill but commendable just the same.
That being said, it’s commendable, those who have take the extra steps to assure they don’t damage their radio or burn the house down. They state simply “Until I know for sure the batteries are safe, I’m not leaving one in my SDS100 unattended, and I am certainly not leaving it in my brand new $54K automobile!” Maybe a bit of an overkill but commendable just the same.
Let me put it this way....
When Li-Ion batteries were first being invented and commercialized, there were a number of labs that were 'catastrophically re-arranged' in the process. Yes - BOOM!!
These Uniden batteries are Li-Ion - period.
ALL Li-Ion batteries are (can be) little bombs. Great care (hopefully) is put into the design of them and their charging circuits to prevent/(minimize) this.
Ask the pilot(s) that have had them catch fire on their aircraft (and thus, there are FAA regulations concerning them).
Remember Samsung and the Note7? (2.5 million devices were recalled around the world.)
Don't f#@! around with ANY Li-Ion battery!!!!
If they swell, etc. IMMEDIATELY take every precaution.
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palmerjrusa
Member
Li-Ion cells almost brought down one of those new jumbo sized commercial airliners when they decided to self-combust.
After that incident changes were instituted...
That’s correct.
smason
Member
I didn't read all 7 pages, so this may have been mentioned already, maybe even by me.
Here's an entertaining subreddit with lots of swollen batteries:
www.reddit.com
Here's an entertaining subreddit with lots of swollen batteries:
Reddit - Dive into anything
www.reddit.com
Ubbe
Member
If you are familiar with gunpowder you probably know that if you have some in the open on a table and set fire to it it just says swosh and burn up. But if you have the gunpowder in a closed container like a cartridge or wrapped in a lot of hard packed paper like in a fire cracker and ignite it it will swell and expand until the pressure gets too high and the firecracker goes bang or the bullet shoots out with a bang.
Unidens SDS100 batteries have their cells in an open soft plastic container secured by electrical tape so that the cells can expand freely and the cell pouches are big enough to handle the swell without ripping. The battery door clip are made flimsy to make sure it breaks and not trap the battery in the scanner. I might be possible that it could be some kind of an explosion if a stronger clip where used to hold the battery door in place and will stop the cells from expanding until the pressure gets too high, like in a fire cracker.
/Ubbe
“In all of these fires, these lithium-ion fires, it is not a slow burn; there’s not a small amount of fire, it literally explodes,” FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh told reporters. “It’s a tremendous volume of fire as soon as it happens, and it’s very difficult to extinguish and so it’s particularly dangerous.”
That said, our friend Ubbe has it correct.
It is just important to remember: All lithium-ion batteries use flammable materials and under the right circumstances, fires can result because of “thermal runaway,” a chain reaction which can lead to a fire or catastrophic explosion, if ...
That said, our friend Ubbe has it correct.
It is just important to remember: All lithium-ion batteries use flammable materials and under the right circumstances, fires can result because of “thermal runaway,” a chain reaction which can lead to a fire or catastrophic explosion, if ...
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paramedic228
Member
I had to replace the high capacity battery for my SDS100 this past June. I noticed tonight that that replacement has now gone bad too (swelling). The same thing happened to the original battery, although it lasted a little more than two years. I wonder if this is a batch of bad batteries, or may something that I am doing? I keep my SDS100 on house power all of the time and rarely unplug it to go mobile. I guess the way that I noticed this time that the battery was bad was that apparently there was a power outage long enough that required the scanner to switch to battery. But, since the battery was now bad, the scanner never restarted, even when the house power was restored.
Lithium ion batteries require the cells to be individually connected to the charger to be safely charged. This battery was designed so that all cells connect in parallel so there is no way to individually determine the state of charge or safely stop current flow. The charger can only see all the cells in parallel as one. This is a critical problem and in my opinion the battery should never have been sold to the public in this condition.
As long as all cells are perfectly balanced it's not a problem, and presumably the cells are balanced from the factory. But cells age, and they don't always age identically. This results in unbalanced packs over time, which is a very serious problem with the design of the battery since there is no way to see the individual cells.
I haven't had a problem with mine but I'm going to start using an external charger and stop using the internal charger in the scanner. That will not solve the actual problem with the battery but it will at least make it so the battery isn't inside the scanner if something happens.
I say this as a big Uniden fan myself, by the way. I really do like their products, and I used to have hope they'd do a recall and fix this. But I don't think they're going to. I still think the SDS100 is a terrific scanner, but I'd have just bought an SDS200 and a BCD436HP and left it at that had I understood all this before my purchase. As it is I'll keep the SDS100 but I'm going to stop charging inside the scanner. And if I still am concerned I may eventually just get rid of the batteries and power it with the USB cable only.
Akuriko
Member
I am going to Weigh in and say this is why I and my big brother had doubts about the SDS 100, I like my scanners that eat batteries like candy, the ws 1010,ws,1040, uniden at125, uniden 30c,325p2,436, I had doubts about the uniden battery problem on the SDS 100 and chose a different model and I'm happy with it myself. or should I say happy with my multiple purchases, however, i do think Uniden can do better in the customer service repair department, I had to get a 2nd 15x as the other one failed but oh well the dealer made a 2nd sale from me, lol let's hope my 2nd 15x doesn't die in 9 months, lol
and last i read all 7 pages while having my morning coffee
and last i read all 7 pages while having my morning coffee
I leave my battery in the radio all of the time because you need it in there for the record feature to operate. But I do not charge it internally. I have the charging function off on the scanner. I charge externally if needed. I never had a problem with either of my 2 batteries in 4 years. So I wonder if the trick is not to leave the battery charging inside the radio.
weyforthr
Member
Just removed the battery from my SDS100, then plugged in an external 5V USB power source, Never thought about doing that with this scanner. Thanks for the suggestion.
Mine is 2 years old. So far… 🤞
Interesting about the 5v usb idea? So I read through this and may have missed it. It raises a question in my mind.
What are the alternatives? Is there a better battery? Perhaps a secondary market? Just spitballing here!
Interesting about the 5v usb idea? So I read through this and may have missed it. It raises a question in my mind.
What are the alternatives? Is there a better battery? Perhaps a secondary market? Just spitballing here!
The only risk of doing that is the corruption of the SD card if you loose USB power...
I bought this little bugger a couple of weeks ago... So far it works great... I keep my SDS200 plugged into it...
I have never seen a third party battery pack for the SDS100...
Scanners are kind of a niche market... Might not be worth the effort for a third party to manufacture them...
Would be nice to have alternatives though...
paramedic228
Member
Where do you make that setting? I am looking in Sentinel now, but not sure if that is what the "battery save" feature is?
It's not in Sent. You have to go right on the radio's Menu button. Scroll down to settings, then Battery, then battery charge while on, then disable. Something to that effect. But if you shut the power to the radio off and leave it plugged in, it will charge the battery.
How many times have you heard “The Future of Radio is Software Defined Radio”?
I too like the scanner products Uniden has developed but I don’t think improving on the SDS100 will happen anytime soon. There are many identified improvements the scanner could use, mostly all made very obvious due to Uniden’s “rush to market” with the SDS100. If and when an improved version does appear, and it’s doubtful, it will probably have a new model number on it. They will simply make yet another tier of handheld scanner. And it’s a toss up as to if it will also be SDR.
But I wonder about the following scererio… It’s as if Uniden backed themselves into a corner with the SDS series when they touted the software defined radio (SDR) having software updates/upgrades abilities. Uniden was telling us, maybe not in so many words, but the implication was that the future of scanning would be SDR. Improved versions, new model numbers, would only apply to the lesser handhelds and tabletop/mobiles. The SDS series would remain the same with software (and firmware) upgrades. Soon, we wouldn’t need to be buying newer models. The SDS series would simply get a software/firmware upgrade instead. The only time the need to replace a scanner would be when it gets worn out, not because it became obsolete. Those “lesser” models I relate to would continued or discontinued, depending upon how much profit margin was to be gained. I know, it sounds counter-productive, making less product instead of more, but it seems that’s what we are being told by Uniden.
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