396XT short Battery life?

[kirk23]

I have had my 396XT for about a year and a half..i have just started to notice that my battery life has decreased substantiously. I have tried using the original NIMH batteries charged in the scanner AND also charged in an external charger..i am getting about 90-120,mins before i get the low battery beeps and warning. I put other NIMH batteries in too and get similar results and charging them too both internally & externally.. even worse battery life with Alkalines..
Has anyone having similar problems?

I have been programming and loading by FREESCAN..have i messed up any power settings or do you think my scanner is drawing too much power for some reason?

Thanks in advance for any ideas......

 

[GTR8000]

Rechargeable batteries have a limit on their service life. After a certain amount of discharge/charge cycles, or over a period of time, they will eventually lose capacity. If you're not using fresh batteries to compare to the runtime you got when everything was brand new, it's not going to be a fair comparison.

Charging in the scanner is a big no-no if you want to get the most out of your batteries, and protect your $500 investment. The in-scanner charging circuit is dumb, it has no idea what the charge status of the individual batteries are, it just pumps voltage into them all at once for as long as the charge time is set in the scanner's menu. If you have that set too high, and the batteries are already fully charged, you're going to fry them. You could also damage the scanner if the batteries overheat or worse. Do yourself a big favor and never charge them inside the scanner, unless it's an emergency. Set the charge time to 1 hour (the lowest it can be set to) and move the switch over to Alkaline so it won't charge them at all.

Now, all of that being said, there are a few things that affect runtime. In a somewhat particular order:

- How busy the systems you are listening to are. More activity = less runtime

- How long you keep the backlight on for, and how bright you have it set. On + bright = less runtime

- How many digital frequencies/trunked systems you listen to. Digital decoding = less runtime

- Whether you have the Battery Save setting on or off in certain modes. When it's on, after 1 minute of no activity, it turns off the RF power for 1 second, turns it on for 300ms, off for 1 second, and so on. Note that this feature is generally pretty useless and misleading, as it only works when the scanner is holding on a single frequency, it does not work in scan mode.

- The type and condition of the batteries. This is the most obvious and I already touched on it. The higher the capacity = longer runtime. Newer batteries = longer runtime. Charging the batteries in a smart charger which charges each cell separately and evenly = longer runtime.

 

[kirk23]

Yup. The other NIMH i tried are fairly new .. but as i said even with brand new Alkalines i dont get much time..
But YEs..my primary system is a P25 digital system that is fairly busy. The other systems are mostly analog Trunked..with a few conventionals ..
Problem is up till a,few weeks ago i was getting decent battery life while still monitoring the same systems...

I am getting frustrated....

 

[GTR8000]

Has anything changed in the past few weeks? Has your reception of that P25 system decreased, causing the scanner to have to work harder to decode it?

And as much as I hate to open this can of worms...have you updated to the latest firmware for the 396XT 1.11.01, and if so, is that when you started noticing markedly decreased battery life? It stands to reason that the latest firmware, which improves decoding of LSM P25 systems, also requires more processing power. In fact, I'm almost certain it would.

 

[kirk23]

Nope....nothing has changed..and i have NOT updated to 1.11.01..read too many bad comments about it..and my system is/was working so i didn't bother to.. whats got me freeked is the fact that even new Alks don't last...

Thanks for your advice Chauffeur6....

 

[doctordialtone]

.

I am getting frustrated....

Hi kirk,

C6 said it best.

I have to say, if you want to start a lively, yet redundant debate here on RR, there are a few recurring topics.

I wish I had a dime for every debate I've read about 1) Batteries 2) Antenna's 3) Firmware Wish Lists and Updates 4) Uniden vs GRE 5) Comm port problems/Driver Issues 6) External Speakers and 7) Programming this thing HAS to be easier / Is there an easier, step-by-step guide?

Search "batteries" on RR is your friend.

I'll add one thing;

If you use colors on your display, different colors use more battery power. White uses the most, because it is ALL colors. Red Only, Green Only or Blue Only use the least, beyond no back light, and Magenta, Yellow and Cyan are a mix of colors, so they use a moderate amont of power. (2 colors)

Enter the Eneloop/Charger Debate Crowd: Energizer or Eneloop? - YouTube

 

[kirk23]

Hey Doc...

That IS the 1 thing i HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY...I added more color combinations to my displays... You you have me thinking......
Thank you buddy... Will reset those and advise.....

 

[GTR8000]

Nope....nothing has changed..and i have NOT updated to 1.11.01..read too many bad comments about it..and my system is/was working so i didn't bother to.. whats got me freeked is the fact that even new Alks don't last...

Thanks for your advice Chauffeur6....

Interesting. As I was typing my last post, I convinced myself that 1.11.01 has almost certainly put a strain on battery life what with the way it now deals with LSM systems.

Here's an idea...why not try updating the firmware to 1.11.01 and see if it has any affect on battery usage, negative or positive? It's easy to flash back to 1.10.00 if you notice it has an adverse affect. I wouldn't be too quick to rely on the reports of others, especially since I've seen a lot more positive response from 1.11.01 than I have negative. I also think a lot of guys who are reporting negative results with 1.11.01 tweaked the P25 decode settings when 1.10.00 was released, and never properly reset them to their defaults. Just a hunch.

Oh and Doc is right, multi-color LED uses more power. I forgot to mention that, glad he picked up on my omission.

 

[kirk23]

Thanks guys. Will try a few things and report back.

 

[SCPD]

Rechargeable batteries have a limit on their service life. After a certain amount of discharge/charge cycles, or over a period of time, they will eventually lose capacity. If you're not using fresh batteries to compare to the runtime you got when everything was brand new, it's not going to be a fair comparison.

Charging in the scanner is a big no-no if you want to get the most out of your batteries, and protect your $500 investment. The in-scanner charging circuit is dumb, it has no idea what the charge status of the individual batteries are, it just pumps voltage into them all at once for as long as the charge time is set in the scanner's menu. If you have that set too high, and the batteries are already fully charged, you're going to fry them. You could also damage the scanner if the batteries overheat or worse. Do yourself a big favor and never charge them inside the scanner, unless it's an emergency. Set the charge time to 1 hour (the lowest it can be set to) and move the switch over to Alkaline so it won't charge them at all.

Now, all of that being said, there are a few things that affect runtime. In a somewhat particular order:

- How busy the systems you are listening to are. More activity = less runtime

- How long you keep the backlight on for, and how bright you have it set. On + bright = less runtime

- How many digital frequencies/trunked systems you listen to. Digital decoding = less runtime

- Whether you have the Battery Save setting on or off in certain modes. When it's on, after 1 minute of no activity, it turns off the RF power for 1 second, turns it on for 300ms, off for 1 second, and so on. Note that this feature is generally pretty useless and misleading, as it only works when the scanner is holding on a single frequency, it does not work in scan mode.

- The type and condition of the batteries. This is the most obvious and I already touched on it. The higher the capacity = longer runtime. Newer batteries = longer runtime. Charging the batteries in a smart charger which charges each cell separately and evenly = longer runtime.

Chauffeur6-Great point your bringing up. I am very impressed!
Have a nice Sunday.

Bob

 

[nanZor]

Any chance of a high-resistance / oxidized contact inside the battery compartment's ALK-NIMH switch?

Even though I never use alkalines, about once a year or so I'll move the switch back and forth once or twice just to make sure the contacts are clean.

Longshot perhaps...

 

[wtp]

and/or

after i got a maha charger and checked how much life was left in each cell it was amazing to see some that showed half life lasted longer if grouped together like 1200/1200/1200 then if they were 1200/1200/1600

so it could also be that one cell is weak in your case 1200/1200/600

these were 2500 energizer but were years old

 

[kirk23]

Thanks Guys (especially CHAUFFEUR6) for all your comments & help..

I have found that the Batteries were getting old so i replaced them...
and the fact that i had many color combinations for the displays they WERE eating up alot of power, losing roughly 20-25% of the battery life of the NEW batteries.. so everything was reset to 1 simple color.. all is back to normal..

 

[wtp]

new life

ok now is the time to get an external charger.
reuse the old batteries to maybe put life into solar lights in the yard (its what i did)
the idea of the charger is to test the batteries and not just throwing out usable power

 

[reitan_family]

I've owned my 396xt for maybe 4 years. I learned from this forum not to us the "onboard" charger. I purchase only Sony 2500mah batteries and one external charge will last me 7-10 of use. Good luck...