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Anyone have any luck with Motorola NOS batteries ?

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mbnv992

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Just bought two genuine M batteries for my Jedi radios for a really good price on “ that auction site “.

I attached them to some radios and dead. Zero charge left ( which I figured but just wanted to check if they still had any juice in them ). I threw them on my impress charger and withen not even 10 minutes the light goes from red to green. So - took it off the charger tried it again and same thing. Red to green in 10 minutes.

Tried them on the radio after I stuck them in the charger. Lasted 2 hours both TX and RX. Then died.

Fastforward to today - take the same two new Batteries and stuck them in the charger again. This time they take a charge for 45 minutes until the light went green.

Any chance of reviving these or should I just give up and toss them in the bin ? They were brand new never taken out of the original sleeve when I got them.
 

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prcguy

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Batteries have a life span even if they have never been used or charged, especially nickel metal types. Some high quality Lithium can still be useful well after 10yrs but most are not after about 5yrs.

Just bought two genuine M batteries for my Jedi radios for a really good price on “ that auction site “.

I attached them to some radios and dead. Zero charge left ( which I figured but just wanted to check if they still had any juice in them ). I threw them on my impress charger and withen not even 10 minutes the light goes from red to green. So - took it off the charger tried it again and same thing. Red to green in 10 minutes.

Tried them on the radio after I stuck them in the charger. Lasted 2 hours both TX and RX. Then died.

Fastforward to today - take the same two new Batteries and stuck them in the charger again. This time they take a charge for 45 minutes until the light went green.

Any chance of reviving these or should I just give up and toss them in the bin ? They were brand new never taken out of the original sleeve when I got them.
 

mbnv992

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Yeah I figured that. These ( used to be at least ) the 2000MAH NI-MH batteries. I’m testing out the one I took off the charger that lasted 45 minutes to see how long the battery will last now. If I can get 8 hours out of it with 80-90% RX rate - I’d be a happy camper.
 

wgbecks

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Well it certainly isn't going to cost you anything but a little bit of your time to cycle them a half dozen times to see if you can get any additional discharge cycle time from them before discarding them to the battery grave yard.
 

mbnv992

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Well it certainly isn't going to cost you anything but a little bit of your time to cycle them a half dozen times to see if you can get any additional discharge cycle time from them before discarding them to the battery grave yard.

Exactly. It’s worth a shot anyway. One of the battery’s going on over 2 hours and counting with about 15 seconds of TX mixed in every hour.
I’m wondering if the more I charge and discharge these, the more I will “bring them back to life” and get at least close to original spec out of them.
 

wgbecks

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I have had some good luck in the past with NI-CAD batteries by repeating several cycles of charge and discharge using Incandescent lamps as a load connected across the cells for the discharge cycle. I can't say if this same technique will is valid for Ni-MH cells, but it won't hurt to give it a try.

BTW, this principle is basically how expensive electronic battery exercisers work that employ a micro processor to control the charge and discharge cycles while measuring voltage and current.

Good Luck!
 

mbnv992

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Another update - this time the battery lasted 7.5 hours with about 10-15 second TXing every hour. So - looks like it’s getting it’s mojo back. Just thew it on the charger again. If it charges for more than the 45 minutes it took it to go green last time - we are indeed making progress.

My second battery like this one is at home. I’ll run the same tests as I did with this one and hopefully it takes a charge like this one did as well.

My only concern now is even if they are charged and last say 10-12 hours, how long will they last off/not in use before it gets drained ? That I’ll have to figure out as time goes on. Either way - this is all experimental only and definitely not duty radios. Just a spare project I picked up with my to try and dust off my old Jedi radios.
 

chrismol1

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If I have it right, a jedi battery with the date code 904 on it would either be 2009 or 1999. yikes. I've had great luck with EBL aftermarket batts for 15-20 bucks and they are 2500mah for my jedis
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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I have had some good luck in the past with NI-CAD batteries by repeating several cycles of charge and discharge using Incandescent lamps as a load connected across the cells for the discharge cycle. I can't say if this same technique will is valid for Ni-MH cells, but it won't hurt to give it a try.

BTW, this principle is basically how expensive electronic battery exercisers work that employ a micro processor to control the charge and discharge cycles while measuring voltage and current.

Good Luck!

I have done that light bulb trick with really old NOS NICAD batteries for MX-300 and HT200. The old formulation seems to be more stable.

The newer flavor NICAD and NIMH don't respond well.

Lithium ion NOS batteries can be brought from 0 volts (protection circuit tripped) to full charge in a couple cycles if you can coax the protection circuit to reset with external 3.6V/cell voltage.

Whatever you do, don't throw out those old NOS batteries because you can cut them open and rebuild with Lithium Ion cells and get years of service from them. You will need an appropriate charger.
 

mbnv992

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If I have it right, a jedi battery with the date code 904 on it would either be 2009 or 1999. yikes. I've had great luck with EBL aftermarket batts for 15-20 bucks and they are 2500mah for my jedis

I actually have bought an EBL aftermarket battery and agree - they hold a very long charge and are less than $20. Can’t go wrong there. I just saw these genuine M batteries come up for also less than $20 so I figure I’d pick them up. Totally forgetting to look at the date code and realizing they are already at least 10+ years old and probably won’t hold a charge anyway.

For what it’s worth - the second battery (with the same 904 date code ) - won’t hold a charge for longer than 2 hours before the crickets start chirping, and the Impress charger light goes green after 10 minutes. So that battery is probably toast.
 

MTS2000des

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Those were made in 2009 per the revision, which means they actually might have been produced from cells in 2008. That's 12 years ago. Depending on how they were stored, you'll be doing good to get 60-75 percent of rated capacity after several charge/discharge cycles. The one thing that will be an issue is self-discharge. The older the cells are, especially with "legacy" NiMH/NiCD cells, the higher the self discharge rate is.
 

mbnv992

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Those were made in 2009 per the revision, which means they actually might have been produced from cells in 2008. That's 12 years ago. Depending on how they were stored, you'll be doing good to get 60-75 percent of rated capacity after several charge/discharge cycles. The one thing that will be an issue is self-discharge. The older the cells are, especially with "legacy" NiMH/NiCD cells, the higher the self discharge rate is.

Good point. So even if I were to charge up the “good one” that lasts for almost 8 hours and use it as a backup / spare battery, it would probably be dead anyway if it’s off the charger more than a week anyway.

Yep - it probably wasn’t such a bright idea buying these in the first place now that I think about it haha 🤷‍♂️
 

mbnv992

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Yet another update -

Managed to squeeze 14 hours out of both of these 904 date coded batteries - each taking about 45 minutes now on the charger for the green light to come on. So - looks like there’s positive progress with both batteries.
 
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