APX APX8000XE "Wrong battery" alert

[Pmgoldring]

Cover the center pin of the battery with electrical tape and you won't get the "wrong battery" alert.

Our fire district has some 8000 H and some HXE APX portables. We are having the ’wrong battery’ issue. When we cover the middle terminal, they work on the non-intrinsically safe radios but not on the intrinsically safe radios. This is a real problem since the batteries invariably get mixed up. Do you have any other advice here? Programming the radio to ignore the UL flag was MSI’s suggestion, but didn’t work.

 

[batt14firebuff]

Our fire district has some 8000 H and some HXE APX portables. We are having the ’wrong battery’ issue. When we cover the middle terminal, they work on the non-intrinsically safe radios but not on the intrinsically safe radios. This is a real problem since the batteries invariably get mixed up. Do you have any other advice here? Programming the radio to ignore the UL flag was MSI’s suggestion, but didn’t work.

Intrinsically safe radios (H or HXE series) require Motorola batteries that follow that same certification, identified by a white dot on the bottom.

H/HXE radios require this white dot battery. Using a non-white dot battery will not work. I believe that if you cover up the middle connector the radio will automatically assume the battery is a non-white dot and therefore give you a wrong battery warning.

Non H/HXE radios require a regular APX battery.

 

[Pmgoldring]

Got it. And there’s no way to suppress the wrong battery alert on an XE radio if using an intrinsically safe battery? A couple of sales people and techs claimed it could be done. Doesn’t appear to work

 

[batt14firebuff]

Got it. And there’s no way to suppress the wrong battery alert on an XE radio if using an intrinsically safe battery? A couple of sales people and techs claimed it could be done. Doesn’t appear to work

I would assume that covering the middle connector on a white dot battery for use on a XE radio would trick the radio into assuming it was a non-white dot battery, however I've only worked with HXE radios so not completely positive.

 

[Pmgoldring]

I think we’ll block the pin on the offending radios because the H radios complain when the terminal on the H battery is blocked. This was very helpful. I appreciate it. Is there any other implication of blocking off this terminal? Thanks.

 

[batt14firebuff]

I think we’ll block the pin on the offending radios because the H radios complain when the terminal on the H battery is blocked. This was very helpful. I appreciate it. Is there any other implication of blocking off this terminal? Thanks.

Blocking the terminal will not allow the user to see battery percentage or smart battery (impres) health info like charge hold amount.

 

[KevinC]

Is there any other implication of blocking off this terminal?

I've been told this is ridiculous, but I've been involved in a couple of these types lawsuits. If a firefighter is injured or killed and the family/lawyers find out you did this you're asking for trouble. It doesn't matter that it had no effect on anything, they go after whatever they can.

Get the right battery. You've been warned.

 

[batt14firebuff]

I've been told this is ridiculous, but I've been involved in a couple of these types lawsuits. If a firefighter is injured or killed and the family/lawyers find out you did this you're asking for trouble. It doesn't matter that it had no effect on anything, they go after whatever they can.

Get the right battery. You've been warned.

Completely agree with this here. Much less trouble and avoidance of anything going wrong by just getting the right battery. Sell the battery(s) that don't work.

 

[wa8pyr]

Completely agree with this here. Much less trouble and avoidance of anything going wrong by just getting the right battery. Sell the battery(s) that don't work.

Ditto. You don't want the incredible problems and heartache that could come with someone getting hurt using improper hardware.

 

[ResQguy]

I have one word for you if you go down this road: NIOSH. Well, technically an acronym but you don't want to be dragged over the coals because of laziness.

 

[otobmark]

I was looking over some new radios at our EOC 2 weeks ago: N 30’s, N 50’s, N 70’s, NEXT and of course our staple APX6000/8000. Guess what, they don’t all share battery types/mount system or even common antenna mounts, even among various N models. There are different side connectors. What the crap! That’s exactly what a major event like we had with Helene needs: lots of batteries and accessories to support while guessing how many of which kind. NOT Disaster friendly at all...

 

[chrismol1]

I was looking over some new radios at our EOC 2 weeks ago: N 30’s, N 50’s, N 70’s, NEXT and of course our staple APX6000/8000. Guess what, they don’t all share battery types/mount system or even common antenna mounts, even among various N models. There are different side connectors. What the crap! That’s exactly what a major event like we had with Helene needs: lots of batteries and accessories to support while guessing how many of which kind. NOT Disaster friendly at all...

I think motorola learned how detrimental this can be back when the HT1000/MTS2000/XTS3000 etc, shared some commonality with the new XTS series