BC296D Heat Problem?

[sjlamb]

Anyone else have experience with excessive heat build up in the BC296D when running off of the wall charger? Initially, I thought that I might have a bad battery as the battery pack would get very hot over the course of a few hours with the unit turned on and with the charger plugged in.

I removed the OEM battery, allowed the radio to cool down and then ran the unit directly from the wall charger and it still seems to gradually heat up to the point that you can feel it thru the outer case. Otherwise, the unit is running fine and charges the battery normally. Running off the battery alone and with the wall charger unplugged runs fine and cool as one would expect.

The heat first becomes noticeable on the sides of the radio (beginning at the power input jack) and gradually extends to the back case. I've owned many handhelds over the years and have never experienced anything like it before and am well aware that excess heat is the bane of electronic devices.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same experience and can tell me how they resolved the problem or, can confirm that this is simply the nature of the beast with the BC296D.

 

[wt]

Heat in 296D

I had the same problem when running on the wall charger with the battery-pack in place. I do not find it to be as apparent with the battery removed...don't know if there's a fix besides removing the battery-pack? I also found it to be true with the scanner running off DC adapter in the car...same fix; no battery, no heat problem.

 

[davidmc36]

I had the same problem when running on the wall charger with the battery-pack in place. I do not find it to be as apparent with the battery removed...don't know if there's a fix besides removing the battery-pack? I also found it to be true with the scanner running off DC adapter in the car...same fix; no battery, no heat problem.

Yup, same hot scanner here. With battery in, light on and plugged in you could fry an egg on it. If I am going to run for a long time plugged in I take out the battery and keep the light off. I remember somebody in another thread/forum saying that apparently the charger in it is not very intelligent and just starts a timer every time you turn on the scanner. So if the battery is already charged and you turn on the scanner it starts the charge timer anyway. I don't have any real idea if this is right or not, but after reading that I tried with a dead battery and turned on the scanner. 24 hours later with the light on and everything it was cool as a cucumber. I did not turn it off and back on during that time, it just stayed on. So now I just take the battery out in case I want to turn it off when I leave for a while and turn it back on when I return. I am pretty much always leaving it home hooked up to the antenna and stereo now that I have the 996 permanent in the car. (Wanna buy a couple of battery packs:lol::lol

 

[sacscan]

I have the BC250D with digital card, which has the same heat problem. I run it as a base station so I removed the battery and the battery door and clipped the scanner to a metal bookend that is bent backwards a little to keep the scanner at an angle. The scanner runs perfectly 24/7 and never overheats.

Before I removed the battery door the scanner would get hot and analog audio would get choppy (didn't have any digital to monitor back then). Now I use it exclusively for monitoring digital, at least until rebanding hits .

 

[sjlamb]

Thanks for sharing your own experiences, guys. This confirms what I was afraid of regarding the BC296D heat issue. A frustarting and scary poor charging design. I'm surprised I haven't heard of someone suffering a house fire (or at least a melted radio housing) considering the tremendous temps that the battery pack reaches during what should be a normal way of using the scanner while conserving battery power.

I find it ridiculous that a previous "top of the line" Uniden handheld needs to have its' battery pack removed if the unit is being used and plugged into AC power for any length of time. A proper charging design would be that the battery only charges when the unit is switched to the "off" position and then stops charging when the battery reaches full charge.

When using the unit while connected to AC power, the battery should disconnect from the power input jack (switching transistor or switching diode comes to mind).

 

[bballjh]

With my experience most scanners I have used when plugged in and recharging batteries do tend to build up some heat. It has never been so much that it is hot to the touch though. As in burning hot

 

[W6KRU]

Yeah batteries get hot especially when quick charged but this sounds like a dumb charging circuit that is overcharging. This would greatly reduce the life of the cells as well.

 

[bballjh]

this sounds like a dumb charging circuit that is overcharging.

Sounds like his best bet

 

[scanlist]

With the wall wart/charger hooked up It heats up the digital card as well. Turning off the digital card drops the current load and the radio doesn't get as hot. If you are not monitoring P25 while running the radio and charging the battery pack turn the digital card off.

Actually turning off the digital card when you are scanning analog only cuts the battery discharge rate significantly.

The radio works very well for it's trunking abilities and sensitive RF. The underrated battery pack (having a battery pack period), poor charging circuitry design and heat issues overshadowed how well this radio performs.

 

[sjlamb]

The radio works very well for it's trunking abilities and sensitive RF. The underrated battery pack (having a battery pack period), poor charging circuitry design and heat issues overshadowed how well this radio performs.

You pretty much nailed it here. So many upsides to this unit overshadowed by a crap battery charging design. I'm going to go to 2600ma battery packs to see if that slows down the heat build-up issue. I suspect that the battery pack doesn't get smokin hot until it nears full charge (with the scanner on and plugged into the wall wart). I believe the OEM battery pack is only 800ma; presumably to shorten required charging time. By alternating between (2) 2600ma packs, down time between charges won't be much of an issue.