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Leaving portable in charger and on 24/7?

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Thunderknight

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Has anyone had any issues with having a Harris portable in the Harris desk charger turned on 24/7?
I recently started doing this (extra portable left at my desk) and wonder if there is any risk of overheat. I'm thinking being all Harris branded items, the QC and design of the items should be able to handle that use...I'm assuming lots of portables live on desks in chargers all the time.
Specifically an XG-75 with a Harris Lithium Ion battery. After a couple of days, I just checked and the battery isn't even warm. Most of the time, the charger is indicating top-off.

I worry about batteries overheating and melting, but hopefully that is lower quality stuff :)
 

Thunderknight

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Generically speaking, I typically unplug chargers and wall warts that aren't actively charging or powering devices.
I normally do (my chargers are on a switchable outlet strip), but in this case the radio is turned on 24/7, in the charger. So unless I want to cycle the charger power with a timer every 8-12 hours, I need to leave it plugged in.
 

K2NEC

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I normally do (my chargers are on a switchable outlet strip), but in this case the radio is turned on 24/7, in the charger. So unless I want to cycle the charger power with a timer every 8-12 hours, I need to leave it plugged in.
You are aware that this will kill your battery right? I have seen Harris batteries explode and catch fire because they were left in the charger under similar circumstances. PLEASE be careful doing this.
 

ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
No don't do it. I once got three LPE-200 radios that were all by their ID tags radios assigned to schools in my county. They were the emergency radios to be used to directly summon help from the sheriff's department. They were left turned on 24/7 and the batteries eventually failed, swelled up, and corroded to the point that the contact assemblies on the PC boards had to be replaced for the radios to be usable again.

Just do not do this. Charge the radio, take the radio out of the charger, use the radio. If you need continuous monitoring, get a suitable mobile radio and put it together with a base station kit. (Power supply, antenna, microphone if needed.)
 

pb_lonny

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Just do not do this. Charge the radio, take the radio out of the charger, use the radio. If you need continuous monitoring, get a suitable mobile radio and put it together with a base station kit. (Power supply, antenna, microphone if needed.)

Spot on, I saw some EDACS radios that died due to being run like this.
 

K2NEC

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Spot on, I saw some EDACS radios that died due to being run like this.
I saw a P7300 catch fire in the charger because the EMS guys decided to just throw it in the charger and never take it out.
 

GlobalNorth

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Even if your battery never explodes or bursts into flames, you will install a 'memory' into it and get only a few minutes out of it before it dies.
 

Thunderknight

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Yikes! I would have figured the Li-Ion batteries did not have the memory effect and Harris chargers wouldn't allow charging to the point of battery swelling/kaboom. Some of the radios described in posts above are/could be older models, so they might have been NiCd or NiMH, but I will avoid the chance anyway :)
I think I'll get a DC battery eliminator and put it on a power supply!
 

MTS2000des

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I'm surprised to hear of radio chargers exploding into flames because a user keeps a radio on while in the charger. Sure it's bad for the battery, but to explode into a combustion source? The way consumers are with things like cellular and cordless telephones, they are "taught" to keep the device on charge between uses.
It seems logical that a manufacturer would at least design their products to not explode whenever possible. For the record, out of the 6 THOUSAND or so XTS2500/5000, APX4000,6000,7000 and 8000 radios on my system, many of which are operated (against instructions and good advice of us at the radio support division at my agency) in the manner described, not ONE has incinerated anything, let out smoke, or failed catastrophically resulting in a fire.

Sounds like a poor charger/battery design. How did they get a "UL" mark if they are so easy to put into a hazardous condition just by leaving a radio powered on while charging?
 

mmckenna

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Yeah, I agree, had a crap-load of Motorolas and then replaced with a bunch of Kenwood's, and never saw any leakage, fire, explosions, etc.

What I've found is that some cheap trickle type chargers have enough current to charge the battery -or- run the radio in RX only, but not both. That usually resulted in the radio eventually shutting down and the user complaining. Had a few users that would leave the radio like that and in pure laziness, leave the radio in the charger, key it up and yell in the general direction of the radio. Same issues, battery wouldn't charge/radio would bonk, I'd get blamed for "cheap radios, cheap chargers, cheap batteries" and then usually followed up by "You always provided us with free replacement batteries!" - not.

I moved most of those users to a mobile radio with power supply and a base mic. In the long run it costs the same or a bit less than battery/charger replacements.

As for overheating...
Most modern battery/charger setups I've seen include a temperature sensor inside the battery that would feed back to the charger to control charging.
 

merlin

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Most chargers are the rapid charge type, made to bring near dead battery's up full in a few hours, then they revert to a trickle of about 200 Ma charge current. This is hard on the battery if left over 24 hours and will shorten the life.
Your battery will last longer just going to full charge then off charge. the radio on 24/7 just means a periodic recharge.
Get your hands on a battery test adapter for the radio, I made one of a defunct battery and run the radio from an 8.5 V 3 amp power source.
No more burned up battery's.
 

ka3aaa

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you would be better off finding a battery elimenater for that radio or get a spare battery and remove the batteries and wire in a cigerator lighter plug to replace the batteries allowing you to do what you want.
 

iMONITOR

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I thought all these problem went away a long time ago with the discontinued use of NiCad batteries. If all these claims are true it sounds like the radio manufactures are way behind in the design and safety factors in their chargers.
 

a417

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And we cannot ignore "stupid user tricks".
cutting the wallwart wire and attaching them to the radio-battery terminals, as a battery eliminator, would be an example of just that.
 
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