Pro-106 Battery Explosion, well leak.

[Twister_2]

I used to love my pro-106. I made videos for it on youtube as soon as it came out and I have three or four of the most viewed youtube videos on it. If you saw a pro-106 video on youtube, chances are it was mine.

Well the years went by and I quickly realized how good of a scanner it is not. Buttons fell out, it became sensitive to the touch (if I set it down the wrong way it would scan but it wouldn't receive), the screen mirrors, the list goes on.

Today, however, something scary happened. As I was driving home and scanning Dauphin county's P-25 system (which the 106 does a terrible job at), I heard bubbles coming from inside the radio. I unplugged it immediately and checked it out. The back was HOT and the batteries were leaking acid all over the radio and Nissan Maxima! I've had it for about 5 years but this never happened.

I had regular alkaline batteries in the black battery case, just as it says in the manual. I use the correct type power supply, just as it says in the manual.

I am scared to turn the scanner back on. I tried to clean it up as best I can but I am beyond irritated with radioshack. It appears I did nothing wrong. I plan on contacting them first thing Monday morning.

Can somebody point me towards some help? Does it sound like I did something to kill the radio?

 

[Eng74]

Sounds like it was a battery problem and the 106 was the victim. How old were the batteries and how hot was it in the car, had you left the radio in the car?

 

[Twister_2]

The batteries weren't old at all and I had the air conditioning on in the car so it was a comfortable 73 degrees!

 

[SCPD]

If your 106 is wasted, let me know, I'm looking for a 106 for parts.

 

[n5ims]

There have been many posts on these forums on why it isn't a good idea to charge your batteries in your scanner, and many of them recommend that you don't even run your scanner using external power with the batteries in the radio. While this is especially true when using the yellow battery holder, warnings were given and pictures provided of damage doing this even when using the black battery holder (one example here --> http://forums.radioreference.com/ra...55-pro-106-batteries-charger.html#post1451270 <--). Sorry that Twister_2 had to be another user that had issues from failing to head this advice.

The simple answer remains, do not run your radio using external power with the batteries installed. The radio you save, may be your own. This advice stands despite the fact that the manual states differently.

 

[Eng74]

I have had all of the scanners that used the yellow and black battery holders that RS/GRE have put out. There is no way that power will get to the batteries with the black holder unless they made it with the third tab that the yellow holders have for charging.

 

[n5ims]

I have had all of the scanners that used the yellow and black battery holders that RS/GRE have put out. There is no way that power will get to the batteries with the black holder unless they made it with the third tab that the yellow holders have for charging.

Read the post I linked to. The relevant text is quoted below.

Now, in theory the black holder does not have the charge circuit connection and the batteries ARE disconnected from the radio when the AC adapter plug is plugged in. I verified that.

So-o-o, what happened? I'm in the process of verifiying how. I believe what happened is that I dropped the scanner. Not hard but probably hard enough to slightly distort the charge circuit spring metal contact in the battery compartment. Enough anyway so it made contact with the main battery contact on the holder. Now it had an unfettered charge going all the time. Not knowing about the out of position contact, I figured I was safe since I had the black holder in the radio. WRONG!

I have done some testing and confirmed that it is possible for the charging spring to be moved enough to contact the power tab on the black holder. This was done through some slightly rough handling of the battery pack while inserting it into the radio (basically being too quick when throwing it into the scanner, causing it to shift position when the battery cover was put onto the scanner). It doesn't happen often, but it doesn't take much to overcharge a fully charged battery pack.

 

[SCPD]

The yellow battery holder is made for use in the radio while being used with the DC, the DC is what keeps the rechargeable battery's ( yellow case ) charged up while in the radio. I do this all the time with no problem with my 106.

 

[Twister_2]

I never really looked closely at the mechanism of the black vs. yellow packs. I assumed that the black pack just doesn't come in contact with the charging contact of the radio like the yellow does. If the black pack can erroneously come in contact with the charger and cause substantial damage like I saw today, isn't that grounds for a recall?

 

[SCPD]

The yellow battery holder is the ONLY one that will charge the rechargeable battery's while using DC. The black battery holder is NOT a rechargeable holder. Did you by any chance put regular battery's in the yellow holder by mistake? You can put the black battery holder in the radio with battery's in it while using DC,
& it will not charge it, I have done that also, but it will use up the regular battery's faster. Hope this helps.

 

[Twister_2]

The yellow battery holder is the ONLY one that will charge the rechargeable battery's while using DC. The black battery holder is NOT a rechargeable holder. Did you by any chance put regular battery's in the yellow holder by mistake? You can put the black battery holder in the radio with battery's in it while using DC,
& it will not charge it, I have done that also, but it will use up the regular battery's faster. Hope this helps.

Check out some of the links posted above; you'll see it is a relatively widespread problem. Scary!

 

[ampulman]

I used the yellow holder as a spare (loaded with alkalines) in my 106 while fixed-mobile--allowed for a quick change so as to not miss any action.

Once, forgot to change back to the black holder and had a close call (no offense, Uniden) back home after plugging in (slight battery leakage).

Not wanting to chance this happening again, I removed the charging contact, since I don't use the radio to charge batteries. It's a simple matter; just grab the innermost contact with needle-nose pliers and pull outward, then bend in and out until it pops off. You need to use an object to bend it out enough to grab with pliers.

I just took a picture with my ipad. Is there a way to insert this into a post? Don't do photo sharing.

amp

 

[ampulman]

Post deleted: image appears on my computer, only.

 

[SCPD]

down load your picture to your photo folder on your computer, then go to your forum & go to
( go advanced ) & down load it to the post.

 

[ampulman]

down load your picture to your photo folder on your computer, then go to your forum & go to
( go advanced ) & down load it to the post.

Sorry. All attempts to upload picture (JPG) to my post resulted in loads of text.

Amp

 

[DickH]

Sorry. All attempts to upload picture (JPG) to my post resulted in loads of text.

Amp

 

[Twister_2]

After making/being transferred 8 phone calls this evening, I am finally going to be getting a call from the manager and engineer at radioshack HQ this week.

 

[SCPD]

RS Manager

Good luck with that !!

 

[ampulman]

There is no URL, as the file (JPG) exists on my computer only. When I preview the post, the picture appears, but when I try to post it, I get a message stating that I have exceeded the allowed number of characters (loads of text appears).

amp

 

[DickH]

There is no URL, as the file (JPG) exists on my computer only. When I preview the post, the picture appears, but when I try to post it, I get a message stating that I have exceeded the allowed number of characters (loads of text appears).

amp

So you will need to have the photo on a photo site and use that URL. The photo I posted was a screen shot that I put on my zenfolio site. It seems there is no easy way to do what you want to do.