pro 106 battery life

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kevin0608

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I just got a pro 106 scanner and am wondering if anyone can advise as to a good rechargable battery to use in it? The ones I have init now don't last but 2hours tops, they are a few years opld but worked just fine in my pro 96 lasted 24-36 hours easily. Was also wondering if I have a setting wrong in the scanner that is causeing the rapid battery drain?
 

W4EMS

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The Sanyo Eneloop is one of the best I have found for portable ops, both scanner and HT. You can get them on eBay too if that is your desire. A bit moe expensive but as th old adage goes you get what you pay for.

Are you running backlighting full time? If so that will more quickly drain batteries.
 

Twister_2

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I bought they cheapest pack of four at walmart and popped them in my yellow case. They last exponentially longer than the set of sony's that I had in before.
 

NS9710

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I have Duracell rechargable battery (well 8 of them), 4 at 2000mAh and then another four set at 2450mAh both available from radio shack, these batteries last me a good 8-10 hrs per charge.
 

ronhl

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PRO-106 Battery Life Time

I just got a pro 106 scanner and am wondering if anyone can advise as to a good rechargable battery to use in it? The ones I have init now don't last but 2hours tops, they are a few years opld but worked just fine in my pro 96 lasted 24-36 hours easily. Was also wondering if I have a setting wrong in the scanner that is causeing the rapid battery drain?

I've noticied the same issue on my pro-106, this scanner seems to consume more current than say the pro-96, specifically when the backlight is on full time.

So after some research I decided to purchased these: "Sanyo 2700mAh AA NiMH rechargeables" thru Amazon about $17 for a set of 4

Did the slow charge (ab 16hrs) in an external charger, NOT in the radio.
So far so good! Very happy with them, they made a big difference!
Anyway I thought Id pass this along,
 

BHinAZ

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Generally speaking, the high capacity NiMH batteries can have a very high self discharge rate.

I found this out last year after buying some Duracell 2650 mah NiMH batteries for the BCD396XT. I had them fully charged one day but did not use the scanner for about a week. To my surprise, the batteries were dead from self discharge. At first I thought the batteries were defective, but upon reseaching, this was their nature.

Check with the manufacturer web site first to find out if the battery self discharge rate is suitable for your application. The high capacity batteries are great if you charge a couple of times a week. The eneloop type batteries are great for the occaasional user who wants the to have functional batteries over a long period of time. They will still have a charge after 6 or more months.
 

JW2651

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I am using duracell 2300 mah ni-mh rechargables, I get about 8 - 10 hours use if i dont have the volume up to high, They also come in a combo pack with a 15 min charger for about 40 dollars, I have gotten about 50 - 50 charge cycles out of them so far with no noticeable loss of capacity. And they dont seem to self discharge a whole lot over a week of the scanner not being used.

I use the quick charger to charge them most times and get 8 - 9 hours using the scanners built in charger with the timer set to 24 hours i seem to get about 9 - 11 hours of use.

Ultimately it comes down to your usage of the scanner .. daily use on just batteries I would get a few 4 packs of batteries and the quick charger combo for about 70 - 80 dollars which is what i did

If your using your scanner alot on then power adapter and on batteries for a few hours or so and going back to the power cord just get 2 packs of batteries and alernate them once a week and you should always have a charged scanner thats ready to go. I have done this kind of use with my scanner as well for a month or two and seems to work well.

One thing i did notice is that using the backlight really drags the life down, even just the indicator led being on drained the batteries noticeably faster.

Again this is only my personal experience and both setups seem to work well for me.

I am trying some Energizer 2450mah batteries in my digital camera and they seem to last quite a while in it, I will try them in the scanner sometime soon and see if theres a noticeable difference between the two different brands.

One thing i will say is dont buy the rayovac rechanrgeables i only got about 3 - 4 hours most times out a chanrge with those. they are pretty cheap for NI-MH rechargeables for a reason.

Again this is all personal experience over the last year of having my pro 106 on a mostly the local motorola 800mhz trunked system, I dont know how the battery is on mostly conventional usage. But I hope you find this helpful. ... Of course if you find the solutions I suggest dont work well for you I think you can return the batteries to Walmart within 30 days.

Best of luck.
 

lazierfan

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I have been using the Eneloop battery set 2000 mAh since 2008. I have three sets- just like an Indycar team, I have one engine in the car, one in the engine builder's shop and one in transport. So I have one set in the radio, one in the battery holder ready to put in and one in the original Eneloop charger.

Take your Win500 file and program all the LED's out. Program all the backlighting out. I can go 8-9 hours at medium volume on my work shift, 12 hours using earbuds. Leave the fancy LED and backlighting to the base station radio.

Also, I have never plugged in a wall-wart charger to my pro-106. Too many meltdown stories and loose solder connections. IMHO it's the #1 failure point of scanners.
 

crwcrw

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MAHA Powerex 2000 mAh give me 8+ hours per charge in my PRO-106 with volume about 50%. But, they do self discharge, so I make sure I keep the spares topped off. It seems that I read "on shelf" they lose about 10% in first 24 hours after charge and about 1% every 24 hours after that.
 

JW2651

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Also, I have never plugged in a wall-wart charger to my pro-106. Too many meltdown stories and loose solder connections. IMHO it's the #1 failure point of scanners.

I dont a universal charger from walmart just the charger and battery combo was from there for a decent price, the charger is a universal one from the source (formerly radio shack) ... I have also texted those energizer rechanrgeables in my scanner they do last a little bit longer then the duracells but not a extreme difference (maybe a hour or two) .. however they do last alot longer in my camera then the duracells (go figure).

SO personally having several changes (4) of duracell 2300mah rechargeables and that 15 min. quick charger works absolutely perfect for me. As a security guard I often work on construction sites where access to power is often limited and after months of almost daily use these duracell batteries are holding up very well. They have my endorsement lol "Trusted Everywhere" seems to ring true in this case.
 
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