I found the following to work better with 1.2V/2300mAh NiMh:
14 bars - 4.8V
....
0 bars - 4.2V
I still think it's not entirely correct, but better than the defaults
Mine is possessed. (Darn, I just lost my entire original post.)
So mine showed a full charge for about 30 minutes last night. I had just charged the batteries fully an hour earlier.
Within 30 minutes, the battery gauge had dropped to zero or no bars last night. I let the radio run and it ran for several hours with no low batt alerts or anything. I fell asleep and it was still going but dead when I woke so no idea if it ever sounded a low batt alert.
When I noticed the batt gauge had dropped to no bars last night, I opened the hatch and the batteries still read about 4.95 volts so definitely not dead.
I charged them again today with plans on messing with the new batt settings tonight.
So I just tried just that. I figured mine showed dead even though they were full so I went in and set the higher settings (14 bars and below) to a level that was below the true battery voltage. I first tried what you did and used 4.80 volts. Perfect I figured as I was currently above 5.3 volts as shown on a Fluke meter tonight.
I fired the radio up and I'll be darned if the gauge was only showing 10 or 12 bars.
Scratched my head and went in and lowered the upper bar settings even lower to 4.60 volts. Of course I had to set the other steps lower as well so it would take the setting of 4.60.
That made things even worse! I now showed only 6 bars!
I then went in again and this time I set my higher bar settings well above the actual battery voltage as measured with the fluke. I set it to 5.40 volts as my batteries were now reading a true voltage of 5.20 volts on the fluke meter.
I fired up the radio and it now shows full (14) bars on the gauge.
I don't get it. I set the 14 bar setting well above the true battery voltage which should cause a low gauge reading as the battery voltage is well below my setting but it shows that I'm fully charged.
Something is backwards. Either the gauge icons in the radios display are reversed and a solid black battery icon is really indicating a dead battery or the settings that you can set in EZ-Scan are reversed somehow.
Am I looking at this backwards? A solid black battery icon should be full 14 bars correct?
Or is a full battery supposed to show a battery outline with no black in it?
I think I'm going to hook this thing up to a variable but regulated supply and adjust and watch the battery gauge.
Something is not right here. My cell phone shows all dark when the battery is full so I don't see why GRE would not follow the universal symbol for a full battery.
I saw another post where someone was saying something appeared to be reversed but I don't think it was regarding the battery gauge issue.
Or the voltage detection circuit is just messed up and does not work as it should. If I set my 14 bar threshold well below the actual battery voltage, the gauge in the display should remain fully black (14 bars) until the battery voltage really does drop below the 14 bar voltage I set.
So if I set the 14 bar setting to 4.6 volts and my batteries read 5.30 volts, the gauge should be solid black.
That is not the case. When I set it like my example, the gauge is down 2 to 4 bars from full.
I had to set the 14 bar setting well above the actual battery voltage in order to get a full gauge in the display. This setting should show a low gauge but it does not.
I'll try a variable regulated supply tomorrow and see if I can make any sense out of these settings as something is not proper!
My zip code used still results in 1 talkgroup missing.
I set my upper limit at 4.8 volts 1.2 volt rechargeable X 4 and the lower limit at 4.01 volts.
Not always.Rechargeable AA batteries are 1.2 volts charged.
have you set 4.01V = 0 bars, or alert? I have 4.2V = 0 bars and 4.1V as alert...may look at lowering the alert
I see on the GRE site they have a Set location firmware update as of this morning.
I have my PSR-800 set to the default voltages. The battery icon seems to be pretty faithful to actual "time left".
Going to type exactly what I do when I try the import using just the radio;
1 - From main menu, scroll to empty v-scanner folder (folder 3 for now)
2 - Scroll to set location
3 - Scroll to By ZIP Code
4 - Enter 02644 (my zip code)
5 - Next screen says the following;
Select
Service Types
Default Types
Custom types
I select default types. It then asks Really do import? I select yes. It then beging loading in all pertinent channels/systems. It imports 200 channels. I then press select. Now, if I'm understanding this, it SHOULD have just about everything within range ready to scan, including site/zone 4 of the Mass State Police Trunk System.
If after completing this I send the contents to the EZScan software to see what got imported, it does show Under Trunk Radio System as Motorola, but under trunk system site information it's showing as EDACS standard. My zip code used still results in 1 talkgroup missing. When I repeat the same procedure using another zip code within the same county the results vary as to which talkgroups are uploading.
Don, what radio settings are you using (light, alerts, recording)?
Not always.
I've run several tests with brand-new Powerex 2700 and Sanyo Eneloop 2000 cells, freshly-charged in my Maha C9000. I'm measuring voltage with a Fluke 289 meter attached to the scanner's battery terminals. While powering the scanner (PSR-800, scanning CO DTRS), the discharge curve consistently looks like the below plot. The green line is the real-time value measured by the meter. The red line is the lowest value yet measured by the meter. The Y axis is per-cell voltage (measured voltage divided by 4). The X axis is minutes.
The real-time, under load voltage didn't drop to 1.2V/cell until ~7.5 hours into the 10.5 hour run. The minimum measured voltage did drop to that level much earlier.
I have my PSR-800 set to the default voltages. The battery icon seems to be pretty faithful to actual "time left".
I set my upper limit at 4.8 volts 1.2 volt rechargeable X 4 and the lower limit at 4.01 volts. Seems to be pretty good so far but I haven't discharged them enough to turn off the radio yet.
Remember when you measure battery voltage at the battery terminal you are measuring the "Surface Charge". The actual voltage will drop once you place a load on the battery. So you'd be better off measuring the voltage with the radio on at the volume level you normally listen to.
Rechargeable AA batteries are 1.2 volts charged.
I shut off my low battery warning the first week I had the scanner since when the warning comes on I always had 30 to 60 minutes of battery left. I haven't corrupted an SD card this way yet. At least a San Disk that is.
Pretty hard to argue with data taken the right way with a load.
In the new firmware, there's a way to get a log of the scanner's internal battery measurements...
1. Delete the contents of the scanner's "Log" directory
2. In the "Settings" menu, check both "PC/IF CCDump" and "to file"
3. Put a fresh set of batteries in the scanner
4. Make sure the switch in the battery compartment is set correctly
5. Run the scanner until it does the low-battery auto shutdown. Do not power-cycle the scanner during this test.
6. Get the contents of the scanner's "Log" directory
7. In the retrieved log files, filter on the lines that contain "BattLevel" or "IconState"
You should be able to take the "BattLevel" lines and generate a plot of the batteries' discharge curve. The values in those lines, logged every 5 seconds, represent the lowest voltage yet seen by the scanner's CPU, x100 (e.g. 495 represents 4.95 volts).
As that minimum measured voltage crosses the thresholds (which you can set in the PC app), you should see "IconState" lines in the logs.
............................................................... Depending on the zip code used it missed a LOT of the talkgroups from this system. Is this a glitch? .............................?