PSR500 Lowest battery settings possible?

[tampatracker]

I am tired of having the low battery power icon coming on when I've got a hour and a half of battery time left. I have searched the forums and haven't found an answer to this question; what are the lowest settings I can plug into PSREdit (or Win500) to have the warnings, icon and alert beep, so that they don't kick in too early and not too late? I am using 2650 mAh NIMH Duracell's. Thanks in Advance, TT. P.S. The baseline settings I've been using are the scanners default.

 

[W6KRU]

Have you seen this?

Easier to Read Pro-106/197/PSR500/600 Digital Scanner Manual

 

[tampatracker]

Hi DDan, yes I have seen that, and have tried those settings, but for me at least, they leave something to be desired. Perhaps I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I'd like to nail them down a bit more. Back to the software for some more trial and error I guess, unless someone's got some better numbers. What settings do you use yourself?

 

[hiegtx]

Hi DDan, yes I have seen that, and have tried those settings, but for me at least, they leave something to be desired. Perhaps I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I'd like to nail them down a bit more. Back to the software for some more trial and error I guess, unless someone's got some better numbers. What settings do you use yourself?

'Tracker,
I'm using the following (w/Win500, & NiMH batteries):
Icon off- 4.20
Icon on- 4.12
Blink off- 3.96
Blink on- 3.83

The battery icon will come on, but not blinking & beeping, maybe 45 minutes before the blinking/beeping starts. Then I have maybe 10-15 minutes before it shuts down.

Of course, that's going to vary somewhat, depending on what volume I'm using, led alerts, etc, & how much activity it's picking up. I'm in the Dallas metro area, so lots of radio traffic. When I'm out of the city, and it's quieter, of course I get longer run times.

 

[tampatracker]

Thanks hiegtx, those look like good numbers, I will put them in right now and see what happens. I too have a lot of very active systems with almost constant traffic 24/7 here and run a medium amount of LED's/Alerts, so I'll give it a try. Thanks to you both, TT.

 

[W6KRU]

'Tracker,
I'm using the following (w/Win500, & NiMH batteries):
Icon off- 4.20
Icon on- 4.12
Blink off- 3.96
Blink on- 3.83
.

So the default settings for alkaline work well for NiMH? I'm using the settings from the Easier to read manual but my 500 stays on the desk running on AC most of the time and I use one of the 396s for portable use.

 

[hiegtx]

So the default settings for alkaline work well for NiMH? I'm using the settings from the Easier to read manual but my 500 stays on the desk running on AC most of the time and I use one of the 396s for portable use.

Dan,
I've been using those settings for almost two years, and it's worked out fine for me. No problems. You do get a shorter "beep" warning period, compared to the default, but I can deal with that. Much better than a premature, prolonged, beep session, well before the batteries are really down. I charge externally, multiple sets of low-discharge batteries (Eneloops or similar), in fact I have multiple chargers, so having a fresh set handy is not an issue. I have multiple systems programmed in the 500, so it's pretty active (so's the 396XT and the rest of them).

Like you, my 500 stays on ac a lot of the time, except it gets carried around the house when I'm in my back room, which has a couple of pc's and all my digital photo stuff. The 396XT is my grab & go scanner when I leave for work or around town. When I go out cruising, or on short out of town trips, I usually take both.

 

[tampatracker]

Gentlemen, here is a sidebar question for you ; is the reception / sensitivity of the unit increased at all when on full power, such as being run on A/C ?

 

[W6KRU]

Gentlemen, here is a sidebar question for you ; is the reception / sensitivity of the unit increased at all when on full power, such as being run on A/C ?

IMHO, no. Not enough that I can tell.

 

[tampatracker]

Thanks, I wasn't sure.

 

[RickS31]

Gentlemen, here is a sidebar question for you ; is the reception / sensitivity of the unit increased at all when on full power, such as being run on A/C ?

The radio has a couple of built-in voltage regulators that hold the circuit voltages at a constant value whether high, as on AC or low when on nearly discharged batteries. The circuits will always run at pretty much spec'ed values.

 

[DonS]

The radio has a couple of built-in voltage regulators that hold the circuit voltages at a constant value whether high, as on AC or low when on nearly discharged batteries. The circuits will always run at pretty much spec'ed values.

The 3.3V regulator that supplies power to most of the scanner requires, at an absolute minimum, 3.9V to maintain regulation. This is during "low current" operation. When higher current is required (e.g. loud audio, LEDs, etc.), the regulator can require up to 4.3V to maintain its 3.3V output.

This is why the scanner's default "blink on" value for NiMH cells is 4.31V. If you decrease that value too much, the 3.3V regulator might stop delivering 3.3V under low-battery, high-load conditions. The result could be corrupted programming.

 

[RickS31]

Great answer Don at filling in the blanks. One question. I've assumed since these radios use Flash EEPROM memory that the programming was written in stone no matter what the voltage level until a chunk is specifically overwritten. Let me know if I'm mistaken.

I seem to also remember from my travels through the battery charging specs from most of the manufacturers that they prefer to not see the batteries go below 1 volt per cell (4 volts in the 500/106). Hence, why you may be shortening their life by setting the cutoffs and such too low (below 4 volts).

Thanks,

 

[DonS]

Yes... but the scanner also writes to that memory when you power-down (e.g. state info). If you let the battery voltage get extremely low (because you either ignore the low battery warnings or don't hear them because you've changed the thresholds), that 'write to memory' could fail.

 

[RickS31]

Thanks, Makes sense.