SDS100/SDS200: SDS100 Battery Cover doesn't mix with ICYHOT Cream!

[TeeJayZee]

I’d like to share an experience I recently had with my SDS100.

While rushing out of the gym one morning, I placed my SDS100 inside my gym bag, assuming it would be safe. However, I didn’t realize that something else in the bag would end up damaging it. Normally, I only carry towels and gym clothes in my bag, but a few days earlier, I had also thrown in a tube of ICYHOT cream. Somehow, the cream ended up smearing onto the back of my SDS100, particularly the battery cover -- the one that supports the larger battery size.

When I got home and reached for my scanner, I noticed the battery cover had bubbled up. At first, I feared the worst, thinking the battery might have swollen, as I’ve heard others report. I wiped the surface with a towel, only to find that the battery cover had melted. Panicked, I quickly removed the cover, expecting to find the battery damaged or leaking. To my relief, the battery itself was fine—there was no damage inside the battery cover. The melted plastic was confined to the outside surface of the battery cover.

Then I caught a whiff of the unmistakable ICYHOT smell and realized what had happened. The cream must have leaked inside my bag, and my scanner had been sitting on it. In hindsight, I now know that if I hadn’t panicked and wiped the plastic, the cream would have eventually dried, and the surface might not have ended up looking as scuffed as it does now. -- In the pictures below, you can see the area I didn’t wipe. It dried up and altered the surface slightly, but it wasn’t scratched.

Well, it’s time to get a replacement battery cover! Fortunately, the damage didn’t spread to the front or sides of the scanner—just the lower back where the battery is housed. I had no idea that ICYHOT cream could react with plastic like this. From now on, that cream is staying in a sealed zip-lock bag. Lesson learned!

Here are some pictures of the damaged plastic battery cover:

 

[trentbob]

Well that's certainly a first. I swim at the YMCA but have never used Icy Hot.

The battery wasn't damaged because the 100 has a degree of water resistance. You might consider purchasing a case for your radio.

I use a nylon case from Scanner Master. I leave the Belt clip disc on the radio for a better fit. I use an Ecto knife to cut the plastic window out as it makes it hard to read the display because of reflection and poor fit.

If you drop the radio on a hard surface or cement, has a very nice bounce to it.

 

[ande5]

Cheap material plastics!!!

 

[TeeJayZee]

Cheap material plastics!!!

I was thinking the same thing!

I tested the cream on some older plastics I have here to see how it would react, and none of them had the same effect. It seems like Uniden rushed to create a battery cover for the larger battery and didn’t fully check all the details.

At least it’s waterproof — I think? lol.

 

[trentbob]

I was thinking the same thing!

I tested the cream on some older plastics I have here to see how it would react, and none of them had the same effect. It seems like Uniden rushed to create a battery cover for the larger battery and didn’t fully check all the details.

At least it’s waterproof — I think? lol.

Could be something to that, Uniden realized very quickly that the smaller battery wasn't going to cut it and Paul Opitz the product manager at that time (RIP) had the famous nip it in the bud posting and did try as fast as they could to make the larger battery and the big butt cover available as fast as possible.. the 100 is water resistant actually.

If you were an owner of one of the first SDS 100s you registered on my Uniden website and it took a while but eventually you were sent the larger battery and big butt battery cover. You got to keep the smaller battery and flat cover.

Eventually every radio shipped out was the larger battery.