SDS100 battery

[Phillipsc84]

Phillipsc84...
The large battery for the SDS100 is a Li-ion Polymer battery... Rated at 5400 mAh...

True, but it just seems like the runtime of 8 hours it s a lot less than some others in the same class. Maybe this has changed on the sds100 but I recall it being 8 hours at most. Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads. I love the idea of the SDS100 but so far all I read is that the battery life is a bit short with even the higher capacity one. If anyone has a better experience I'd love to hear it.

 

[n1chu]

While I agree with you, the scanner manufacturers, in an effort to keep costs down, have resorted to form factors already available, like the case the SDS100 is housed in. Further, the SDS100 is the first LI-Ion battery offering for a handheld scanner I am aware of and that was driven by the need for more power to run a software-defined radio (SDR). The amateur radio community has been using LI-Ion’s for years due to the power requirements when transmitting. I believe those amateur radio manufacturers followed the public safety/commercial market’s needs. Uniden could have built their SDS100 using the same form factor as the commercial gear but again, it would have raised the cost, and at the $700 approx list cost, the scanner market would have suffered, if you can believe the current marketing analysts. Uniden did make good on its intent to produce a portable that would give a reasonable amount of operating time with its upgraded larger battery for the SDS100 but they did it without increasing the size of the case, instead just the battery compartment.

 

[n1chu]

True, but it just seems like the runtime of 8 hours it s a lot less than some others in the same class. Maybe this has changed on the sds100 but I recall it being 8 hours at most. Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads. I love the idea of the SDS100 but so far all I read is that the battery life is a bit short with even the higher capacity one. If anyone has a better experience I'd love to hear it.

I don’t believe the SDS100 can be compared to other portatble scanners. Although generally accepted as being in the same class, the SDS100 is an SDR Radio. And that distinction puts it in a class by itself. The SDR radios use more power than other comparable battery powered scanners without SDR.

Its my belief Uniden rushed the SDS100 to market and in doing so missed a few important points. Originally, the radio was advertised by one of the retailers as a AA battery powered radio. And while that advertisement was not authorized by Uniden, and yanked, it gave an indication Uniden was trying to stick with what most of the scanner community supposedly wanted... a radio that could be powered by readily available AA batteries. (If you needed fresh batteries you could pop into any convenience store and buy some.) Uniden debunked that notion, came out with the original smaller LI-Ion battery and then offered a free upgrade to the larger one it presently ships with. (It’s been purported that this was merely a marketing ploy by Uniden to sell spare batteries along with an external charger... the larger batteries were not released until the charger became available. I don’t know if that was in fact the case but that’s another story for another time. Personally, I believe Uniden never intended to offer a radio with such short battery life so they came up with the free giveaway larger battery and cover which allowed for the continued use of the existing case instead of swapping out the back cover of the case, replacing it with a part that allowed for a battery that was the full height of the radio case such as we see with the commercial and amateur products. Who knows, maybe a full height battery would interfere with the radio’s ability to dissipate heat? One thing is for sure, the present case isn’t the optimum choice for an SDR radio. It looks very similar to one of Uniden’s marine transceivers, a water-tight unit designed for use around protecting against moisture. And since SDR radios get hot and need to breath, a water resistant case doesn’t provide the best heat dissipation opportunities.
But the SDS100 does what it’s advertised to do... almost, so I’m sticking with mine... still amazed at the ability to offer as much as it does in such a small package. And this is borne out by Whistler’s attempt to offer their own version of SDR, which fell flat on its face!