One of my TK-380's suddenly won't charge. The charger immediately flashed red. Two battery replacements and both immediately start flashing red. It isn't the charger, as it charges all of my other 380's with no problems. How could this one radio be causing the problem?
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TK-380 Batteries Issue
- Thread starter PDMR25
- Start date
I have not, but I will right now. Thank you! No the radio was never on while charging.
Charging the battery alone did not work.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Have you put the battery on the charger and just left it for several hours? If it's drained down all the way, it may take some time to recover. I've seen this happen a few times.
Or...
Batteries may be just shot. If these are more than a few years old, it may be time to retired them.
Or...
Batteries may be just shot. If these are more than a few years old, it may be time to retired them.
Yes sir, I have left them on the charger all night. One of them was a used battery and the other was a brand new after market battery.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Got it.
See if you can warranty the new one. It's rare, but it happens.
As for the old one, well, they don't last forever.
The brand new may need to be formed. New batteries will do what you are experiencing if the battery has been sitting on the shelf for a long period of time and hasn't been used yet. It probably has discharged to an unhappy battery state of charge.
The battery needs to be formed with a Battery Maintenance System (BMS). It will require several cycles of an unique algorithms of a specific charge voltage/rate and discharge cycles for at least a half of a dozen times to about 10 cycles to wake up the battery.
I am not talking about exercising/conditioning the battery. The forming of a battery is a separate function/procedure of a quality BMS. However, it wouldn't hurt to try exercising/conditioning the battery to see if it can be woken up.
If the used battery is not beyond its useful life cycle it may need to be formed to wake it up.
This forming procedure can be done without a BMS, but I don't remember the specifics on how to do it manually.
The battery needs to be formed with a Battery Maintenance System (BMS). It will require several cycles of an unique algorithms of a specific charge voltage/rate and discharge cycles for at least a half of a dozen times to about 10 cycles to wake up the battery.
I am not talking about exercising/conditioning the battery. The forming of a battery is a separate function/procedure of a quality BMS. However, it wouldn't hurt to try exercising/conditioning the battery to see if it can be woken up.
If the used battery is not beyond its useful life cycle it may need to be formed to wake it up.
This forming procedure can be done without a BMS, but I don't remember the specifics on how to do it manually.
What are the batteries chemistry? What charger are you using? The OEM chargers will not charges Li-Ion batteries. The older KSC-16 (IIRC, it's been years) was only good for NiCd and the newer KCS-24 was good for NiCd and NiMH.
I agree with the new-old-stock likelihood. It's especially a problem with the older chemistries. "New" batteries for old radios being sold out there may have been sitting on the shelf after self-discharging for years and the seller makes no effort to periodically charge them. Sometimes, they don't even bother to charge them, let alone make sure they have anywhere near rated capacity, before selling.
