The Top 10 Battery Care Tips For Your Motorola Radio
No one has time to deal with the headache of constantly swapping out or recharging batteries, especially when you have a job to do. Whether you’re a volunteer firefighter going on call in the middle of the night, or a hotel manager ensuring your team delivers a seamless guest experience, you need to trust that your two way radio battery will last longer than your shift does.
Follow these simple care tips to protect and enhance the performance of your rechargeable two way radio batteries:
- Charge your new battery overnight before using it. This is referred to as “initializing” and will enable your radio to reach maximum battery capacity.
- Nickel Cadmium or Nickle Metal Hydride: Charge 14-16 hours
- Lithium-ion/Polymer: Charge 1-2 more hours after the charge light turns green
- New Motorola IMPRESS batteries, when inserted into a Motorola IMPRES charger, will indicate a calibration cycle by displaying a steady yellow light on the charge status indicator. Allow this calibration process to complete by not removing the battery from the charger until it’s fully charged and displays a steady green light.
- In order to minimize capacity loss and a reduction in battery life cycle, new non-initialized batteries must be stored in a well-ventilated, cool, and dry location.
- Nickel Cadmium batteries can be stored up to 2 years
- Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium-ion/Polymer batteries can be stored up to 18 months
- If used batteries are removed from service for extended periods (greater than 30 days) they should be discharged to about 50% of their capacity before storing in a cool, dry location.
- Batteries that have been in storage for more than two months should be fully discharged and recharged.
- Nickel Cadmium and Nickel Metal Hydride: Charge 14-16 hours
- Lithium-ion/Polymer: Charge 1-2 more hours after the charger light turns green
- When using a Motorola rapid charger, leave the battery in the charger for an additional 1-2 hours after the steady green light appears (applies to non-IMPRES batteries only).
- Do not use your charger as a radio stand or leave a fully-charged battery in the charger. Continuous charging will shorten battery life.
- Only charge a battery when it needs it. If it is not fully discharged, do not recharge it. For users that require a longer operating time, we suggest carrying a spare battery.
- Do not return fully charged non-IMPRES batteries to the charger for an “extra boost”, this significantly reduces cycle life.
- Stabilize batteries to room temperature (22 °C) before charging. Charging below 4°C or above 40°C will decrease cycle life.
Your radio is only as reliable as the battery that powers it. Taking the necessary steps to not only extend the life of your batteries, but choosing the right batteries to begin with, will be the critical factor in how dependable your two way radios really are.
Curious about how tough your existing batteries are? Download our free whitepaper to compare the durability of the most popular battery brands.
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