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Batteries, charger for Yaesu handheld - NiCad or NiMH?
Who knows about batteries here?
I have a Yaesu (now Vertex Standard) Aviator Pro II VX-120 handheld radio. It's a good, basic unit that has worked flawlessly, it'ss relatively cheap and is all the technology I need for this. My question is about batteries and chargers for it. When I bought the unit, it came with a rechargeable Nicad battery pack, and a desktop charger for same. After several years of faithful service, the battery pack no longer holds much of a charge, so it's time to replace the battery pack. NiMH seems to be a better technology for stuff like this (greater capacity, fewer issues with battery "memory", etc.), so my first inclination would be to buy a NiMH battery pack to replace the old Nicad. The manufacturer does not sell a NiMH battery pack (this is a relatively "old" unit - all of about 3 years old - so they don't provide much in the way of support for it). Chief Aircraft has an item in their catalog alledging to be a NiMH battery pack for this model (the bottom of page 4, if you want to follow along at home). Encouraged, I called Chief today to ask about this NiMH battery pack, wanting to double-check that it would indeed work with my radio and charger. The lady I spoke with at Chief didn't know anything about this battery pack, and she suggested I call Yaesu, since she said it was from them, and she would make no promises about the battery pack working or not damaging anything. So I called Yaesu "Tech Support" and the guy I spoke with (not in India, to my surprise) didn't know anything about any NiMH bateries for that model, and said they never manufactured any such thing. He said it was probably some third-party battery pack. So I googled "Yaesu Aviator Pro II VX-120 NiMH battery" and found a place on the web selling a battery pack for this model radio (http://www.batteriesamerica.com/newpage71.htm). They claim it's a NiMH battery that should work in an NC-76B charger, which is the original Yaesu charger I've been using with my Nicad battery pack. My concerns are mostly about the charger (I assume the radio doesn't care what kind of batteries I feed it). I have a few battery chargers laying around my house (for AA and AAA batteries), and while some of them say they can be used with either Nicad or NiMH, they all have some sort of switch that they warn you must be properly set to the battery type - there are dire warnings about attempting to charge NiMH batteries with the switch in the Nicad position (and vice versa). The original Yaesu charger was designed for Nicads. I wouldn't expect that it would work correctly for NiMH batteries, but the online battery vendor says it will. Are they telling the truth, or will it fry things? Am I being overly concerned? Thanks for any battery/charger expertise you can share on this. -- David Herman N6170T 1965 Cessna 150E Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Visit the Pacific Northwest Flying Forum: http://www.pacificnorthwestflying.com/ |
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