On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, Dennis H. Morales wrote:

Hi Folks ..

I have an FT-50RD that is about 4.5 years old and it came equipped with the FNB-41 battery and I purchased the FNB42 battery at that time. After light usage over those years both batteries now will not take a charge. I tried the desktop charger and the 12v car charger with the same results.

1. Is 4 to 5 years all I can expect from these batteries?

If they're nicads, that's doing well.

2. Is there a way to 'condition' them to extend their life a little

longer?

Maybe, depending on the failure mode, but not much longer. Hitting them with a high-current charge spike can remove "whiskers" that grow to short out cells. Not a long-term fix and if the pack is internally fused you run the risk of toasting it. On the other hand you don't have much to lose. I've used a fat computer-grade electrolytic charged to about triple the battery pack voltage for this. YMMV.

3. Has anyone tried a different brand of battery with a better life

span?

These guys are not cheap. 41 goes for $59 and the 42 sells for $63 at AES.

Best bet is to get a AA pack and load it with NiMH cells. You can also use it with alkalines in the event of a prolonged outage. The high cost of proprietary battery packs is both due to the molding cost of the case and because of lower sales volume compared to raw cells. Buy a reloadable AA-cell case once, and replace the readily available, often discounted cells as needed. You'll need to get a charger that will do the raw cells, of course. It looks like the FBA-15 is the AA pack for this rig, holds four cells.

Alternatively, if you're careful you might be able to pry open the old packs and replace the cells. Usually they're solvent-glued together and difficult to get open, and you might find that the cells are an oddball size.