Baofeng UV5R Charger Fix
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| May 26th 2021, 14:52 | |
WD8QCNTotal Topics: 0 Total Posts: 0 |
I recently obtained a Baofeng UV5R from a friend who bought it as his first radio. He gave it to me because he became frustrated with battery charging issues, the latest being that the battery would not take a charge for more than a few minutes at a time. I was able to "shock" the battery back to life by applying a slightly higher than normal charging voltage (12V at the load-side contacts) while monitoring the battery voltage. Once above 7.1V, the regular charger was able to do the job, and I quickly noticed that one spot on the bottom of the charger case got extremely hot within 10 minutes. I was able to pop open the case, and saw that the source of the heat was a tiny, surface-mounted charge-control IC chip. Excessive heat kills electronics, so I decided to fix the problem. I put Kapton tape over all of the exposed leads and connections on the circuit board, leaving only the top of the IC case exposed. I then placed a 1.5 x 3 inch piece of foil tape over the chip to act as a heat sink - making sure that it was firmly in contact with the IC case. This has done a great job of spreading out the heat, and I no longer worry about the case melting or the charge controller burning out. I hope this helps some others who have this radio! 73, WD8QCN |
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