Impress charger problem

[tcash158]

We have radios with impress batteries on them and impress chargers on all of our fire trucks hooked up to the shore line. Every now and them the chargers are flashing orange and it doesnt seem like the radios charge with the chargers are doing that becasue I took one out of the charger that was flashing orange the other day and the battery was only at half. I there anything we can do to fix this, Motorola said leaving the radios in the chargers for days if need be is what the impress chargers were made for.

[escomm]

Flashing orange means waiting to charge, the most common cause for this is high battery temperature but low battery voltage can also cause it. Do you know what gauge wiring is used on the circuit that is powering the rack chargers? The chargers have a very high current draw (so high that the mobile Impres chargers are not capable of reconditioning) and they may be trying to condition your batteries but finding there is not enough juice to do what they need to do. I suppose it's also possible that all 6 radios charging at the same time could ostensibly cause a jump in current (although I believe the rack only draws 6-7 amps max when all slots are charging only)

You might also try only placing 1 or 2 batteries in the rack charger for a period of time to see if that gets the batteries a'charging

[tvsjr]

Impres is extremely sensitive to temperature... I know batteries that have been outside in my black truck for awhile in the Texas sun will almost always result in a flashing orange if I don't lte them cool down first. I'd bet temp is your issue...

[tcash158]

I still have this problem but the chargers dont flash orange they are staying orange and sometimes if you take the radio out and put it back in they will charge, and this happens even if the radios are cool to the touch. Thanks for any help.

[Tom in D.C.]

You may find that you have an LED legend sticker on the bottom of your charger. If you do you'll see that steady orange is a normal status indicating that the battery is being reconditoned. The process involves discharging (steady orange) which will later change to charging (steady red). Flashing orange means that the battery can't be processed at this time, which I've always understood to mean that it's too hot or too cold.